Complete Works

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

  PROTARCHUS: How could it be?

  SOCRATES: So shall we then use you as our test case to try both of them?

  PROTARCHUS: By all means.

  SOCRATES: Then answer me.

  PROTARCHUS: Go ahead.

  SOCRATES: Would you find it acceptable to live your whole life in enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?

  PROTARCHUS: Why, certainly!

  SOCRATES: And would you see yourself in need of anything else if you had secured this altogether?

  PROTARCHUS: In no way.

  SOCRATES: But look, might you not have some need of knowledge, intelligence, and calculation, or anything else that is related to them?5 [b]

  PROTARCHUS: How so? If I had pleasure I would have all in all!

  SOCRATES: And living like that you could enjoy the greatest pleasures throughout your life?

  PROTARCHUS: Why should I not?

  SOCRATES: Since you would not be in possession of either reason, memory, knowledge, or true opinion, must you not be in ignorance, first of all, about this very question, whether you were enjoying yourself or not, given that you were devoid of any kind of intelligence?

  PROTARCHUS: Necessarily.

  SOCRATES: Moreover, due to lack of memory, it would be impossible for [c] you to remember that you ever enjoyed yourself, and for any pleasure to survive from one moment to the next, since it would leave no memory. But, not possessing right judgment, you would not realize that you are enjoying yourself even while you do, and, being unable to calculate, you could not figure out any future pleasures for yourself. You would thus not live a human life but the life of a mollusk or of one of those creatures in shells that live in the sea. Is this what would happen, or can we think of any other consequences besides these? [d]

  PROTARCHUS: How could we?

  SOCRATES: But is this a life worth choosing?

  PROTARCHUS: Socrates, this argument has left me absolutely speechless for the moment.

  SOCRATES: Even so, let us not give in to weakness; let us in turn rather inspect the life of reason.

  PROTARCHUS: What kind of life do you have in mind?

  SOCRATES: Whether any one of us would choose to live in possession of every kind of intelligence, reason, knowledge, and memory of all things, while having no part, neither large nor small, of pleasure or of pain, living [e] in total insensitivity of anything of that kind.

  PROTARCHUS: To me at least neither of these two forms of life seems worthy of choice, nor would it to anyone else, I presume.

  SOCRATES: But what about a combination of both, Protarchus, a life that [22] results from a mixture of the two?

  PROTARCHUS: You mean a mixture of pleasure with reason and intelligence?

  SOCRATES: Right, those are the ingredients I mean.

  PROTARCHUS: Everybody would certainly prefer this life to either of the other two, without exception.

  SOCRATES: Do we realize what the upshot of this new development in our discussion is?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly, that of the three lives offered to us, two are not [b] sufficient or worthy of choice for either man or animal.

  SOCRATES: As far as they are concerned, is it then not clear at least, that neither the one nor the other contained the good, since otherwise it would be sufficient, perfect, and worthy of choice for any of the plants and animals that can sustain them, throughout their lifetime? And if anyone among us should choose otherwise, then he would do so involuntarily, in opposition to what is by nature truly choiceworthy, from ignorance or some unfortunate necessity.

  PROTARCHUS: It certainly looks that way.

  [c] SOCRATES: Enough has been said, it seems to me, to prove that Philebus’ goddess and the good cannot be regarded as one.6

  PHILEBUS: Nor is your reason the good, Socrates, and the same complaint applies to it.

  SOCRATES: It may apply to my reason, Philebus, but certainly not to the true, the divine reason, I should think. It is in quite a different condition. But now I am not arguing that reason ought to get first prize over and [d] against the combined life; we have rather to look and make up our minds about the second prize, how to dispose of it. One of us may want to give credit for the combined life to reason, making it responsible, the other to pleasure. Thus neither of the two would be the good, but it could be assumed that one or the other of them is its cause. But I would be even more ready to contend against Philebus that, whatever the ingredient in the mixed life may be that makes it choiceworthy and good, reason is [e] more closely related to that thing and more like it than pleasure; and if this can be upheld, neither first nor second prize could really ever be claimed for pleasure. She will in fact not even get as much as third prize, if we can put some trust in my insight for now.

  PROTARCHUS: By now it seems to me indeed that pleasure has been defeated as if knocked down by your present arguments, Socrates. In her [23] fight for victory, she has fallen. And as for reason, we may say that it wisely did not compete for first prize, for it would have suffered the same fate. But if pleasure were also deprived of second prize, she would definitely be somewhat dishonored in the eyes of her own lovers, nor would she seem as fair to them as before.

  SOCRATES: What, then? Had we not better leave her alone now, rather than subject her to the most exacting test and give her pain by such an examination?

  PROTARCHUS: You talk nonsense, Socrates.

  [b] SOCRATES: Why, because I said the impossible, “giving pain to pleasure”?

  PROTARCHUS: Not only that, but because you don’t realize that not one among us would let you go before you have carried the discussion of these questions to its end.

  SOCRATES: Oh dear, Protarchus, then a long discussion lies ahead of us, and not exactly an easy one either at this point. For it seems that, in the battle about the second prize for reason, a different device will be needed, different armament as it were, from that used in our previous discussion, though it may partly be the same. Are we to proceed?

