Plato on Hunting I

Philosophers are hunters after true concepts. Socrates employs this image of himself and Glaucon while tracking the concept of justice in The Politea.[1]

S: Now then Gaucon, we must post ourselves like a ring of hunters around a thicket, with very alert minds, so that justice does not escape us by evaporating before us. It is evident that it must be there somewhere. Look out then and do your best to get a glimpse of it before me and drive it toward me.
G: I only wish I could! It will be enough if I can see what you point out as you guide me.
S: Come on, then, I’ll encourage you!
G: That I will, provided that you lead me.
S: Very well, but, by heaven! Look how obstructed and overgrown the woods are. What a dark and hard-to-see place! But there’s nothing to do but go forward.
G: Let’s go then!
S: By the devil! I think we have a track, and I don’t think it will escape us now.

Here we have hunting as a communal activity in search of quick, elusive game probably with the use of nets. And so the analogy to philosophy works -- if philosophy is a communal activity among friends chasing close-by concepts.

[1] Politea, 432 b. Translation from Jose Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Hunting. Wilderness Adventures Press, 2007, p. 139.