Study Questions

1. To what two things do the number of spheres correspond?

2. Why might a just man suffer?

3. Why is the creation of an artisan closer to truth than the creation of an artist?

4. How does poetry weaken the mind?

5. Why does the first soul to choose its next incarnation in the Myth of Er make a bad decision?

6. In what way are the goals of the dramatist and the rhetor–itician similar?

7. Who are Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos?

8. Why is Odysseus’ choice wise?

9. In what two things does Socrates find proof of the soul’s immortality?

10. To which section of the line do artists’ works correspond?

Answers

1. The number of spheres corresponds, first, to the heavenly bodies visible to the Greeks and, second, to the notes of a scale.

2. A just man might suffer for the sins of his past life. His suffering will always be with an eye on his future benefit, in this life or the next.

3. An artisan looks to expert opinion when making his objects, while the artist only looks to public opinion.

4. Poetry weakens the mind because it deliberately appeals to the lower elements, and people choose to let themselves be swayed by its appeal.

5. He had previously been good through habit and not through philosophy, so he chose the life of a tyrant—only to discover that he would wind up eating his children.

6. They both aim to please the public.

7. They are the three Fates.

8. Odysseus’ choice is wise because he was cured of ambition and chose a life that, while dull, would give him happiness.

9. Socrates finds proof of the soul’s immortality in the absence of an agent that can destroy it and in the soul’s love of wisdom.

10. Artists’ works correspond to the lowest section of the line, the one that corresponds to the mental condition of ignorance.