Complete Works

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

  PROTARCHUS: There certainly are.

  SOCRATES: Now, it was agreed that whoever judges anything at all is always really judging, even if it is not about anything existing in the present, past, or future.

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: And these were, I think, the conditions that produce a false [d] judgment and judging falsely, weren’t they?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: But should we not also grant to pleasures and pains a condition that is analogous in these ways?

  PROTARCHUS: In what ways?

  SOCRATES: In the sense that whoever has any pleasure at all, however ill-founded it may be, really does have pleasure, even if sometimes it is not about anything that either is the case or ever was the case, or often (or perhaps most of the time) refers to anything that ever will be the case.

  [e] PROTARCHUS: That also must necessarily be so.

  SOCRATES: And the same account holds in the case of fear, anger, and everything of that sort, namely that all of them can at times be false?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, do we have any other way of distinguishing between bad and good judgments than their falsity?

  PROTARCHUS: We have no other.

  SOCRATES: Nor, I presume, will we find any other way to account for badness in the case of pleasures unless they are false.

  [41] PROTARCHUS: What you say is quite the opposite of the truth, Socrates! It is not at all because they are false that we regard pleasures or pains as bad, but because there is some other grave and wide-ranging kind of badness involved.

  SOCRATES: But let us discuss bad pleasures and what badness there is in their case a little later, if we still feel like it. Now we have to take up false pleasures in another sense and show that there is a great variety that arise and are at work in us. This argument will perhaps come in handy later, [b] when we have to make our decisions.

  PROTARCHUS: That may well be so, at least if there are any such pleasures.

  SOCRATES: There certainly are, Protarchus; I at least am convinced. But until this is our accepted opinion, we cannot leave this conviction unexamined.

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: So let us get ready like athletes to form a line of attack around this problem.

  PROTARCHUS: Here we go.

  SOCRATES: We did say a short while ago in our discussion, as we may [c] recall, that when what we call desires are in us, then body and soul part company and have each their separate experiences.

  PROTARCHUS: We do remember, that was said before.

  SOCRATES: And wasn’t it the soul that had desires, desires for conditions opposite to the actual ones of the body, while it was the body that undergoes the pain or the pleasure of some affection?

  PROTARCHUS: That was indeed so.

  SOCRATES: Draw your conclusions as to what is going on here.

  PROTARCHUS: You tell me.

  [d] SOCRATES: What happens is this: Under these circumstances pains and pleasures exist side by side, and there are simultaneously opposite perceptions of them, as we have just made clear.

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is clear.

  SOCRATES: But did we not also discuss this point and come to an agreement how to settle it earlier?

  PROTARCHUS: What point?

  SOCRATES: That the two of them, both pleasure and pain, admit the more and less and belong to the unlimited kind?

  PROTARCHUS: That was what we said. What about it?

  SOCRATES: Do we have any means of making a right decision about these matters?

  PROTARCHUS: Where and in what respect? [e]

  SOCRATES: In the case where we intend to come to a decision about any of them in such circumstances, which one is greater or smaller, or which one is more intensive or stronger: pain compared to pleasure, or pain compared to pain, or pleasure to pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, these questions do arise, and that is what we want to decide.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, does it happen only to eyesight that seeing objects from afar or close by distorts the truth and causes false judgments? Or [42] does not the same thing happen also in the case of pleasure and pain?

  PROTARCHUS: Much more so, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: But this is the reverse of the result we reached a little earlier.

  PROTARCHUS: What are you referring to?

  SOCRATES: Earlier it was true and false judgments which affected the respective pleasures and pains with their own condition.

  PROTARCHUS: Quite right. [b]

  SOCRATES: But now it applies to pleasures and pains themselves; it is because they are alternately looked at from close up or far away, or simultaneously put side by side, that the pleasures seem greater compared to pain and more intensive, and pains seem, on the contrary, moderate in comparison with pleasures.

  PROTARCHUS: It is quite inevitable that such conditions arise under these circumstances.

  SOCRATES: But if you take that portion of them by which they appear greater or smaller than they really are, and cut it off from each of them [c] as a mere appearance and without real being, you will neither admit that this appearance is right nor dare to say that anything connected with this portion of pleasure or pain is right and true.

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

  SOCRATES: Next in order after these, we will find pleasures and pains in animals that are even falser than these, both in appearance and reality, if we approach them in this way.

  PROTARCHUS: What are they, and what is the way?

  SOCRATES: It has by now been said repeatedly that it is a destruction of the nature of those entities through combinations and separations, through processes of filling and emptying, as well as certain kinds of growth and [d] decay, that gives rise to pain and suffering, distress, and whatever else comes to pass that goes under such a name.

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, that has often been said.

  SOCRATES: But when things are restored to their own nature again, this restoration, as we established in our agreement among our selves, is pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: Correct.

  SOCRATES: But what if nothing of that sort happens to our body, what then?

  PROTARCHUS: When could that ever happen, Socrates?

  [e] SOCRATES: Your objection is not to the point, Protarchus.

  PROTARCHUS: How so?

