Complete Works

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

  PROTARCHUS: We did.

  SOCRATES: Should we not take a look at this life and see what it is and to which kind it belongs?

  PROTARCHUS: Nothing to prevent us.

  SOCRATES: We will, I think, assign it to the third kind, for it is not a mixture of just two elements but of the sort where all that is unlimited is tied down by limit.12 It would seem right, then, to make our victorious form of life part of that kind.

  PROTARCHUS: Very right.

  [e] SOCRATES: That is settled, then. But how about your kind of life, Philebus, which is pleasant and unmixed? To which of the established kinds should it by right be assigned? But before you make your pronouncement, answer me the following question.

  PHILEBUS: Just tell me!

  SOCRATES: Do pleasure and pain have a limit, or are they of the sort that admit the more and less?

  PHILEBUS: Certainly the sort that admit the more, Socrates! For how could pleasure be all that is good if it were not by nature boundless in plenty and increase?

  [28] SOCRATES: Nor would, on the other hand, pain be all that is bad, Philebus! So we have to search for something besides its unlimited character that would bestow on pleasures a share of the good. But take note that pleasure13 is thereby assigned to the boundless. As to assigning intelligence, knowledge, and reason to one of our aforesaid kinds, how can we avoid the danger of blasphemy, Protarchus and Philebus? A lot seems to hinge on whether or not we give the right answer to this question.

  [b] PHILEBUS: Really now, you are extolling your own god, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Just as you extoll that goddess of yours, Philebus. But the question needs an answer, nevertheless.

  PROTARCHUS: Socrates is right in this, Philebus; we must obey him.

  PHILEBUS: Didn’t you choose to speak instead of me?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite. But now I am at a loss, and I entreat you, Socrates, to act as our spokesman, so that we do not misstate the case of your candidate and thus introduce a false note into the discussion.

  [c] SOCRATES: Your obedient servant, Protarchus, especially since it is not a very difficult task. But did my playful exaltation really confuse you, as Philebus claims, when I asked to what kind reason and knowledge belonged?

  PROTARCHUS: It certainly did, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: It is easy to settle, nevertheless. For all the wise are agreed, in true self-exaltation, that reason is our king, both over heaven and earth. And perhaps they are justified. But let us go into the discussion of this class itself at greater length, if you have no objections.

  [d] PROTARCHUS: Discuss it in whichever way you like, Socrates, and don’t be apologetic about longwindedness; we will not lose patience.

  SOCRATES: Well said. Let us proceed by taking up this question.

  PROTARCHUS: What question?

  SOCRATES: Whether we hold the view that the universe and this whole world order are ruled by unreason and irregularity, as chance would have it, or whether they are not rather, as our forebears taught us, governed by reason and by the order of a wonderful intelligence.

  PROTARCHUS: How can you even think of a comparison here, Socrates? [e] What you suggest now is downright impious, I would say. The only account that can do justice to the wonderful spectacle presented by the cosmic order of sun, moon, and stars and the revolution of the whole heaven, is that reason arranges it all, and I for my part would never waver in saying or believing it.

  SOCRATES: Is this what you want us to do, that we should not only conform to the view of earlier thinkers who professed this as the truth, [29] repeating without any risk what others have said, but that we should share their risk and blame if some formidable opponent denies it and argues that disorder rules?

  PROTARCHUS: How could I fail to want it?

  SOCRATES: Well, then, now face up to the consequences of this position that we have to come to terms with.

  PROTARCHUS: Please tell me.

  SOCRATES: We somehow discern that what makes up the nature of the bodies of all animals—fire, water, and air, “and earth!,” as storm-battered sailors say—are part of their composition.

  PROTARCHUS: Very much so. We are indeed battered by difficulties in [b] our discussion.

  SOCRATES: Come, now, and realize that the following applies to all constituents that belong to us.

  PROTARCHUS: What is it?

