Parable of the sun

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The parable of the sun is a well-known parable of ancient philosophy . It comes from the Greek philosopher Plato (428 / 427-348 / 347 BC), who has it told in the sixth book of his dialogue Politeia by his teacher Socrates . Socrates then recites the allegory of lines with which the sixth book ends. At the beginning of the seventh book there is the allegory of the cave , the last of the three famous parables in the Politeia . All three parables illustrate statements from Plato's ontology and epistemology .

Specifically, Platonic ideas are presented in the three parables. The “platonic” Socrates, who appears here as a speaker and tells the parables, is a literary figure. His position cannot therefore be equated with that of the historical Socrates.

In the allegory of the sun, the Platonic Socrates tries to illustrate the good instead of directly defining it. He compares it with the sun: just as in the realm of the visible the sun as the source of light is the all-ruling power, so in the spiritual world there is good as the source of truth and knowledge.

Prehistory in dialogue

In the sixth book of the Politeia , the Platonic Socrates explains to his interlocutors Glaucon and Adeimantos , the two brothers of Plato, the ethical and intellectual requirements that one has to meet in order to be qualified for political leadership tasks in an ideal state ruled by philosophers. A philosopher who is involved in governing the state needs an ethical framework for his decisions. It is not enough that his character disposition includes the basic virtues of justice , prudence , bravery and wisdom . These virtues are only helpful when you have fully grasped their essence philosophically. However, this can only be achieved by those who can derive the virtues from a principle overriding them, which is their common source and basis, and who has achieved clarity about this principle.

In the following statements by Socrates, knowledge of the Platonic doctrine of ideas is assumed. Plato assumes that the sensually perceptible world is subordinate to the ( intelligible ) realm of ideas that can only be reached in thought . The ideas are real, independently existing, unchangeable archetypes, the sense objects their images. The existence and quality of the images can be traced back to the archetypes. For Plato, the timeless being of ideas is being in the real sense. The changeable and ephemeral sense objects, on the other hand, only have a conditional and therefore imperfect being, which they owe to the ideas. Their properties reflect the essence of ideas; for example, something material is beautiful if and as long as the idea of ​​the beautiful is represented in it.

The origin of all virtues is simply “the good”, that is, in the expression of the doctrine of ideas, the idea of ​​the good. Everything that is good owes to her the quality of being good. It is the highest principle. It is only when you know about them that all other knowledge becomes useful and beneficial. You can only uphold a virtue if you know how good it is. For the Platonic Socrates, insight into the essence of the idea of ​​the good is the real goal of the philosophical striving for knowledge. However, he also stresses that such insight is difficult to come by; the way to her is long and arduous. It is about the “greatest lesson”, the “most to be learned ” ( mégiston máthēma ).

Every soul strives for the good, but what it is, people only suspect, whereby they are accustomed to be subject to errors. The widespread opinion that good is to be equated with pleasure is absurd, because nobody denies that there is also bad pleasure. The good cannot be defined as insight either, because this can only mean an insight related to itself, which makes the definition circular.

After these statements by Socrates, he is asked about his own opinion. He professes not to know what is good. He did have an opinion on it, but it was better to leave this question aside "for now". Since he does not consider an attempt to determine the good in a direct way to be sensible under the given circumstances, he chooses the detour via a parable. The unknown good should be brought closer to the interlocutors on the basis of his known and very similar “offspring”. By this Socrates means the sun.

Initially, Socrates points out that the starting point for the following statements is the theory of ideas. According to her, the visible good things are related in several ways to the idea of ​​the good, “the good itself”. In the parable, Socrates represents the connection as an analogy relationship; Good in the area of ​​the visible should illustrate the idea of ​​good and how it works.

