Justice in a person and a city › The Power of Images

Notice what Plato is doing. To explain the most important truths, he uses images: caves, ships, suns, lines. The images prepare for philosophical argument rather than replacing it. Socrates calls the sun an offspring of the Good while declining to give a direct account of the Good itself (506d–507a, 508b). Later, he describes dialectic as questioning hypotheses to reach a first principle (511b–d). The city in speech is one model within a dialogue that also contains arguments and stories.