Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  “Well then, won’t there be many masses, each appearing, but not being, one, if in fact one is not to be?”—“Just so.”—“And there will seem to be a number of them, if in fact each seems to be one, although being many.”—[e] “Certainly.”—“And among them some appear even and some odd, although not really being so, if in fact one is not to be.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”

  “Furthermore, a smallest too, we say, will seem to be among them; but [165] this appears many and large in relation to each of its many, because they are small.”—“Doubtless.”—“And each mass will be conceived to be equal to its many small bits. For it could not, in appearance, shift from greater to less, until it seems to come to the state in between, and this would be an appearance of equality.”—“That’s reasonable.”

  “Now won’t it appear to have a limit in relation to another mass, but itself to have no beginning, limit, or middle in relation to itself?”—“Why is that?”—“Because whenever you grasp any bit of them in thought as [b] being a beginning, middle, or end, before the beginning another beginning always appears, and after the end a different end is left behind, and in the middle others more in the middle than the middle but smaller, because you can’t grasp each of them as one, since the one is not.”—“Very true.”—“So every being that you grasp in thought must, I take it, be chopped up and dispersed, because surely, without oneness, it would always be grasped as a mass.”—“Of course.”—“So must not such a thing appear one to a person [c] dimly observing from far off; but to a person considering it keenly from up close, must not each one appear unlimited in multitude, if in fact it is deprived of the one, if it is not?”—“Indeed, most necessarily.”—“Thus the others must each appear unlimited and as having a limit, and one and many, if one is not, but things other than the one are.”—“Yes, they must.”

  “Won’t they also seem to be both like and unlike?”—“Why is that?”—“Just as, to someone standing at a distance, all things in a painting,19 appearing one, appear to have a property the same and to be like.”—[d] “Certainly.”—“But when the person comes closer, they appear many and different and, by the appearance of the different, different in kind and unlike themselves.”—“Just so.”—“So the masses must also appear both like and unlike themselves and each other.”—“Of course.”

  “Accordingly, if one is not and many are, the many must appear both the same as and different from each other, both in contact and separate from themselves, both moving with every motion and in every way at rest, both coming to be and ceasing to be and neither, and surely everything [e] of that sort, which it would now be easy enough for us to go through.”—“Very true indeed.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning once more and say what must be the case, if one is not, but things other than the one are.”—“Yes, let’s do.”—“Well, the others won’t be one.”—“Obviously not.”—“And surely they won’t be many either, since oneness would also be present in things that are many. For if none of them is one, they are all nothing – so they also couldn’t be many.”—“True.”—“If oneness isn’t present in the others, the others are neither many nor one.”—“No, they aren’t.”

  “Nor even do they appear one or many.”—“Why?”—“Because the others [166] have no communion in any way at all with any of the things that are not, and none of the things that are not belongs to any of the others, since things that are not have no part.”—“True.”—“So no opinion or any appearance of what is not belongs to the others, nor is not-being conceived in any way at all in the case of the others.”—“Yes, you’re quite right.”—“So if one is not, none of the others is conceived to be one or many, since, without [b] oneness, it is impossible to conceive of many.”—“Yes, impossible.”—“Therefore, if one is not, the others neither are nor are conceived to be one or many.”—“It seems not.”

  “So they aren’t like or unlike either.”—“No, they aren’t.”—“And indeed, they are neither the same nor different, neither in contact nor separate, nor anything else that they appeared to be in the argument we went through before. The others neither are nor appear to be any of those things, if one is not.”—“True.”—“Then if we were to say, to sum up, ‘if one is [c] not, nothing is,’ wouldn’t we speak correctly?”—“Absolutely.”

  “Let us then say this – and also that, as it seems, whether one is or is not, it and the others both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear all things in all ways, both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other.”—“Very true.”

  1. Lit., “the things that are.”

  2. I.e., the all (cf. 128a8–b1).

  3. In English we normally speak of a hypothesis that something is the case. Instead, Zeno here, and later Socrates and Parmenides, regularly place the content of a hypothesis within an “if” clause, ready for us to draw out its implications and consequences: e.g., “if the all is one, then … ,” or “if the all is many, then… .”

  4. According to the usage of this dialogue, something is “itself by itself,” first, if it is separate from other things or is considered on its own, apart from other things. When the phrase is construed in this way, “by itself” means “apart, on its own.” Second, something is “itself by itself,” if it is itself responsible for its own proper being, independently of other things. When the phrase is understood in this way, “by itself” means “in virtue of, or because of, itself.” Both of these meanings should be kept in mind whenever this phrase recurs in the translation.

  5. In this dialogue Plato uses the expression to hen in several ways. It is variously translated as “the one,” “oneness,” and “one” depending on the context.

  6. In this dialogue Plato uses three different abstract expressions to specify these entities, two of which occur here: genos (a term restricted to the part of the dialogue preceding the “Deductions”), rendered as “kind,” and eidos, rendered as “form.” Later he will use a third term, idea, rendered as “character.”

  7. Removing the brackets in a10–11.

  8. Alternatively: “If you look at them all in the same way with the mind’s eye, won’t some one large again appear, by which all these appear large?”