The parable

Socrates explains that the sense of sight differs from hearing and the other senses in that it cannot easily come into contact with its objects, but rather requires an additional element, light. The light, which is obviously something noble, represents a delicious bond between the sense of sight and the visible. This bond is of divine origin. Among the heavenly gods, Helios , the sun god, is responsible for generating the light. The sun gives people the opportunity to see what is visible. The connection between the sun and the sense of sight can also be seen in the fact that the eye is the "sunniest" of all sense organs. Socrates regards the ability of the eye to see as a gift from the sun god. The primacy of seeing over all other sensory perceptions results from the special nature of the visual sense.

The sun is a “offspring” or “descendant” of the good and is therefore similar to it in terms of its nature and mode of action. This results in an analogy relationship for the Platonic Socrates: just as in the spiritual realm the good relates to thinking and thought, so in the realm of the visible the sun relates to seeing and what is seen. The eye is handicapped in the night darkness. It can only develop its eyesight properly when the objects that it is supposed to see are illuminated by the sun. Analogous relationships exist in the spiritual realm, where the soul is the perceiving authority, its reason ( nous ) is the power of sight and the good is the “source of light”. When the soul is concerned with what has arisen and transient, which is relatively far removed from the "light source", then it directs its attention to the dark. Therefore, she cannot gain proper insight, just as the eye hardly sees anything in poor lighting. But if it turns to the unchangeable truth and to the really existent and immortal, the ideas, then it sees that which is illuminated by the spiritual light. Then she sees the shine of this reality, as it were, just as the sense of sight clearly grasps the things on which the daylight falls.

The sense of sight and the light are sun-like, but they are not the sun. Likewise, the knowledge and the recognizable truth that thinking reveals to the thinker are similar to the good, but not to be equated with it. Rather, the good stands above knowledge and truth and surpasses both in beauty. It is the authority that enables the knowledge of truth, because it gives the knowable the truth and the knower the capacity for knowledge. In addition, the good is causal in a far broader sense. Just as the sun not only gives the visible the visibility, but also provides nourishment for the developing and enables growth, so the good gives the known not only the recognizability, but also its existence and essence. Just as the sun, without being itself the becoming, causes the becoming of the becoming, so the good effects the being ( to eínai ) and essence ( ousia ) of spiritual reality, although it itself does not belong to the realm of being and essence, but rather beyond suits him and surpasses him in originality and power.

interpretation

Truth as unconcealment

For Plato, there is an analogy between the visibility that sunlight gives sense objects and the knowability that the light of truth gives spiritual objects of knowledge. The light of truth allows the philosopher to grasp beings. In this comparison, the etymology of the Greek word al „ theia (“truth”) as “unconcealment” probably plays a role. The relationship between lanthánein (“to be hidden”), lḗthē (“forgetting”, “oblivion”) and alēthḗs (“true”, originally in the sense of “unhidden”, “evident”) was for the Greek sense of the language already at the time of the Homeric Poetry a matter of course; Plato was also aware of them, as a number of passages in his works show.

The question of the transcendence of the good

Famous and very controversial in research is the statement at the end of the illustration of the parable that the good is “not the Ousia”, but “beyond the Ousia” and surpasses it in originality and power. The term Ousia (literally “beingness”) is usually translated as “being” or “being”; both meanings occur in Plato. With “being” is meant the timeless being characteristic of the Platonic ideas, in contrast to non-being and the mode of existence of the becoming and ephemeral. Numerous historians of philosophy have made a wealth of suggestions for interpretation of the difficult passage. It is disputed whether “beyond the Ousia” is to be understood in the sense of an absolute transcendence .

A number of influential historians of philosophy interpret “beyond the Ousia” in the sense of an absolute transcendence of the idea of ​​the good. According to this line of research, Plato has Socrates claim that there is something that is superior to the immutable and perfect being of purely spiritual reality, i.e. is transcendent in relation to this perfect being. Thus - for the first time in the history of Western philosophy - the transcendence of being of an absolute principle is established. According to this view, the idea of ​​the good differs in principle from all other ideas in that it confers other being, but does not itself belong to the realm of being, but exceeds it. Since it is the ground of all other ideas, the realm to which these ideas belong owes its existence to it. As the cause of this entire area, it cannot belong to itself, but must be located ontologically above it. Thus - as the ancient Neo-Platonists already thought - the good thematized in the allegory of the sun is to be equated with the “ one ” which is treated in Plato's dialogue Parmenides and which is the absolute principle that transcends being in Neoplatonism.