  SOCRATES: That the amount of each of these elements in us is small and insignificant, that it does not possess in the very least the purity or the power that is worthy of its nature. Take one example as an illustration representative for all. There is something called fire that belongs to us, and then again there is fire in the universe.

  PROTARCHUS: No doubt.

  SOCRATES: And is not the fire that belongs to us small in amount, feeble [c] and poor, while the fire in the universe overwhelms us by its size and beauty and by the display of all its power?

  PROTARCHUS: What you say is very true.

  SOCRATES: But what about this? Is the fire in the universe generated, nourished, and ruled by the fire that belongs to us, or is it not quite the reverse, that your heat and mine, and that in every animal, owe all this to the cosmic fire?

  PROTARCHUS: It is not even worth answering that question.

  SOCRATES: Right. And I guess you will give the same answer about the [d] earth here in the animals when it is compared to earth in the universe, and likewise about the other elements I mentioned a little earlier. Is that your answer?

  PROTARCHUS: Who could answer differently without seeming insane?

  SOCRATES: No one at all. But now see what follows. To the combination of all these elements taken as a unit we give the name “body,” don’t we?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  [e] SOCRATES: Now, realize that the same holds in the case of what we call the ordered universe. It will turn out to be a body in the same sense, since it is composed of the same elements.

  PROTARCHUS: What you say is undeniable.

  SOCRATES: Does the body of the universe as a whole provide for the sustenance of what is body in our sphere, or is it the reverse, and the universe possesses and derives all the goods enumerated from ours?

  PROTARCHUS: That too is a question not worth asking, Socrates.

  [30] SOCRATES: But what about the following, is this also a question not worth asking?

  PROTARCHUS: Tell me what the question is.

  SOCRATES: Of the body that belongs to us, will we not say that it has a soul?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite obviously that is what we will say.

  SOCRATES: But where does it come from, unless the body of the universe which has the same properties as ours, but more beautiful in all respects, happens to possess a soul?

  PROTARCHUS: Clearly from nowhere else.

  SOCRATES: We surely cannot maintain this assumption, with respect to [b] our four classes (limit, the unlimited, their mixture, and their cause—which is present in everything): that this cause is recognized as all-encompassing wisdom, since among us it imports the soul and provides training for the body and medicine for its ailments and in other cases order and restitution, but that it should fail to be responsible for the same things on a large scale in the whole universe (things that are, in addition, beautiful and pure), for the contrivance of what has so fair and wonderful a nature.

  [c] PROTARCHUS: That would make no sense at all.

  SOCRATES: But if that is inconceivable, we had better pursue the alternative account and affirm, as we have said often, that there is plenty of the unlimited in the universe as well as sufficient limit, and that there is, above them, a certain cause, of no small significance, that orders and coordinates the years, seasons, and months, and which has every right to the title of wisdom and reason.

  PROTARCHUS: The greatest right.

  SOCRATES: But there could be no wisdom and reason without a soul.

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

  [d] SOCRATES: You will therefore say that in the nature of Zeus there is the soul of a king, as well as a k
ing’s reason, in virtue of this power displayed by the cause, while paying tribute for other fine qualities in the other divinities, in conformity with the names by which they like to be addressed.

  PROTARCHUS: Very much so.

  SOCRATES: Do not think that we have engaged in an idle discussion here, Protarchus, for it comes as a support for the thinkers of old who held the view that reason is forever the ruler over the universe.

  PROTARCHUS: It certainly does.

  SOCRATES: It also has provided an answer to my query, that reason [e] belongs to that kind which is the cause of everything. But that was one of our four kinds. So there you already have the solution to our problem in your hands.

  PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and quite to my satisfaction, although at first I did not realize that you were answering.

  SOCRATES: Sometimes joking is a relief from seriousness.

  PROTARCHUS: Well said.

  SOCRATES: By now, dear friend, we have arrived at a satisfactory explanation [31] of the class that reason belongs to and what power it has.

