The day after posting "Three Kinds of Good," I had a run that felt far from good.

I had recently signed up for a marathon and was following a pretty stringent training schedule. That day I was supposed to run seven miles easy, with seven strides.

The whole seven miles it never felt easy. I struggled with form. My legs felt heavy. Everything felt like a struggle.

I guess what is good, even what is good in itself, doesn't always feel good. If we went by feelings we'd always do what is pleasurable rather than what is good.

Three Kinds of Good

In Book Three of The Republic, Glaucon tries to trick Socrates by insisting that there are three kinds of goods:

1.    “some which we welcome for their own sakes, and independently of their consequences, as, for example, harmless pleasures and enjoyments, which delight us at the time, although nothing follows from them,” and
2.  “also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?” and
3.   “third class, such as gymnastic, and the care of the sick, and the physician's art; also the various ways of money-making --these do us good but we regard them as disagreeable; and no one would choose them for their own sakes, but only for the sake of some reward or result which flows from them.”

Glaucon wishes to argue that “justice,” which has been the object of discussion so far is of the third class: “that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.”

As a runner, I might draw an analogy between gymnastics, which Glaucon also places in the third class, and justice. I started running, as Glaucon says, for the good that came from it. There were times I found it tedious and unpleasant. I doubt that I would have continued had it continued to be nothing more than an unpleasantness that I had to get through in order to get to something else. Eventually, it had to become an end in itself, though not simply the first class, something pleasant an insignificant, but the second class, something that is good in itself, and also has good results. 

When I run I run in order to run. I want nothing more. I know that later I will feel more alive, more in tune with life and with myself. I might run for that feeling if it wasn’t that I would have never discovered that feeling unless I started running for the sheer joy of running preceded those feelings. 

Is there are parallel to justice? Can it proceed in a similar way, practicing (or pretending to be) just for the benefits, finding that just eventually becomes an end in itself, then gives the benefits that were originally sought? An interesting aspect of this analogy is that when I originally started running I did it for health reasons. Now, as much as I appreciate the health benefits, I run for the more direct benefits, much of which I can only incompletely attach a name to. In other words, what I originally ran for, while recognizably beneficial, I don’t see as significant as what I now run for. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is a counterfeit, but it isn’t what keeps me going. I can say that about justice. Those first benefits mentioned by Glaucon, “rewards and reputation” are counterfeit justice, and do not deserve the name.

Knowledge vs True Opinion in Meno

Below are a few select statements from Socrates comparing knowledge with true opinion. Given the distrust of opinion in academia, one might expect Socrates to value knowledge more than opinion. His two qualifiers are worth noting: he is only comparing knowledge to "true" opinion, and he is only identifying them as equal in terms of being useful, either for "proper action" (virtue) or "the right course of action for their cities" (deliberative rhetoric, or to use Plato's term, "advisory" rhetoric). 

"So true opinion is in no way an inferior guide to action than knowledge. This is what we overlooked in our investigation of the nature of virtue, when we said only knowledge can culminate in proper action; for true opinion can do just as well.

"True opinion, then, is neither inferior to knowledge nor does less good in action, no does the man who has true opinion in lieu of knowledge come off the worse.

Therefore, if it isn’t through knowledge, the only alternative is that it is through true

opinion that statesmen settle on the right course for their cities. As regards knowledge,

they are no different from seers and prophets. They too say many true things when the

divine inspiration strikes them, but they don’t actually know what they are talking about."

Timeaus on Mind and True Opinion

This passage from the dialogue Timeaus isn't placed in Socrates's mouth by Plato, but in Timeaus's. I'm not sure what that says about how Plato feels about the ideas in this monologue, though I have to wonder why he would give Timeaus so much time to expound on these metaphysical ideas if he disagreed with them, or at least would have Socrates question them.

Timeaus is in the midst of a long monologue about the origins of the universe, and here distinguishes between "mind" and "true opinion." By identifying opinion as true, he isn't questioning its veracity, but its source. One comes from being, the other from becoming. One is eternal, the other is in flux. One comes from reason, the other from experience, or the senses.

This strikes me as giving some insight on Plato's philosophy of forms. When he talks about the real and the imitation in Phaedrus, he uses physical objects, such as a table or a bridal as examples. It seems to me, however, that in this passage, forms (should we call them essence?) can only be metaphysical, or none corporal, that is essence, while the material is always changing.   


"If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind ; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion ; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason ; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can : and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men."

Paul Cites Socrates

In Phaedo, Socrates says, "I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium ideas, sees them only 'through a glass darkly." Aside from the philosophical question he is exploring, Socrates is discussing his own impending death. Notice that McMahon (translator) has put this phrase in quotation marks. Notice, also, that this phrase is repeated in First Corinthians, Chapter 13. Was Paul quoting Socrates? Were they both quoting another source? Or, were they expressing a common place from their day?