Plato’s Sun Analogy
Socrates famously compares the Good with the sun in Plato’s Republic. He does so, however, immediately after declining to give Glauco and the others an account of the Good itself. Instead, he offers to tell them about its “offspring”, the sun.
This sounds like a postponement. It is nothing of the kind. The sun is introduced precisely as an analogy for the Good, allowing Socrates almost immediately to say remarkable things about the very subject he has supposedly avoided.
Among the remarkable things the analogy allows the sun to do is to be responsible not only for all good things (like the Good), but also for all things which are/exist (these are usually the province of Being), and it can even make you blind if you stare at it.
The following extract considers Socrates’ curious reluctance to discuss the Good and Glauco’s willingness to accept the substitute he is offered.
Plato’s Son-Sun Pun (because he knew English, right?)
However, even when Glauco takes over from Adimantus, Socrates continues to be reticent. He tells Glauco that he will not give an account of the Good, but will discuss the Good’s offspring, an offspring very similar to the Good. Socrates adds “If this is pleasing to you (pl.), but if not, then I’ll let it go.” Glauco the master of ceremonies and lover of stories responds as expected: “Indeed, tell. You’ll pay up the account of the father another time” (506d8–e7). Socrates actually pays up almost immediately, since the offspring of the Good (the sun, in this case) is introduced precisely to serve as an analogy for the Good itself (508b12–13), about which Glauco and the others are then told some strange and wonderful things.
Extract from Chapter 6, ‘The Digression’, in Ivor Ludlam (2014), Plato’s Republic as a Philosophical Drama on Doing Well, p. 184.
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