The consequences of the transcendence of being are or seem partly paradoxical. If the good is to be classified above being, so the predicate “(is) being” cannot be assigned to itself, the statement “The good is not” would have to apply, which could be understood as a denial of the existence of the good. What is meant, however, is not a non-being, which would be a lack of being, but an "overbeing" of the good. As the source of all being, the good cannot show a lack of what emerges from it. The statement “the good is not” can be affirmed for an absolutely transcendent good in the sense that it is not a “something”, but not in the sense that it has to be called “nothing”. Here the further questions arise as to whether something above being can be discernible at all, whether meaningful statements are possible about it and how “overseas” relates to being.

The assumption that Plato considered the good to be transcendent is, however, also met with decided contradiction in research. The contrary opinion is that although he sharply demarcated the idea of ​​the good from the rest of the ideas and assigned it a unique priority, he located it within the realm of the timeless being of ideas. In fact, a series of statements by Plato show that he considered it legitimate - at least from a certain point of view - to classify the good in the realm of being. For example, he calls it “the most blessed of all beings” and “the most brilliant of all beings”. The researchers, who consider the good of Plato not to be transcendent, interpret the “beyond the Ousia” in the allegory of the sun not as being above, but as a special being beyond the being of other ideas. Rafael Ferber has put forward the hypothesis that the ontological contradiction between the assertion of the transcendence of being in the allegory of the sun and the passages in which Plato understands the good as being is deliberate. This contradiction should draw the reader's attention to the fact that the idea of ​​the good cannot be represented linguistically without contradictions. It also transcends thinking, and therefore, when it deals with it, it becomes inevitable paradox. Theodor Ebert, on the other hand, concludes from the analogy between the sun and the idea of ​​the good that, according to the parable, this idea is just as accessible to thought as the sun is to sight. Thus Plato did not consider them transcendent of thought. Ebert also thinks that the Politeia does not claim that the idea of ​​the good transcends being. It is “beyond the Ousia” in the sense that it is beyond the essence of the objects of knowledge, but not in the sense of a transcendence of being. With Ousia only essence is meant here, not being.

The reason for the allegory representation

Another question discussed in the research is why the Platonic Socrates does not directly express his opinion about what is good itself, but wants to leave it aside “for now” and present the allegory of the sun instead. As a reason, he cites the difficulty of the problem, which with the “current approach” cannot even be treated meaningfully on the level of a mere hypothesis, let alone really mastered. By this he does not mean, as was sometimes assumed in the older research literature, a fundamental impossibility of direct representation of the facts. Rather, he only assumes that his interlocutors would be unable to follow a presentation of his train of thought due to a lack of philosophical training, which could lead to misunderstandings. Plato considered a substantive definition of the idea of ​​the good to be fundamentally possible. The subject was discussed in his school, the academy . The proponents of the view that there is an “ unwritten teaching ” of Plato that can only be deduced from clues, locate what is concealed in the Politeia there. It is possible that when Plato wrote the Politeia he had not progressed so far in dealing with the problem that he considered statements beyond the simile as ready for publication.

reception

In ancient times, a number of thinkers took up the parable of the sun, interpreted it, or used it freely for their own purposes. It was received by Philon of Alexandria , Plutarch , Alcinous , Kelsus and Origen, among others . Plotinus and Proclus were particularly interested in the parable among the Neoplatonists .

Some New Pythagoreans adopted a supreme principle that transcends being. The Middle Platonists, however, did not take this path. They did not draw the conclusion from the allegory of the sun that the idea of ​​the good should be located above being. In part they explicitly assigned them to the realm of beings, in part this classification can be deduced from their philosophical systems. It was not until Neo-Platonism that the idea of ​​the transcendence of the good prevailed. Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, based his Metaphysics of the Absolute, among other things, on the allegory of the sun. Following on from Plato's Parmenides , he designated the highest principle that transcends being as “the one” and identified it with the good of the sun parable. The later Neo-Platonists followed him.