  PROTARCHUS: Of course.

  SOCRATES: Let us be very careful about the starting point we take. [c]

  PROTARCHUS: What kind of starting point?

  SOCRATES: Let us make a division of everything that actually exists now in the universe into two kinds, or if this seems preferable, into three.

  PROTARCHUS: Could you explain on what principle?

  SOCRATES: By taking up some of what has been said before.

  PROTARCHUS: Like what?

  SOCRATES: We agreed earlier that the god had revealed a division of what is into the unlimited and the limit.7

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Let us now take these as two of the kinds, while treating the one that results from the mixture of these two as our third kind. But I must [d] look like quite a fool with my distinctions into kinds and enumerations!

  PROTARCHUS: What are you driving at?

  SOCRATES: That we seem to be in need of yet a fourth kind.

  PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.

  SOCRATES: Look at the cause of this combination of those two together, and posit it as my fourth kind in addition to those three.

  PROTARCHUS: Might you not also be in need of a fifth kind that provides for their separation?

  SOCRATES: Perhaps, but I do not think so, at least for now. But if it turns out that I need it, I gather you will bear with me if I should search for a [e] fifth kind.

  PROTARCHUS: Gladly.

  SOCRATES: Let us first take up three of the four, and since we observe that of two of them, both are split up and dispersed into many, let’s make an effort to collect those into a unity again, in order to study how each of them is in fact one and many.

  PROTARCHUS: If you could explain all that more clearly, I might be able to follow you.

  SOCRATES: What I mean is this: The two kinds are the ones I referred to [24] just now, the unlimited and what has limit. That the unlimited in a way is many I will try to explain now. The treatment of what has limit will have to wait a little longer.

  PROTARC
HUS: Let it wait.

  SOCRATES: Attention, then. The matter I am asking you to attend to is difficult and controversial, but attend to it nevertheless. Check first in the case of the hotter and the colder whether you can conceive of a limit, or whether the ‘more and less’ do not rather reside in these kinds, and while [b] they reside in them do not permit the attainment of any end. For once an end has been reached, they will both have been ended as well.

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: We are agreed, then, that the hotter and the colder always contain the more and less.

  PROTARCHUS: Quite definitely.

  SOCRATES: Our argument forces us to conclude that these things never have an end. And since they are endless, they turn out to be entirely unlimited.

  PROTARCHUS: Quite strongly so, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: You have grasped this rather well, Protarchus, and remind [c] me rightly with your pronouncement of ‘strongly’ that it and equally its counterpart ‘gently’ are of the same caliber as the more and less. Wherever they apply, they prevent everything from adopting a definite quantity; by imposing on all actions the qualification ‘stronger’ relative to ‘gentler’ or the reverse, they procure a ‘more and less’ while doing away with all definite quantity. We are saying now, in effect, that if they do not abolish definite quantity, but let quantity and measurement take a foothold in the [d] domain of the more and less, the strong and mild, they will be driven out of their own territory. For once they take on a definite quantity, they would no longer be hotter and colder. The hotter and equally the colder are always in flux and never remain, while definite quantity means standstill and the end of all progression. The upshot of this argument is that the hotter, together with its opposite, turn out to be unlimited.

  PROTARCHUS: That seems to be its result, Socrates, although, as you said yourself, it is difficult to follow in these matters. But if they are repeated [e] again and again, perhaps both questioner and respondent may end up in a satisfactory state of agreement.

  SOCRATES: A good idea; let us carry it out. But consider whether, to avoid the needless length of going through a complete survey of all cases, the following indication may serve to mark out the nature of the unlimited.

  PROTARCHUS: What indication do you have in mind?

  SOCRATES: Whatever seems to us to become ‘more and less’, or susceptible to ‘strong and mild’ or to ‘too much’ and all of that kind, all that we [25] ought to subsume under the genus of the unlimited as its unity. This is in compliance with the principle we agreed on before, that for whatever is dispersed and split up into a multitude, we must try to work out its unifying nature as far as we can, if you remember.

  PROTARCHUS: I do remember.

  SOCRATES: But look now at what does not admit of these qualifications but rather their opposites, first of all ‘the equal’ and ‘equality’ and, after [b] the equal, things like ‘double’, and all that is related as number to number or measure to measure: If we subsume all these together under the heading of ‘limit’, we would seem to do a fair job. Or what do you say?

  PROTARCHUS: A very fair job, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Very well, then. But what nature shall we ascribe to the third kind, the one that is the mixture of the two?

  PROTARCHUS: You will have to answer that question for me, I think.

  SOCRATES: A god rather, if any of them should listen to my prayers.

  PROTARCHUS: So say your prayer, and wait for the result.

  SOCRATES: I am waiting, and indeed I have the feeling that one of the gods is favorably disposed to us now, Protarchus.

  PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by that, and what evidence have you? [c]

  SOCRATES: I certainly will tell you, but you follow closely what I say.

  PROTARCHUS: Just go on.