  SOCRATES: Because you do not prevent me from putting my question to you again.

  PROTARCHUS: What question?

  SOCRATES: If in fact nothing of that sort took place, I will ask you, what would necessarily be the consequence of this for us?

  PROTARCHUS: You mean if the body is not moved in either direction, Socrates?

  SOCRATES: That is my question.

  PROTARCHUS: This much is clear, Socrates, that in such a case there would not be either any pleasure or pain at all.

  [43] SOCRATES: Very well put. But I guess what you meant to say is that we necessarily are always experiencing one or the other, as the wise men say. For everything is in an eternal flux, upward and downward.

  PROTARCHUS: They do say that, and what they say seems important.

  SOCRATES: How else, since they themselves are important people? But I do want to avoid this argument which now assails us. I plan to escape it in this way, and you’d better make your escape with me.

  PROTARCHUS: Just tell me how.

  SOCRATES: “So be it,” we will reply to them. But as for you, answer me [b] this question: whether all living creatures in all cases notice it whenever they are affected in some way, so that we notice when we grow or experience anything of that sort, or whether it is quite otherwise.

  PROTARCHUS: It is indeed quite otherwise. Almost all of these processes totally escape our notice.

  SOCRATES: But then what we just agreed to was not well spoken, that the changes ‘upwards and downwards’ evoke pleasures and pains.

  PROTARCHUS: How could it?

  [c] SOCRATES: But if it is stated in this way, it will be better and become unobjectionable.<
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  PROTARCHUS: In what way?

  SOCRATES: That great changes cause pleasures and pains in us, while moderate or small ones engender neither of the two effects.

  PROTARCHUS: That is more correct than the other statement, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: But if this is correct, then we are back with the same kind of life we discussed before.

  PROTARCHUS: What kind?

  SOCRATES: The life that we said was painless, but also devoid of charm.

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably.

  SOCRATES: So we end up with three kinds of life, the life of pleasure, the [d] life of pain, and the neutral life. Or what would you say about these matters?

  PROTARCHUS: I would put it in the same way, that there are three kinds of life.

  SOCRATES: But to be free of pain would not be the same thing as to have pleasure?

  PROTARCHUS: How could it be the same?

  SOCRATES: If you hear someone say that it is the most pleasant thing of all to live one’s whole life without pain, how do you understand the speaker’s intention?

  PROTARCHUS: To my understanding he seems to identify pleasure with freedom from pain.

  SOCRATES: Now, imagine three sorts of things, whichever you may like, [e] and because these are high-sounding names, let us call them gold, silver, and what is neither of the two.

  PROTARCHUS: Consider it done.

  SOCRATES: Is there any way conceivable in which this third kind could turn out to be the same as one of our other two sorts, gold or silver?

  PROTARCHUS: How could it?

  SOCRATES: That the middle kind of life could turn out to be either pleasant or painful would be the wrong thing to think, if anyone happened to think so, and it would be the wrong thing to say, if anyone should say so, according to the proper account of the matter?

  PROTARCHUS: No doubt.

  SOCRATES: But we do find people who both think so and say so, my friend. [44]

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: And do they really believe they experience pleasure when they are not in pain?

  PROTARCHUS: They say so, at any rate.

  SOCRATES: They believe therefore that they are pleased at that time. Otherwise they would not say that they are.

  PROTARCHUS: It looks that way.

  SOCRATES: But they hold a false judgment about pleasure, if in fact freedom from pain and pleasure each have a nature of their own.

  PROTARCHUS: But they do have their own.

  SOCRATES: What decision shall we make? That there are three states in us, as we said just now, or that there are only two: pain being an evil in human [b] life, and liberation from pain, also called pleasure, being the good as such?

  PROTARCHUS: But why is it that we are asking ourselves this question now, Socrates? I don’t get the point.

  SOCRATES: That is because you don’t really understand who the enemies of our Philebus here are.

  PROTARCHUS: What enemies do you mean?

  SOCRATES: I mean people with a tremendous reputation in natural science who say that there are no such things as pleasures at all.

  PROTARCHUS: How so?

  [c] SOCRATES: They hold that everything the followers of Philebus call pleasures are nothing but escape from pain.

  PROTARCHUS: Do you suggest we should believe them, Socrates, or what is it you want us to do?

  SOCRATES: Not that, but to use them as seers who make their prophecies, not in virtue of any art but in virtue of a certain harshness in their nature. It is a nature not without nobility, but out of an inordinate hatred that they have conceived against the power of pleasure, they refuse to acknowledge anything healthy in it, even to the point that they regard its very attractiveness itself as witchcraft rather than pleasure. You may now make use of them [d] for our purposes, taking notice of the rest of their complaints that result from their harshness. After that you will hear what I, for my part, regard as true pleasures, so that through an examination of these two opposed points of view, we can reach a decision about the power of pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: A fair proposal.