  9. Alternatively: “But, Parmenides, maybe each of the forms is a thought of these things.”

  10. Alternatively: “or that, although they are thoughts, they are not thought?”

  11. Removing the brackets in e1.

  12. The Greek word is dialegesthai, which could instead be translated as “discourse,” or untechnically as “conversation.”

  13. Alternatively: “if [things] are many,” or “if there are many.”

  14. Ibycus frg. 6 (Page 1962). Ibycus of Rhegium (sixth century B.C.) was best known for his love poems.

  15. The hypothesis could also be rendered “if one is.” But cf. Parmenides’ statement above at 137b.

  16. The word translated here and below as “fraction” is elsewhere translated as “part.”

  17. Alternatively, accepting a plausible emendation at b3: “Thus if one is, the one is all things and is not even one, both in relation to itself and in relation to the others, and likewise for the others.” With this emended text, the sentence describes the contents of all four deductions, instead of only the first two.

  18. Dropping the supplement in 162a8 and removing the brackets in b2.

  19. Plato’s word here refers specifically to painting that aims at the illusion of volume through the contrast of light and shadow.

  PHILEBUS

  Translated by Dorothea Frede.

  Scholars universally agree that this is one of Plato’s last works, along with at least Laws (about which we have independent testimony that it was a work of his old age), plus Sophist and Statesman. It was written after Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus, and also after Parmenides and Theaetetus. In those other latest works (as well as Timaeus and Critias, whatever their place in the order of composition may have been), the principal speaker who d
irects the discussion’s agenda is not Socrates, but the Athenian visitor (Laws), or the visitor from Elea (Sophist and Statesman), or Timaeus or Critias themselves. Indeed, although he participates actively in the first part of Parmenides, Socrates is already made to yield center stage there to the dialogue’s namesake— Parmenides calls the tunes. Here, however, Socrates is again fully in charge. Naturally enough: the topic is again one we readily associate with Socrates in Plato’s ‘Socratic’ dialogues, as well as in Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus: what is ‘the human good’? how will a human being lead the best life possible? Yet this is a Socrates very sure of his ground, ready to expound at length difficult metaphysical doctrines, and possessed of a whole theory about the ingredients of the best life and their proper ordering. He pursues the discussion much more in the manner of the Visitor of Sophist or Statesman than in his own manner in either the ‘Socratic’ dialogues or the Republic— though his fellow discussant is much more ready to throw up opposition to his ideas than the Visitor’s are in Sophist and Statesman.

  We pick up the thread in mediis rebus. In the presence of a company of young men, Socrates has been disputing with one of them, Philebus, about what constitutes the good in human life. Is it pleasure, as Philebus had maintained, or knowledge—Socrates’ candidate? (We know nothing of Philebus, apart from this dialogue: his name means “youth lover” and so pleasure seeker, and he is presented as himself an attractive young man. He may be purely fictional.) They had ended at loggerheads. Now another young man, Protarchus, takes over Philebus’ side. (He is addressed at 19b as “son of Callias,” the very rich Athenian said in Apology 20a to have spent more than anyone else on the sophists, and at 58a–b he seems to speak as a respectful admirer of Gorgias.) The discussion now takes a new tack. Socrates will argue, not that the good in human life is knowledge (not pleasure), but that it is some third thing, in fact the principle for the proper mixture of knowledge and pleasure—both together— within a life. Knowledge, he will argue, though not the good itself, is vastly closer and more akin to it than pleasure is. Thus knowledge wins second prize in the contest, coming far ahead of pleasure in the final accounting.

  Socrates first insists that neither pleasure nor knowledge is a simple unity; there are significantly different varieties of each—different ways of being a pleasure or an instance of knowledge—which must be examined first before one can determine the value of pleasure and knowledge, and so resolve the question of their respective places in the best life. This leads to a lengthy defense of the basic philosophical method of looking to unity-in-plurality in coming to understand the nature of anything and to a metaphysical division (not easy to understand) of ‘everything that actually exists now in the universe’ into four basic categories: the ‘unlimited’, ‘limit’, the ‘mixture’ of these two, and the ‘cause’ of the mixture. These methodological and metaphysical passages should be studied alongside the Sophist’s theories about being and not being, and the method of division exemplified and discussed in Sophist and Statesman. There follows a delineation and examination of various genera of pleasure and then of knowledge, including a controversial discussion of some pleasures as ‘false’ ones. Finally, we reach the ‘mixed’ life and its ordering principle.

  The dialogue ends, as it began, in mediis rebus: Protarchus is not ready to let Socrates off; more points require to be dealt with. But which ones? That is left for the reader to ponder.

  J.M.C.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, Protarchus, consider just what the thesis is that [11] you are now taking over from Philebus—and what our thesis is that you are going to argue against, if you find that you do not agree with it. Shall [b] we summarize them both?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, let’s do that.

  SOCRATES: Philebus holds that what is good for all creatures is to enjoy themselves, to be pleased and delighted, and whatever else goes together with that kind of thing. We contend that not these, but knowing, understanding, and remembering, and what belongs with them, right opinion and true calculations, are better than pleasure and more agreeable to all [c] who can attain them; those who can, get the maximum benefit possible from having them, both those now alive and future generations. Isn’t that how we present our respective positions, Philebus?

