Hearing and sound

Use in the book

After sight, Socrates asks about hearing that hears itself, other hearings and non-hearings, but hears no sound (167d). The form repeats the restrictive proposal: a capacity directed only at capacities, excluding its ordinary field. Critias again says no.

At 168d hearing illustrates the generalized object-condition. If it hears itself, it must hear itself as having sound; it could not hear otherwise. This differs from the greater/smaller contradiction. The required sound is a consequence needing further assessment, not by itself an explicit logical inconsistency.

The text's closing qualification is consequently essential. Hearing and sight are among cases whose self-relation may seem incredible to some but not others (168e–169a). Socrates still calls for a discriminating classification. The analogy gives a problem that any reflective-knowledge account must address; it does not permit a final declaration that all higher-order cognition is as impossible as being greater than oneself.

Places to read

1. 167dHearing of hearings with no sound
2. 168dSelf-hearing requires sound in the hearing itself
3. 168e–169aHearing included among disputed rather than simply disproven cases

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “sound”, appropriately widening phōnē beyond human voice in this argument. Rendering it “speech” would introduce a linguistic restriction that the example does not state.

ἀκοή

Attested: ἀκοή / ἀκοὴ / ἀκοήν (akoē / akoē / akoēn). Hearing, considered as a capacity ordinarily directed toward sound. References: 168d, 168e, 167d. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀκοή. See Hearing and sound.

ἀκούω

Attested: ἀκούει / ἤκουσα (akouei / ēkousa). Hear; may concern received testimony as well as the sensory capacity examined in the reflexivity analogy. References: 167d, 161b. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀκούω. See Hearing and sound.

φωνή

Attested: φωνὴν / φωνῆς (phōnēn / phōnēs). Sound or voice, the ordinary object of hearing in the test of self-related capacities. References: 168d, 167d. Lexical identification: lemma: φωνή. See Hearing and sound.

Use in the book

The initial account gives hearing a real advantage: Flatlanders possess an unusually developed auditory sense. Its prestige does not follow its utility, however. Voice-discrimination is called a plebeian virtue, insufficiently cultivated among aristocrats. A faculty is devalued partly because the wrong people excel in it. The phrase allows the reader to separate perceptual competence from the social esteem attached to competence.

Imitation complicates the evidence. An Isosceles can reproduce a Polygon's voice, and with training even a Circle's. The capacity undermines any simple expectation that rank must announce itself truthfully in sound. It also grants the supposedly intellectually deficient class an ability demanding sensitivity and practice. The narrator records the fact without substantially revising his judgement of the people who possess it.

Women's compulsory sound has a different function. The Peace-cry compensates for a body that may become difficult to see. The law requires continuous vocal presence, yet the narrator subsequently complains about women's unending discourse. The society makes silence dangerous and then treats female sound as an affliction. The distinction between warning and speech remains, but the surrounding rhetoric turns the audible woman into a problem either way.

A low female voice can nevertheless attract a Circle in §1223, outweighing the pedigree considerations the same society declares essential. Hearing can disclose an attachment not governed by the official scale of angles and ancestry. The attraction exposes a limit to the claim that configuration alone explains judgement.

The Lineland episodes reverse the hierarchy once more. There hearing supplies the information that vision cannot, and the King treats the voice as the essence of a person. The Square suggests mimicry precisely because he knows its possibility in Flatland; the King declares such deception impossible. Each world is tempted to convert its most useful sense into an unquestionable authority. Their disagreement does not show that hearing is inherently unreliable or inferior. It shows how a genuine faculty becomes dogmatic when its users refuse to imagine conditions beyond their habitual experience.

Places to read

1. §523“The first means of recognition is the sense of hearing”
2. §523“a plebeian virtue”
3. §523“an Isosceles can easily feign the voice of a Polygon”
4. §423“the humming sound of the continuous Peace-cry”
5. §1223“the charms of a low voice”
6. §14234“the Voice, being the essence of one’s Being”

In this edition

Note 48 contextualises the Peace-cry, while note 115 identifies the King Lear phrase attached to a low voice. Notes 129–135234567 accompany Lineland's gendered and auditory assumptions. Those comparisons are editorial guidance; the contrast between imitable Flatland voices and the King's assertion of unchangeability is supplied directly by Abbott's narrative.

Assimilated

Made similar or brought into likeness. Aristocratic voices are said to be assimilated, which weakens hearing as a means of determining rank and makes another sensory method necessary. Printed form: assimilated (§ 523). See Voice and hearing.

Correspondent

Corresponding or proportionate. The lower orders’ vocal capacities are more than correspondent with their hearing: they can produce convincing imitations that outstrip the reliability of auditory identification. Printed form: correspondent (§ 523). See Voice and hearing.

Imposture

Deception by assuming a false identity or status. An Isosceles can imitate a superior figure’s voice, so the possibility of imposture reveals that the supposedly natural social hierarchy requires continual verification. Printed form: imposture (§ 523). See Voice and hearing.

Peace-cry

The continuous warning sound every Woman must make in a public place on pain of death. Its peaceful name contrasts with both the bodily danger it signals and the state violence that enforces its uninterrupted production. Printed form: Peace-cry (§ 423). See Voice and hearing.

Sonorousness

Resonant or continuously audible sound. The narrator’s contrast between a Woman’s deadly silent point and her safe but noisy speaking end makes audibility a bodily safety mechanism and a target of his misogynistic irritation. Printed form: sonorousness (§ 423). See Voice and hearing.