... Are philosophers suited to such a task? People whose task is to keep watch over things, Socrates argues, must have keen sight. Who has keener sight than those who have knowledge of the reality of things, of what things really are? Philosophers, by definition, have the keenest sight into reality. Glaucon agrees, but says that rulers need other qualities in addition to intellectual vision. His remark prompts Socrates to list the characteristics of true philosophers. True philosophers are educated from earliest childhood, as are all guardians, to act in accordance with the four excellences of human nature: wisdom, moderation, courage, and justice. But because they are endowed with an unusually fine native disposition (recall the Myth of the Metals where mother earth fashions rulers with veins of gold), their ways of displaying the four virtues are different in quality from the average guardian. Wisdom is revealed by their unflagging love ...

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