Complete Works

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

  SOCRATES: Nothing fanciful at all, Protarchus; this is just a playful manner of speaking. What is really meant is that all things are either for the sake of something else or they are that for whose sake the other kind comes to be in each case.

  PROTARCHUS: I finally managed to understand it, thanks to the many repetitions.

  SOCRATES: Perhaps, my boy, we will understand better as the argument [54] proceeds.

  PROTARCHUS: No doubt.

  SOCRATES: So let’s take another pair.

  PROTARCHUS: Of what kind?

  SOCRATES: Take on the one hand the generation of all things, on the other their being.

  PROTARCHUS: I also accept this pair from you, being and generation.

  SOCRATES: Excellent. Now, which of the two do you think exists for the other’s sake? Shall we say that generation takes place for the sake of being, or does being exist for the sake of generation?

  PROTARCHUS: Whether what is called being is what it is for the sake of generation, is that what you want to know?

  SOCRATES: Apparently.

  PROTARCHUS: By heavens, what a question to ask me! You might as well [b] ask: “Tell me, Protarchus, whether shipbuilding goes on for the sake of ships or whether ships are for the sake of shipbuilding,” or some such thing.

  SOCRATES: That is precisely what I am talking about, Protarchus.

  PROTARCHUS: What keeps you from answering your questions yourself, Socrates?

  SOCRATES: Nothing, provided you take your share in the argument.

  PROTARCHUS: I am quite determined to.

  SOCRATES: I hold that all ingredients, as well as all tools, and quite [c] generally all materials, are always provided for the sake of some process of generation. I further hold that every process of generation in turn always takes place for the sake of some particular being, and that all generation taken together takes place for the sake of being as a whole.

  PROTARCHUS: Nothing could be clearer.

  SOCRATES: Now, pleasure, since it is a process of generation, necessarily comes to be for the sake of some being.

  PROTARCHUS: Of course.

  SOCRATES: But that for the sake of which what comes to be for the sake of something comes to be in each case, ought to be put into the class of the things good in themselves, while that which comes to be for the sake of something else belongs in another class, my friend.

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably.

  [d] SOCRATES: But if pleasure really is a process of generation, will we be placing it correctly, if we put it in a class different from that of the good?

  PROTARCHUS: That too is undeniable.

  SOCRATES: It is true, then, as I said at the beginning of this argument, that we ought to be grateful to the person who indicated to us that there is always only generation of pleasure and that it has no being whatsoever. And it is obvious that he will just laugh at those who claim that pleasure is good.

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  [e] SOCRATES: But this same person will also laugh at those who find their fulfillment in processes of generation.

  PROTARCHUS: How so, and what sort of people are you alluding to?

  SOCRATES: I am talking of those who cure their hunger and thirst or anything else that is cured by processes of generation. They take delight in generation as a pleasure and proclaim that they would not want to live if they were not subject to hunger and thirst and if they could not experience all the other things one might want to mention in connection with such conditions.

  [55] PROTARCHUS: That is very like them.

  SOCRATES: But would we not all say that destruction is the opposite of generation?

  PROTARCHUS: Necessarily.

  SOCRATES: So whoever makes this choice would choose generation and destruction in preference to that third life which consists of neither pleasure nor pain, but is a life of thought in the purest degree possible.

  PROTARCHUS: So a great absurdity seems to appear, Socrates, if we posit pleasure as good.

  SOCRATES: An absurdity indeed, especially if we go on to look at it this way.

  PROTARCHUS: In what way?

  [b] SOCRATES: How is this not absurd: that there should be nothing good or noble in bodies or anywhere else except in the soul, but in the soul pleasure should be the only good thing, so that courage or moderation or reason or any of the other goods belonging to the soul would be neither good nor noble? In addition, we would have to call the person who experiences not pleasure but pain bad while he is in pain, even if he were the best of all men. By contrast, we would have to say of whoever is pleased that the greater his pleasure whenever he is pleased, the more he excels in virtue! [c]

  PROTARCHUS: All that is as absurd as possible, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Now, let us not undertake to give pleasure every possible test, while going very lightly with reason and knowledge. Let us rather strike them valiantly all around, to see if there is some fault anywhere. So we’ll learn what is by nature purest in them. And seeing this, we can use the truest parts of these, as well as of pleasure, to make our joint decision.

  PROTARCHUS: Fair enough.

  SOCRATES: Among the disciplines to do with knowledge, one part is [d] productive, the other concerned with education and nurture, right?

  PROTARCHUS: Just so.

  SOCRATES: But let us first find out whether within the manual arts there is one side more closely related to knowledge itself, the other less closely; secondly, whether we should treat the one as quite pure, as far as it goes, the other as less pure.

  PROTARCHUS: That is what we ought to do.

  SOCRATES: So let us sort out the leading disciplines among them.

  PROTARCHUS: Which disciplines, and how are we to do it?

  SOCRATES: If someone were to take away all counting, measuring, and [e] weighing from the arts and crafts, the rest might be said to be worthless.

  PROTARCHUS: Worthless, indeed!