The humanist Marsilio Ficino was greatly impressed by the allegory of the sun . According to his understanding, in addition to the good, which he equates with God the Father and calls the “sun of the sun”, and the visible sun, there must be a third, invisible sun, whose image is the visible sun. He calls the invisible sun the first son of God, the visible the second. For Ficino the visible sun is the “representative of God” in the world of the senses; through them God's goods pour out into the realm of the visible, their light flows out of the invisible light of the invisible sun.

Text editions and translations

  • Otto Apelt , Karl Bormann : Plato: The State. About the just (= Philosophical Library , Vol. 80). 11th, revised edition, Meiner, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-7873-0930-6 , pp. 260–264 (translation only)
  • John Burnet (Ed.): Platonis opera , Vol. 4, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1902 (critical edition without translation; often reprinted)
  • Heinrich Dörrie / Matthias Baltes (ed.): The Platonism in antiquity , Volume 4: The philosophical teaching of Platonism . Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, ISBN 3-7728-1156-6 , pp. 80–85 (source texts with translation) and pp. 324–332 (commentary)
  • Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Plato: Politeia. The state (= Plato: works in eight volumes , vol. 4). 2nd edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-11280-6 , pp. 536–545 (critical edition; edited by Dietrich Kurz, Greek text by Émile Chambry, German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher )
  • Rüdiger Rufener (Ed.): Plato: The State. Politeia . Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf and Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-7608-1717-3 , pp. 548–557 (Greek text based on the edition by Émile Chambry without the critical apparatus, German translation by Rüdiger Rufener, introduction and explanations by Thomas Alexander Szlezák )
  • Wilhelm Wiegand: The State, Book VI-X . In: Platon: Complete Works , Volume 2, Lambert Schneider, Heidelberg without a year (around 1950), pp. 205–407, here: 240–245 (translation only)

literature

  • Rafael Ferber : Plato's idea of ​​the good . 2nd edition, Academia Verlag Richarz, Sankt Augustin 1989, ISBN 3-88345-559-8
  • Jens Halfwassen : The ascent on the one hand. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus. 2nd edition, Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-73055-1 , pp. 245-261
  • Wilhelm Luther : Truth, light, seeing and knowing in the parable of the sun from Plato's Politeia. An excerpt from the light metaphysics of the Greeks . In: Studium Generale, Volume 18, Issue 7, 1965, pp. 479–496