  PROTARCHUS: Quite so.

  SOCRATES: And as to pleasure, it became apparent quite a while ago what class it belongs to.

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: Let us firmly keep it in mind about both of them, that reason is akin to cause and is part of that family, while pleasure itself is unlimited and belongs to the kind that in and by itself neither possesses nor will ever possess a beginning, middle, or end.

  PROTARCHUS: We will keep it in mind, how could we help it? [b]

  SOCRATES: After this we must next find out in what kind of thing each of them resides and what kind of condition makes them come to be when they do. Let us take pleasure first, for just as we searched for the class it belongs to first, so we start our present investigation with it. But again, we will not be able to provide a satisfactory examination of pleasure if we do not study it together with pain.

  PROTARCHUS: If that is the direction we have to take, then let’s go that way.

  SOCRATES: Do you share my view about their generation?

  PROTARCHUS: What view? [c]

  SOCRATES: Pleasure and pain seem to me by nature to arise together in the common kind.

  PROTARCHUS: Could you remind us once again, Socrates, which of those you mentioned you called the common kind?

  SOCRATES: As far as I can, my most esteemed friend.

  PROTARCHUS: That is noble of you.

  SOCRATES: By the common kind, we meant the one that was number three on our list of four.

  PROTARCHUS: You mean the one you introduced after the unlimited and the limited, the one that included health, and also harmony, I believe?

  SOCRATES: Excellently stated. But now try to put your mind to this as [d] much as possible.

  PROTARCHUS: Just go on.

  SOCRATES: What I claim is that when we find the harmony in living creatures disrupted, there will at the same time be a disintegration of their nature and a rise of pain.

  PROTARCHUS: What you say is very plausible.

  SOCRATES: But if the reverse happens, and harmony is regained and the former nature restored, we have to say that pleasure arises, if we must pronounce only a few words on the weightiest matters in the shortest possible time.

  [e] PROTARCHUS: I believe that you are right, Socrates, but why don’t we try to be more explicit about this very point?

  SOCRATES: Well, is it not child’s play to understand the most ordinary and well-known cases?

  PROTARCHUS: What cases do you mean?

  SOCRATES: Hunger, I take it, is a case of disintegration and pain?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: And eating, the corresponding refilling, is a pleasure?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: But thirst is, once again, a destruction and pain, while the [32] process that fills what is dried out with liquid is pleasure? And, further, unnatural separation and dissolution, the affection caused by heat, is pain, while the natural restoration of cooling down is pleasure?

  PROTARCHUS: Very much so.

  SOCRATES: And the unnatural coagulation of the fluids in an animal through freezing is pain, while the natural process of their dissolution or redistribution is pleasure. To cut matters short, see whether the following [b] account seems acceptable to you. When the natural combination of limit and unlimitedness that forms a live organism, as I explained before, is destroyed, this destruction is pain, while the return towards its own nature, this general restoration, is pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: So be it, for it seems to provide at least an outline.

  SOCRATES: Shall we then accept this as one kind of pleasure and pain, what happens in either of these two kinds of processes?

  PROTARCHUS: Accepted.

  SOCRATES: But now accept also the anticipation by the soul itself of these [c] two kinds of experiences; the hope before the actual pleasure will be pleasant and comforting, while the expectation of pain will be frightening and painful.

  PROTARCHUS: This turns out then to be a different kind of pleasure and pain, namely the expectation that the soul experiences by itself, without the body.

  SOCRATES: Your assumption is correct. In both these cases, as I see it at least, pleasure and pain will arise pure and unmixed with each other, so that it will become apparent as far as pleasure is concerned whether its whole class [d] is to be welcomed or whether this should rather be the privilege of one of the other classes which we have already discussed. Pleasure and pain may rather turn out to share the predicament of hot and cold and other such things that are welcome at one point but unwelcome at another, because they are not good, but it happens that some of them do occasionally assume a beneficial nature.