  SOCRATES: We called something hotter and colder just now, didn’t we?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Now add dryer and wetter to them, and more and less, faster and slower, taller and shorter, and whatever else we have previously collected together as the one kind that has the nature of taking on the ‘more and less’.

  PROTARCHUS: You mean the nature of the unlimited? [d]

  SOCRATES: Yes. Now take the next step and mix with it the class of the limit.

  PROTARCHUS: Which one?

  SOCRATES: The very one we have so far omitted to collect together, the class that has the character of limit, although we ought to have given unity to it, just as we collected together the unlimited kind. But perhaps it will come to the same thing even now if, through the collection of these two kinds, the unity of the former kind becomes conspicuous too.

  PROTARCHUS: What kind do you mean, and how is this supposed to work?

  SOCRATES: The kind that contains equal and double, and whatever else puts an end to the conflicts there are among opposites, making them [e] commensurate and harmonious by imposing a definite number on them.

  PROTARCHUS: I understand. I have the impression that you are saying that, from such mixture in each case, certain generations result?

  SOCRATES: Your impression is correct.

  PROTARCHUS: Then go on with your explanation.

  SOCRATES: Is it not true that in sickness the right combination of the opposites establishes the state of health?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly. [26]

  SOCRATES: And does not the same happen in the case of the high and the low, the fast and the slow, which belong to the unlimited? Is it not the presence of these factors in them8 which forges a limit and thereby creates the different kinds of music in their perfection?

  PROTARCHUS: Beautiful!

  SOCRATES: And once engendered in frost and heat, limit takes away their excesses and unlimitedness, and establishes moderation and harmony in that domain?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite.

  [b] SOCRATES: And when the unlimited and what has limit are mixed together, we are blessed with seasons and all sorts of fine things of that kind?

  PROTARCHUS: Who could doubt it?

  SOCRATES: And there are countless other things I have to pass by in silence: With health there come beauty and strength, and again in our soul there is a host of other excellent qualities. It is the goddess herself, fair Philebus, who recognizes how excess and the overabundance of our wickedness allow for no limit in our pleasures and their fulfillment, and she [c] therefore imposes law and order as a limit on them. And while you may complain that this ruins them, I by contrast call it their salvation. How does this strike you, Protarchus?

  PROTARCHUS: This fits my own intuitions, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: These, then, are the three kinds I spoke of, if you see what I mean.

  PROTARCHUS: I think I’ve got it. It seems to me that you are referring to the unlimited as one kind, to the limit within things as the other, second kind. But I still do not sufficiently understand what you mean by the third.

  SOCRATES: You are simply overwhelmed by the abundance of the third [d] kind,9 my admirable friend. Although the class of the unlimited also displays a multiplicity, it preserved at least the appearance of unity, since it kind, was marked out by the common character of the more and less.

  PROTARCHUS: That is true.

  SOCRATES: About limit, on the other hand, we did not trouble ourselves,10 neither that it has plurality nor whether it is one by nature.

  PROTARCHUS: Why should we have done so?

  SOCRATES: No reason. But see what I mean by the third kind: I treat all the joint offspring of the other two kinds as a unity, a coming-into-being created through the measures imposed by the limit.

  PROTARCHUS: I understand.

  [e] SOCRATES: But now we have to look at the fourth kind we mentioned earlier, in addition to these three. Let this be our joint investigation. See now whether you think it necessary that everything that comes to be comes to be through some cause?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly, as far as I can see. How could anything come to be without one?

  SOCRATES: And is it not the cas
e that there is no difference between the nature of what makes and the cause, except in name, so that the maker and the cause would rightly be called one?

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: But what about what is made and what comes into being, [27] will we not find the same situation, that they also do not differ except in name?

  PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

  SOCRATES: And isn’t it the case that what makes is always leading in the order of nature, while the thing made follows since it comes into being through it?

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: Therefore the cause and what is subservient to the cause in a process of coming to be are also different and not the same?

  PROTARCHUS: How should they be?

  SOCRATES: It follows, then, that what comes to be and that from which it is produced represent all three kinds?

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: We therefore declare that the craftsman who produces all [b] these must be the fourth kind, the cause, since it has been demonstrated sufficiently that it differs from the others?

  PROTARCHUS: It certainly is different.

  SOCRATES: Now that the four kinds have been distinguished, it seems right to go through them one by one, for memory’s sake.

  PROTARCHUS: Of course.

  SOCRATES: As the first I count the unlimited, limit as the second, afterwards in third place comes the being which is mixed and generated out of those two. And no mistake is made if the cause of this mixture and [c] generation is counted as number four?

  PROTARCHUS: How could there be one?

  SOCRATES: Now, let’s see, what is going to be our next point after this, and what concern of ours got us to this point? Was it not this? We were wondering whether second prize should be awarded to pleasure or to knowledge, wasn’t that it?11

  PROTARCHUS: It was indeed.

  SOCRATES: On the basis of our fourfold distinction we may now perhaps be in a better position to come to a decision about the first and the second prize, the issue that started our whole debate.

  PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

  SOCRATES: Let us continue, then. We declared the life that combines [d] pleasure and knowledge the winner. Didn’t we?