Web link

Wiktionary: Parable of the sun  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ Plato, Politeia 503c-505b, 505d-506b.
  2. ↑ For the good as an idea, see Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 236–239.
  3. ↑ Plato, Politeia 504a-505b, 506a.
  4. ↑ Plato, Politeia 504e-505a; see. 503e-504a. See Jens Halfwassen: The Ascent to One. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 226–236; Rafael Ferber: Plato's idea of ​​the good , 2nd edition, Sankt Augustin 1989, p. 49 f.
  5. ↑ Plato, Politeia 505b-506a.
  6. ↑ Plato, Politeia 506b-507a.
  7. ↑ Plato, The Republic 507b-c.
  8. ↑ Plato, Politeia 507c-508b. Cf. Werner Jaeger : Paideia , Berlin 1989 (reprint), p. 882. For the priority of seeing, see Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Studies on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, p. 247.
  9. ↑ Plato, Politeia 508b-508d.
  10. ↑ Plato, Politeia 508d-509b.
  11. ↑ For the etymology and the history of the concept, see Ernst Heitsch : Die non-philosophische ἀλήθεια . In: Hermes 90, 1962, pp. 24-33. See Wilhelm Luther: Truth, Light, Seeing and Knowing in the Parable of the Sun from Plato's Politeia. An excerpt from the light metaphysics of the Greeks . In: Studium Generale Volume 18 Issue 7, 1965, pp. 479–496, here: 488 f.
  12. ↑ Greek presbeía " priority of age", also translated as "dignity".
  13. ↑ Plato, Politeia 509b.
  14. ↑ Michael Erler provides a research overview : Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie . Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 402–404.
  15. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 19 f., 221 f.
  16. ↑ A summary of this position is offered by Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 67 f.
  17. ↑ To equate the one with the good, see Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 21–23 and p. 221, note 4; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 70 f .; Hans Joachim Krämer : ἘΠΕΚΕΙΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΟΥΣΙΑΣ. Plato, Politeia 509 B . In: Archive for the history of philosophy 51, 1969, pp. 1–30; Hans Joachim Krämer: Arete in Platon and Aristoteles , Heidelberg 1959, pp. 138, 324, 456, 473–476, 548. Rafael Ferber argues against the equation: Plato's idea of ​​the good , 2nd edition, Sankt Augustin 1989, p. 76 -78.
  18. ↑ See on this problem Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 12-27, 34-37, 150-157, 183-196, 220-264; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 66–71.
  19. ↑ Plato, Politeia 526e, 518c.
  20. ^ Matthias Baltes: Is the Idea of ​​the Good in Plato's Republic Beyond Being? In: Matthias Baltes: Dianoemata. Small writings on Plato and Platonism , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 351–371; Karl-Wilhelm Welwei : Beyond Being? For οὐσία in Plato's sun allegory Politeia 509b . In: Karl-Wilhelm Welwei: Polis and Arché , Stuttgart 2000, pp. 306-310; Wilhelm Luther: Truth, light, seeing and knowing in the parable of the sun from Plato's Politeia. An excerpt from the light metaphysics of the Greeks . In: Studium Generale Volume 18 Issue 7, 1965, pp. 479–496, here: 487 f. Compare with Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 66.
  21. ↑ Rafael Ferber: Plato's idea of ​​the good , 2nd edition, Sankt Augustin 1989, pp. 149–154.
  22. ^ Theodor Ebert: Opinion and knowledge in Plato's philosophy , Berlin 1974, pp. 161–173. This interpretation of “beyond the Ousia” is also represented by Karl-Wilhelm Welwei: Beyond being? For οὐσία in Plato's sun allegory Politeia 509b . In: Karl-Wilhelm Welwei: Polis and Arché , Stuttgart 2000, pp. 306–310, here: 309.
  23. ↑ Plato, Politeia 506d-e.
  24. ↑ Peter Stemmer : Plato's Dialectic. The early and middle dialogues , Berlin 1992, pp. 186–189; Jens Halfwassen: The ascent on the one hand. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, p. 244 and note 72; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, pp. 44–48, 121–124; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: Plato and the written form of philosophy. Interpretations of the early and middle dialogues , Berlin 1985, pp. 304-317; Hans Krämer: The idea of ​​the good. Parable of the sun and lines (Book VI 504a – 511e) . In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Platon: Politeia , 3rd edition, Berlin 2011, pp. 135–153, here: pp. 138 f. and note 7.
  25. ↑ Rafael Ferber: Plato's idea of ​​the good , 2nd edition, Sankt Augustin 1989, pp. 154–158.
  26. ^ Evidence is compiled by Heinrich Dörrie / Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1994, pp. 80–85, p. 326 and note 1.
  27. ^ Matthias Baltes: Is the Idea of ​​the Good in Plato's Republic Beyond Being? In: Matthias Baltes: Dianoemata. Small writings on Plato and Platonism , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 351–371, here: 360–364; John Whittaker: Ἐπέκεινα νοῦ καὶ οὐσίας . In: Vigiliae Christianae 23, 1969, pp. 91-104.
  28. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Studies on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, p. 185 and note 9.
  29. ↑ Erna Banić-Pajnić: The sun as the offspring of good. The fate of a Platonic parable in Renaissance Neoplatonism . In: Damir Barbarić (ed.): Plato on the good and justice , Würzburg 2005, pp. 191–201.