  SOCRATES: Let us attach ourselves to them as to allies and follow their traces in the direction in which their dour arguments point us. I think they employ reasoning of this kind, starting from some such basic principle: If [e] we wanted to know the nature of any character, like that of hardness, would we get a better understanding if we looked at the hardest kinds of things rather than at what has a low degree of hardness? Now, it is your task, Protarchus, to answer these difficult people, just as you answered me.

  PROTARCHUS: Gladly, and my answer to them will be that I would look at hardness of the first degree.

  SOCRATES: But again if we wanted to study the form of pleasure, to see [45] what kind of nature it has, in that case we ought not to look at low-level pleasures, but at those that are said to be the strongest and most intensive.

  PROTARCHUS: Everyone would grant you this point.

  SOCRATES: Now, aren’t the most immediate and greatest among the pleasures the ones connected with the body, as we have often said?

  PROTARCHUS: No doubt.

  SOCRATES: And is it the case that pleasures are more intensive or set in with greater intensity when people suffer from an illness than when they are healthy? We have to beware of a hasty answer here, lest we get tripped up. [b] Perhaps we might be inclined to affirm this rather for the healthy people?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite likely.

  SOCRATES: But what about this? Are not those pleasures overwhelming which are also preceded by the greatest desires?

  PROTARCHUS: That is certainly true.

  SOCRATES: And when people suffer from fever or any such disease, aren’t they more subject to thirst, chill, and whatever else continues to affect them through the body? Do they not feel greater deprivations, and also greater pleasures at their replenishment? Or shall we deny that this is true?

  PROTARCHUS: It seems undeniable as you explained it now.

  [c] SOCRATES: Very well. Are we justified, then, if we claim that whoever wants to study the greatest pleasures should turn to sickness, not to health? Now, mind you, my question was not whether the very sick have more pleasures than healthy people; my concern is rather with the size and intensity of the condition when it takes place. Our task, as we said, is to comprehend both what its true nature is and how those conceive of it who deny that there is any such thing as pleasure at all.

  PROTARCHUS: I am following quite well what you say. [d]

  SOCRATES: You might as well be its guide, Protarchus. Now, tell me. Do you recognize greater pleasures in a life given to excesses—I do not say more pleasures, but pleasures that exceed by their force and intensity—than in a moderate life? Think carefully about it before you answer.

  PROTARCHUS: I quite understand what you are after; I see indeed a huge difference. The moderate people somehow always stand under the guidance of the proverbial maxim “nothing too much” and obey it. But as to [e] foolish people and those given to debauchery, the excesses of their pleasures drive them near madness and to shrieks of frenzy.

  SOCRATES: Good. But if this is how it stands, then it is obvious that it is in some vicious state of soul and body and not in virtue that the greatest pleasures as well as the greatest pains have their origin.

  PROTARCHUS: Obviously.

  SOCRATES: So we must pick out some of them to find out what characteristic of theirs made us call them the greatest.

  PROTARCHUS: Necessarily. [46]

  SOCRATES: Now, look at the pleasures that go with these types of maladies, what kinds of conditions they are.

  PROTARCHUS: What types do you mean?

  SOCRATES: Those pleasures of a rather repugnant type, which our harsh friends hate above all.

  PROTARCHUS: What kinds?

  SOCRATES: For example, the relief from itching by rubbing, and all of that sort that needs no other remedy. But if this condition should befall us, what in heaven’s name should we call it, pleasure or pain?

 
; PROTARCHUS: That really would seem to be a mixed experience, with a bad component, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: I did not raise this question with the intention of alluding to [b] Philebus. But without a clarification of these pleasures and of those who cultivate them, we could hardly come to any resolution of our problem.

  PROTARCHUS: Then let us take up the whole tribe of these pleasures.

  SOCRATES: You mean the ones that have that mixed nature?

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: There are mixtures that have their origin in the body and are confined to the body; then, there are mixtures found in the soul, and they [c] are confined to the soul. But then we will also find mixtures of pleasures and pains in both soul and body, and at one time the combination of both will be called pleasure; at other times it will be called pain.

  PROTARCHUS: How so?

  SOCRATES: When someone undergoes restoration or destruction he experiences two opposed conditions at once. He may feel hot while shivering or feel chilled while sweating. I suppose he will then want to retain one of these [d] conditions and get rid of the other. But if this so called bittersweet condition is hard to shake, it first causes irritation and later on turns into wild excitement.

  PROTARCHUS: A very accurate description.

  SOCRATES: Now, isn’t it the case that some of those mixtures contain an even amount of pleasures and pain, while there is a preponderance of either of the two in others?

  PROTARCHUS: Right.

  SOCRATES: Take the case that we just mentioned, of itching and scratching, as an example where the pains outweigh the pleasures. Now, when the [e] irritation and infection are inside and cannot be reached by rubbing and scratching, there is only a relief on the surface.14 In case they treat these parts by exposing them to fire or its opposite—they go from one extreme to the other in their distress—they sometimes procure enormous pleasures. But sometimes this leads to a state inside that is opposite to that outside, with a mixture of pains and pleasures, whichever way the balance may turn, because this treatment disperses by force what was mixed together or [47] mixes together what was separate, so that pains arise besides the pleasures.