Plato's Theory of The Good is still relevant Copelston on Plato's Republic : In The Republic it is shown that the true philosopher seeks to know the essential nature of each thing. He is not concerned to know, for example, a multiplicity of beautiful things, but rather to discern the essence of beauty and the essence of goodness, which are embodied in varying degrees in particular beautiful things or particular good things. Non philosophers, who are taken up with the multiplicity of appearances that they do not attend to the essential nature and cannot distinguish, Eg. the essence of beauty from the many beautiful phenomena, are represented as having only opinion and as lacking in scientific knowledge. ... In The Republic ... Good is... compared to the sun, the light of which makes the objects of nature visible to all and so is, in a sense, the source of their worth and value and beauty. This comparison is, of course, but a comparison, and such should not be pressed: we are...
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