  PROTARCHUS: You are quite right if you suggest that this must be the direction to take if we want to find a solution to what we are looking for now.

  SOCRATES: First, then, let us take a look together at the following point. [e] If it truly holds, as we said, that their disintegration constitutes pain, but restoration is pleasure, what kind of state should we ascribe to animals when they are neither destroyed nor restored; what kind of condition is this? Think about it carefully, and tell me: Is there not every necessity that the animal will at that time experience neither pain nor pleasure, neither large nor small?

  PROTARCHUS: That is indeed necessary.

  SOCRATES: There is, then, such a condition, a third one, besides the one in which one is pleased or in which one is in pain? [33]

  PROTARCHUS: Obviously.

  SOCRATES: Make an effort to keep this fact in mind. For it makes quite a difference for our judgment of pleasure whether we remember that there is such a state or not. But we had better give it a little more consideration, if you don’t mind.

  PROTARCHUS: Just tell me how.

  SOCRATES: You realize that nothing prevents the person who has chosen the life of reason from living in this state.

  PROTARCHUS: You mean without pleasure and pain? [b]

  SOCRATES: It was one of the conditions agreed on in our comparison of lives that the person who chooses the life of reason and intelligence must not enjoy pleasures either large or small.

  PROTARCHUS: That was indeed agreed on.

  SOCRATES: He may then live in this fashion, and perhaps there would be nothing absurd if this life turns out to be the most godlike.

  PROTARCHUS: It is at any rate not likely that the gods experience either pleasure or the opposite.

  SOCRATES: It is certainly not likely. For either of these states would be quite unseemly in their case. But this is a question we had better take up again later if it should be relevant to our discussion, but let us count it as [c] an additional point in favor of reason in the competition for second prize, even if we cannot count it in that for first prize.

  PROTARCHUS: A very good suggestion.

  SOCRATES: But now as for the other kind of pleasure, of which we said that it belongs to the soul itself. It depends entirely on memory.

  PROTARCH
US: In what way?

  SOCRATES: It seems we have first to determine what kind of a thing memory is; in fact I am afraid that we will have to determine the nature of perception even before that of memory, if the whole subject matter is to become at all clear to us in the right way.

  PROTARCHUS: How do you mean? [d]

  SOCRATES: You must realize that some of the various affections of the body are extinguished within the body before they reach the soul, leaving it unaffected. Others penetrate through both body and soul and provoke a kind of upheaval that is peculiar to each but also common to both of them.

  PROTARCHUS: I realize that.

  SOCRATES: Are we fully justified if we claim that the soul remains oblivious of those affections that do not penetrate both, while it is not oblivious of those that penetrate both?

  PROTARCHUS: Of course we are justified. [e]

  SOCRATES: But you must not so misunderstand me as to suppose I meant that this ‘obliviousness’ gave rise to any kind of forgetting. Forgetting is rather the loss of memory, but in the case in question here no memory has yet arisen. It would be absurd to say that there could be the process of losing something that neither is nor was in existence, wouldn’t it?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite definitely.

  SOCRATES: You only have to make some change in names, then.

  PROTARCHUS: How so?

  SOCRATES: Instead of saying that the soul is oblivious when it remains unaffected by the disturbances of the body, now change the name of what [34] you so far called obliviousness to that of nonperception.

  PROTARCHUS: I understand.

  SOCRATES: But when the soul and body are jointly affected and moved by one and the same affection, if you call this motion perception, you would say nothing out of the way.

  PROTARCHUS: You are right.

  SOCRATES: And so we know by now what we mean by perception?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: So if someone were to call memory the ‘preservation of perception’, he would be speaking correctly, as far as I am concerned.

  [b] PROTARCHUS: Rightly so.

  SOCRATES: And do we not hold that recollection differs from memory?

  PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

  SOCRATES: Does not their difference lie in this?