  PHILEBUS: Absolutely, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Do you agree, Protarchus, to take over this thesis that’s now offered you?

  PROTARCHUS: I am afraid I have to. Fair Philebus has given up on us.

  SOCRATES: So we must do everything possible to get through somehow to the truth about these matters?

  PROTARCHUS: We certainly must. [d]

  SOCRATES: Come on, then. Here is a further point we need to agree on.

  PROTARCHUS: What is that?

  SOCRATES: That each of us will be trying to prove some possession or state of the soul to be the one that can render life happy for all human beings. Isn’t that so?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite so.

  SOCRATES: You, that it is pleasure; we, that it is knowledge?

  PROTARCHUS: That is so.

  SOCRATES: What if it should turn out that there is another possession, [e] better than either of them? Would the result not be that, if it turns out to be more closely related to pleasure, we will both lose out against a life [12] that firmly possesses that, but the life of pleasure will defeat the life of knowledge?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: And if it is closer to knowledge, then knowledge wins over pleasure, and pleasure loses? Do you accept this as agreed?

  PROTARCHUS: It seems agreeable to me.

  SOCRATES: But also to Philebus? Philebus, what do you say?

  PHILEBUS: To my mind pleasure wins and always will win, no matter what. But you must see for yourself, Protarchus.

  PROTARCHUS: But now you have handed over the argument to us, Philebus, you can no longer control the agreements we make with Socrates nor our disagreements.

  [b] PHILEBUS: You are right. I absolve myself of all responsibility and now call the goddess herself as my witness.

  PROTARCHUS: We will be your witnesses, too,—that you did say what you are now saying. As to what follows, Socrates, let us go ahead and try to push through to a conclusion, with Philebus’ consent or not.

  SOCRATES: We must do our best, making our start with the goddess herself—this fellow claims that though she is called Aphrodite her truest name is pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  [c] SOCRATES: I always feel a more than human dread over what names to use for the gods—it surpasses the greatest fear.1 So now I address Aphrodite by whatever title pleases her. But as to pleasure, I know that it is complex and, just as I said, we must make it our starting point and consider carefully what sort of nature it has. If one just goes by the name it is one single thing, but in fact it comes in many forms that are in some way even quite unlike each other. Think about it: we say that a debauched person gets [d] pleasure, as well as that a sober-minded person takes pleasure in his very sobriety. Again, we say that a fool, though full of foolish opinions and hopes, gets pleasure, but likewise a wise man takes pleasure in his wisdom. But surely anyone who said in either case that these pleasures are like one another would rightly be regarded as a fool.

  PROTARCHUS: Well, yes, Socrates—the pleasures come from opposite things. But they are not at all opposed to one another. For how could pleasure not be, of all things, most like pleasure? How could that thing [e] not be most like itself?

  SOCRATES: Just as color is most like color! Really, you surprise me: Colors certainly won’t differ insofar as every one of them is a color; but we all know that black is not only different from white but is in fact its very opposite. And shape is most like shape in the same way. For shape is all one in genus, but some of its parts are absolutely opposite to one another, [13] and others differ in innumerable ways. And we will discover many other such cases. So don’t rely on this argument which makes a unity of all the things that are most opposed. I am afraid we will find there are some pl
easures that are contrary to others.

  PROTARCHUS: Maybe so. But how will this harm our thesis?

  SOCRATES: Because you call these unlike things, we will say, by a different name. For you say that all pleasant things are good. Now, no one contends that pleasant things are not pleasant. But while most of them are bad but [b] some good, as we hold, you nevertheless call them all good, even though you would admit that they are unlike one another if someone pressed the point. What is the common element in the good and bad pleasures that allows you to call them all good?

  PROTARCHUS: What are you saying, Socrates? Do you think anyone will agree to this who begins by laying it down that pleasure is the good? Do you think he will accept it when you say that some pleasures are good [c] but others are bad?

  SOCRATES: But you will grant that they are unlike each other and that some are opposites?

  PROTARCHUS: Not insofar as they are pleasures.

  SOCRATES: But really, Protarchus, this takes us back to the same old point. Are we, then, to say that pleasure does not differ from pleasure, but all are alike? Don’t the examples just given make the slightest impression on us? Are we to behave and speak in just the same way as those who are the most incompetent and at the same time newcomers in such discussions? [d]

  PROTARCHUS: What way do you mean?

  SOCRATES: This: Suppose I imitate you and dare to say, in defense of my thesis, that the most unlike thing is of all things most like the most unlike; then I could say the same thing as you did. But this would make us look quite childish, and our discussion would founder on the rock. Let us therefore set it afloat again. Perhaps we can reach a mutual accommodation if each side accepts a similar stance toward its candidate.

  PROTARCHUS: Just tell me how. [e]

  SOCRATES: Let me be the one questioned in turn by you.

  PROTARCHUS: About what?

  SOCRATES: About wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and all the things that I laid down at the beginning as good, when I tried to answer the question what is good. Won’t my answer suffer the same consequences as your thesis did?