  SOCRATES: All we would have left would be conjecture and the training of our senses through experience and routine. We would have to rely on our ability to make the lucky guesses that many people call art, once it has acquired some proficiency through practice and hard work. [56]

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably so.

  SOCRATES: This is clear, to start with, in the case of flute-playing.19 The harmonies are found not by measurement but by the hit and miss of training, and quite generally music tries to find the measure by observing the vibrating strings. So there is a lot of imprecision mixed up in it and very little reliability.

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: And will we not discover that medicine, agriculture, navigation, [b] and strategy are in the same condition?

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: But as to building, I believe that it owes its superior level of craftsmanship over other disciplines to its frequent use of measures and instruments, which give it high accuracy.

  PROTARCHUS: In what way?

  SOCRATES: In shipbuilding and housebuilding, but also in many other [c] woodworking crafts. For it employs straightedge and compass, as well as a mason’s rule, a line, and an ingenious gadget called a carpenter’s square.

  PROTARCHUS: You are quite right, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Let us, then, divide the so-called arts into two parts, those like music, with less precision in their practice, and those like building, with more precision.

  PROTARCHUS: Agreed.

  SOCRATES: And let’s take those among them as most accurate that we called primary just now.

  PROTARCHUS: I suppose you mean arithmetic and the other disciplines you mentioned after it.

  [d] SOCRATES: That’s right. But don’t you think we have to admit that they, too, fall into two kinds, Protarchus?

  PROTARCHUS: What two kinds do you mean?

  SOCRATES: Don’t we have to agree, first, that the arithmetic of the many is one thing, and the philosophers’ arithmetic is quite another?

  PROTARCHUS: How could anyone distinguish these two kinds of arithmetic?<
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  SOCRATES: The difference is by no means small, Protarchus. First there are those who compute sums of quite unequal units, such as two armies [e] or two herds of cattle, regardless whether they are tiny or huge. But then there are the others who would not follow their example, unless it were guaranteed that none of those infinitely many units differed in the least from any of the others.

  PROTARCHUS: You explain very well the notable difference among those who make numbers their concern, so it stands to reason that there are those two different kinds of arithmetic.

  SOCRATES: Well, then, what about the art of calculating and measuring as builders and merchants use them and the geometry and calculations practiced [57] by philosophers—shall we say there is one sort of each of them or two?

  PROTARCHUS: Going by what was said before, I ought to vote for the option that they are two of each sort.

  SOCRATES: Right. But do you realize why we have brought up this question here?

  PROTARCHUS: Possibly, but I would appreciate it if you answered the question yourself.

  SOCRATES: The aim of our discussion now seems to be, just as it was [b] when we first set out, to find an analogue here to the point we made about pleasure. So now we ought to find out whether there is a difference in purity between different kinds of knowledge in the same way as there was between different kinds of pleasures.

  PROTARCHUS: This obviously was the purpose of our present question.

  SOCRATES: But what next? Have we not discovered before that different subject matters require different arts and that they have different degrees of certainty?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, we did.

  SOCRATES: It is questionable, then, whether an art that goes under one name and is commonly treated as one should not rather be treated as two, depending on the difference in certainty and purity. And if this is so, we [c] must also ask whether the art has more precision in the hands of the philosopher than its counterpart in the hands of the nonphilosopher.

  PROTARCHUS: That is indeed the question here.

  SOCRATES: So what answer shall we give to it, Protarchus?

  PROTARCHUS: Socrates, we have come across an amazing difference between the sciences, as far as precision is concerned.

  SOCRATES: Will that facilitate our answer?

  PROTARCHUS: Obviously. And let it be said that these sciences are far superior to the other disciplines, but that those among them that are [d] animated by the spirit of the true philosophers are infinitely superior yet in precision and truth in their use of measure and number.

  SOCRATES: Let us settle for this doctrine, and trusting you, we will confidently answer those powerful makers of word traps.20

  PROTARCHUS: What answer shall we give them?

  SOCRATES: That there are two kinds of arithmetic and two kinds of geometry, and a great many other sciences following in their lead, which have the same twofold nature while sharing one name.

  PROTARCHUS: Let us give our answer, with best wishes, to those powerful [e] people, as you call them, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Do we maintain that these kinds of sciences are the most precise?

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: But the power of dialectic would repudiate us if we put any other science ahead of her.

  PROTARCHUS: What science do we mean by that again?

  SOCRATES: Clearly everybody would know what science I am referring [58] to now! For I take it that anyone with any share in reason at all would consider the discipline concerned with being and with what is really and forever in every way eternally self-same by far the truest of all kinds of knowledge. But what is your position? How would you decide this question, Protarchus?

  PROTARCHUS: On many occasions, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias insist that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the [b] best of all the arts. Now I am reluctant to take up a position against either him or you.

  SOCRATES: I suspect that at first you wanted to say “take up arms,” but then suppressed it in embarrassment.21

  PROTARCHUS: You may take this whatever way pleases you.

  SOCRATES: But am I to blame for a misunderstanding on your part?

  PROTARCHUS: In what respect?

