But then what profit, Critias, I said, is there any longer in wisdom or temperance which yet remains, if this is wisdom ? If, indeed, as we were supposing at first, the wise man had been able to distinguish what he knew and did not know, and that he knew the one and did not know the other, and to recognize a similar faculty of DISCERNMENT in others, there would certainly have been a great advantage in being wise ; for then we should never have made a mistake, but have passed through life the unerring guides of ourselves and of those who are under us ; and we should not have attempted to do what we did not know, but we should have found out those who knew, and have handed the business over to them and trusted in them ; nor should we have allowed those who were under us to do anything which they were not likely to do well and they would be likely to do well just that of which they had knowledge ; and the house or state which was ordered or administered under the guidance of wisdom, and everything else of which wisdom was the lord, would have been well ordered ; for truth guiding, and error having been eliminated, in all their doings, men would have done well, and would have been happy. Was not this, Critias, what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom to know what is known and what is unknown to us ? CHARMIDES
Soc. Such are the mid-wives, whose task is a very important one but not so important as mine ; for women do not bring into the world at one time real children, and at another time counterfeits which are with difficulty distinguished from them ; if they did, then the, DISCERNMENT of the true and false birth would be the crowning achievement of the art of midwifery — you would think so ? THEAETETUS
Str. Every DISCERNMENT or discrimination of that kind, as I have observed, is called a purification. SOPHIST
Str. To the latter belong carding and the other processes of which I was just now speaking the art of DISCERNMENT or division in wool and yarn, which is effected in one manner with the comb and in another with the hands, is variously described under all the names which I just now mentioned. STATESMAN
And in what way does he who thinks that wisdom is the DISCERNMENT of the tempers and tastes of the motley multitude, whether in painting or in music, or, finally, in politics, differ from him whom I have been describing ? For when a man consorts with the many, and exhibits to them his poem or other work of art or the service which he has done the State, making them his judges when he is not obliged, the so-called necessity of Diomede will oblige him to produce whatever they praise. And yet the reasons are utterly ludicrous which they give in confirmation of their own notions about the honorable and good. Did you ever hear any of them which were not ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI
And, again, in respect of temperance, courage, magnificence, and every other virtue, should we not carefully distinguish between the true son and the bastard ? for where there is no DISCERNMENT of such qualities, States and individuals unconsciously err ; and the State makes a ruler, and the individual a friend, of one who, being defective in some part of virtue, is in a figure lame or a bastard. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII
And now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways : first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth — in this, I say, he is like him ; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul ; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soulsoul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no DISCERNMENT of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small — he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X