July 17, 1983

Charges that New York City police officers have abused and brutalized blacks will be presented tomorrow at a one-day Congressional hearing in Manhattan. Mayor Koch says the hearing is politically motivated. But a group of black leaders predicts the hearing will demonstrate a problem it says has been made worse by the Mayor's rhetoric. The issue has become so emotional that the Koch administration has been gathering evidence and witnesses for weeks in its effort to show that both racial tension in the city and the unwarranted use of force by the police have declined. Black Captain Appointed In addition, Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire last month appointed a black captain, David W. Scott, to command Harlem's 28th Precinct. ''I've got to deal with perceptions,'' Mr. McGuire said.

It is common knowledge among foreign visitors to the United States that Philadelphia has more Cezannes on permanent public view than any other city of its size. Why this should be, few strangers can say. But when they count up the 65 and more Cezannes in the Barnes Collection, and add to them the 28 Cezannes in the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, their heads spin. If we calculate that there are also an undisclosed number of Cezannes in Philadelphia private collections, we realize that the city has something to boast about, even though boasting in Philadelphia is reprobated as bad form. Surely - every curator must say to himself -''Cezanne in Philadelphia Collections'' is an exhibition that comes ready-made and only asks to be hung on the wall? In a rational world the Barnes Collection's Cezannes would be integrated for the occasion with those of the museum. Private collectors would be asked to join in, and he would be a churl indeed who said no. This plan would make particularly good sense in July and August, since the Barnes Collection is closed to the public during those two months.

We like to eat out and drive fast cars, We take our dates to expensive bars Sing hey, hey we're the MBAs Having fun earning twice our age. - MBAs theme song By JOHN J. GEOGHEGAN 3d FAIRFIELD PETER WIRTH is the Clark Kent of Wall Street. By day the mildmannered Mr. Wirth commutes from his Fairfield home to his job as investment banker at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. By night he undergoes a transformation. Mr. Wirth, also known as Manny Hanover, then becomes the lead vocalist, lyricist and concept man for a new pro-business rock group called the MBAs.

THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUPIL By Iris Murdoch. 576 pp. New York: The Viking Press. $17.75. IN Plato's allegory of the cave, men are imagined as dwelling underground, necks and legs fettered so that they cannot look around to see the source of light but are condemned to see only passing shadows, to which they give various names and meanings. This is our commonly experienced reality. If an individual was freed of his shackles and forced to confront the source of light, he would be dazzled and blinded and might respond by preferring the shadows he had seen before, believing them to be clearer. Only by force can the shadow-enthralled be awakened to the genuine source of light -for Plato, the idea of the good, for Platonists of more recent times, God.

Will the Spending Last? American consumers appear to have led the country out of the recession at last. Three straight months of solid sales gains say so. But will they remain strong-hearted? Is the euphoria overoptimistic? And what could turn consumers elusive again? The answers, say economists, are: Yes, no, and unemployment, inflation and interest rates. But they add that, just as the upturn was a long time in coming, a reversal will not happen overnight.