  SOCRATES: What I wanted to find out here, my dear friend Protarchus, [c] was not what art or science excels all others by its grandeur, by its nobility, or by its usefulness to us. Our concern here was rather to find which one aims for clarity, precision, and the highest degree of truth, even if it is a minor discipline and our benefit is small. Look at it this way: You can avoid making an enemy of Gorgias so long as you let his art win as far as the actual profit for human life is concerned.

  But as to the discipline I am talking about now, what I said earlier about the white also applies in this case: Even in a small quantity it can [d] be superior in purity and truth to what is large in quantity but impure and untrue. We must look for this science without concern for its actual benefit or its prestige, but see whether it is by its nature a capacity in our soul to love the truth and to do everything for its sake. And if thorough reflection and sufficient discussion confirms this for our art, then we can say that it is most likely to possess purity of mind and reason. Otherwise we would have to look for a higher kind of knowledge than this.

  [e] PROTARCHUS: Well, thinking it over, I agree that it would be difficult to find any other kind of art or any other science that is closer to the truth than this one.

  SOCRATES: When you gave this answer now, did you realize that most of the arts and sciences and those who work at them are in the first place [59] only concerned with opinions and make opinions the center of their search? For even if they think they are studying nature, you must realize that all their lives they are merely dealing with this world order, how it came to be, how it is affected, and how it acts? Is that our position or not?

  PROTARCHUS: Quite so.

  SOCRATES: So such a person assumes the task of dealing, not with things eternal, but with what comes to be, will come to be, or has come to be?

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably.

  SOCRATES: So how could we assert anything definite about these matters [b] with exact truth if it never did possess nor will possess nor now possesses any kind of sameness?

  PROTARCHUS: Impossible.

  SOCRATES: And how could we ever hope to achieve any kind of certainty about subject matters that do not in themselves possess any certainty?

  PROTARCHUS: I see no way.

  SOCRATES: Then there can be no reason or knowledge that attains the highest truth about these subjects!

  PROTARCHUS: At least it does not seem likely.

  SOCRATES: We must therefore dismiss entirely you and me and also Gorgias and Philebus, but must make this declaration about our investigation.

  [c] PROTARCHUS: What declaration?

  SOCRATES: Either we will find certainty, purity, truth, and what we may call integrity among the things that are forever in the same state, without anything mixed in it, or we will find it in what comes as close as possible to it. Everything else has to be called second-rate and inferior.

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: Would not strict justice demand that we call the noblest things by the noblest names?

  PROTARCHUS: That’s only fair.

  SOCRATES: And aren’t reason and knowledge names that deserve the [d] highest honor?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: So, in their most accurate sense and appropriate use, they are applied to insights into true reality?

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: But these were the very names that I put forward at the beginning for our verdict.

  PROTARCHUS: The very ones, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Good. But as to the mixture of intelligence and pleasure, if one likened our situation to that of builders with ingredients or materials [e] to use in construction, this would be a fitting comparison.

  PROTAR
CHUS: Very fitting.

  SOCRATES: So next we ought to try our hands at the mixture?

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: But had we not better repeat and remind ourselves of certain points?

  PROTARCHUS: What are they?

  SOCRATES: Those we kept reminding ourselves of before. The proverb fits well here that says that good things deserve repeating ‘twice or even thrice’. [60]

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: On, then, by the heavens! This is, I think, the general drift of what we said.

  PROTARCHUS: What was it?

  SOCRATES: Philebus says that pleasure is the right aim for all living beings and that all should try to strive for it, that it is at the same time the good for all things, so that good and pleasant are but two names that really belong to what is by nature one and the same. Socrates, by contrast, affirms [b] that these are not one and the same thing but two, just as they are two in name, that the good and the pleasant have a different nature, and that intelligence has a greater share in the good than pleasure. Isn’t that the matter at issue now, just as it was before, Protarchus?22

  PROTARCHUS: Very much so.

  SOCRATES: And are we also agreed on this point now, just as we were before?

  PROTARCHUS: What point?

  SOCRATES: That the difference between the nature of the good and everything else is this?

  [c] PROTARCHUS: What is it?

  SOCRATES: Any creature that was in permanent possession of it, entirely and in every way, would never be in need of anything else, but would live in perfect self-sufficiency. Is that right?

  PROTARCHUS: It is right.

  SOCRATES: But didn’t we try to give them a separate trial in our discussion, assigning each of them a life of its own, so that pleasure would remain unmixed with intelligence, and, again, intelligence would not have the tiniest bit of pleasure?

  PROTARCHUS: That’s what we did.

  [d] SOCRATES: Did either of the two seem to us self-sufficient at that time for anyone?

  PROTARCHUS: How could it?

  SOCRATES: If some mistake was made then, anyone now has the opportunity to take it up again and correct it. Let him put memory, intelligence, knowledge, and true opinion into one class, and ask himself whether anybody would choose to possess or acquire anything else without that [e] class. Most particularly, whether he would want pleasure, as much and as intensive as it can be, without the true opinion that he enjoys it, without recognizing what kind of experience it is he has, without memory of this affection for any length of time. And let him put reason to the same test, whether anyone would prefer to have it without any kind of pleasure, even a very short-lived one, rather than with some pleasures, provided that he does not want all pleasures without intelligence rather than with some fraction of it.