Jowett: faculties

The Gods call Chalcis, and men Cymindis : to be taught how much more correct the name Chalcis is than the name Cymindis — do you deem that a light matter ? Or about Batieia and Myrina ? And there are many other observations of the same kind in Homer and other poets. Now, I think that this is beyond the understanding of you and me ; but the names of Scamandrius and Astyanax, which he affirms to have been the names of Hector’s son, are more within the range of human faculties, as I am disposed to think ; and what the poet means by correctness may be more readily apprehended in that instance : you will remember I dare say the lines to which I refer ? CRATYLUS  

Soc. But do not know that we are going beyond the truth. Doubtless, as he is older, he may be expected to be wiser than we are. And if he could only just get his head out of the world below, he would have overthrown both of us again and again, me for talking nonsense and you for assenting to me, and have been off and underground in a trice. But as he is not within call, we must make the best use of our own faculties, such as they are, and speak out what appears to us to be true. And one thing which no one will deny is, that there are great differences in the understandings of men. THEAETETUS  

Str. And he who is sceptical of this contradiction, must think how he can find something better to say ; or if. he sees a puzzle, and his pleasure is to drag words this way and that, the argument will prove to him, that he is not making a worthy use of his faculties ; for there is no charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in detecting them ; but we can tell him of something else the pursuit of which is noble and also difficult. SOPHIST

Soc. And if we erred in any point, then let any one who will, take up the enquiry again and set us right ; and assuming memory and wisdom and knowledge and true opinion to belong to the same class, let him consider whether he would desire to possess or acquire — I will not say pleasure, however abundant or intense, if he has no real perception that he is pleased, nor any consciousness of what he feels, nor any recollection, however momentary, of the feeling, — but would he desire to have anything at all, if these faculties were wanting to him ? And about wisdom I ask the same question ; can you conceive that any one would choose to have all wisdom absolutely devoid of pleasure, rather than with a certain degree of pleasure, or all pleasure devoid of wisdom, rather than with a certain degree of wisdom ? PHILEBUS  

Well then, for the present let us attempt so much in treating of the gods, as to try — after observing the two living creatures visible to us, of which we call one immortal, and the other, all earthy, a mortal creation — to tell of the three middle things of the five, which come most evidently, according to the probable opinion, between those two. For let us consider ether as coming next after fire, and let us hold that soul fashions from it live creatures with their faculties, as it does creatures from the other kinds of element, [984c] each being for the most part of that one nature, but in its lesser parts derived from the other elements for the sake of connection. After ether, there is fashioned by soul another kind of creature from air, and the third kind from water ; and by having produced all these it is likely that soul filled the whole heaven with creatures, having made use of all the elements so far as it could, and all the creatures having been made participators in life ; but the second, third, fourth, and fifth kinds, which took their first origin from what are manifest gods, [984d] end finally in us men. EPINOMIS   BOOK XII

It is, indeed, a rather strange thing to hear ; but the name that we, at any rate, give it — one that people would never approve, from inexperience in the matter — is astronomy ; people are ignorant that he who is truly an astronomer must be wisest, not he who is an astronomer in the sense understood by Hesiod and all the rest of such writers, the sort of man who has studied settings and risings ; but the man who has studied the seven out of the eight orbits, each travelling over its own circuit in such a manner as [990b] could not ever be easily observed by any ordinary nature, that did not partake of a marvellous nature. As to this, we have now told, and shall tell, as we profess, by what means and in what manner it ought to be learnt ; and first let us make the following statement.The moon travels through its orbit very swiftly, bringing first the month and full-moon ; and in the second place we must remark the sun, with his turning motion through the whole of his orbit, and with him his satellites. But to avoid repeating again and again the same things on the same subjects [990c] in our discussion, the other courses of these bodies that we have previously described are not easily understood : we must rather prepare our faculties, such as they may possibly be, for these matters ; and so one must teach the pupil many things beforehand, and continually strive hard to habituate him in childhood and youth. EPINOMIS BOOK XII

How can that be ? he replied ; pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. THE REPUBLIC   BOOK III

Then opinion and knowledge have to do with different kinds of matter corresponding to this difference of faculties ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

I will begin by placing faculties in a class by themselves : they are powers in us, and in all other things, by which we do as we do. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties. Have I clearly explained the class which I mean ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Certainly knowledge is a faculty, and the mightiest of all faculties. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Nay, he replied, that has been already disproven ; if difference in faculty implies difference in the sphere or subject-matter, and if, as we were saying, opinion and knowledge are distinct faculties, then the sphere of knowledge and of opinion cannot be the same. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

Then what remains to be discovered is the object which partakes equally of the nature of being and not-being, and cannot rightly be termed either, pure and simple ; this unknown term, when discovered, we may truly call the subject of opinion, and assign each to their proper faculty — the extremes to the faculties of the extremes and the mean to the faculty of the mean. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

You have quite conceived my meaning, I said ; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul — reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last — and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI