Exactly.
Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only?
The whole.
the philosopher, or lover of wisdom, all knowledge. And may we not say of the philosopher that he is a lover, not of a part of wisdom only, but of the whole?
Yes, of the whole.
And he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when [C]he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such an one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, 173 and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?
Very true, he said.
Whereas he who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied, may be justly termed a philosopher? Am I not right?
[D] Under knowledge, however, are not to be included sights and sounds, or under the lovers of knowledge, musical amateurs and the like. Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country—that makes no difference—they are there. Now are we [E] to maintain that all these and any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are philosophers?
Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.