Complete Works

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

  When I heard them I myself was perplexed and could not come to a judgment—though the others who were present said that the first man spoke the truth. So help me with the matter if you can:15 when one man [b] speaks can you assess what he says, or do you need his opponent too if you are to know whether he is telling the truth? Or is it unnecessary to hear both sides? What do you think?

  III

  The other day someone was criticizing a man because he had been unwilling to trust him and lend him money. The man who was being criticized was defending himself, and someone else who was present asked the critic [c] whether it was the man who did not trust him and lend him money who was in the wrong. “Or haven’t you gone wrong,” he said, “in not persuading him to lend to you?”

  “Where did I go wrong?,” he replied.

  “Who seems to you to go wrong,” he said, “—someone who fails to get what he wanted or someone who gets it?”

  “Someone who fails,” he replied.

  “And you failed,” he said, “since you wanted the loan, whereas he wanted not to give it and didn’t fail in that.”

  “Yes,” he replied, “but, granted that he didn’t give me the money, where did I go wrong?”

  “Well,” he said, “if you asked him for what you ought not to have [d] asked, then surely you realize that you were in the wrong, whereas he, who did not give it, was in the right. And if you asked him for what you ought to have asked, then surely in failing to get it you must have gone wrong.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “But surely he was wrong in not trusting me?”

  “Well,” he said, “if you had dealt with him as you should, you would not have gone wrong at all, would you?”

  “No indeed.”

  “In fact, then, you didn’t deal with him as you should.”

  “Apparently not,” he said.

  “So if he wasn’t persuaded because you didn’t deal with him as you [e] should, how can you justly criticize him?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “And can’t you say either that one needn’t be considerate to people who behave badly?”

  “I can certainly say that,” he replied.

  “But don’t those who don’t treat people as they should seem to you to behave badly?”

  “They do,” he replied.

  “Then what did he do wrong if he wasn’t considerate to you when you behaved badly?”

  “Nothing at all, it seems,” he said.

  “Then why on earth,” he said, “do men criticize one another in this way, blaming people they have not persuaded for not having been persuaded but never criticizing themselves in the least for not having persuaded [385] them?”

  Someone else who was present said: “Suppose you’ve behaved well to someone and helped him, and then when you ask him to behave in the same way to you he refuses—surely in these circumstances you might reasonably blame him?”

  “The man you are asking to behave in the same way,” he said, “is either able or unable to behave fairly towards you, isn’t he? If he’s not able to, surely you’re not making a fair request in asking him to do what he’s not able to do; and if he is able to, how did you fail to persuade such a man? [b] How can it be fair for people to say such things?”

  “Damn it,” he replied, “he ought to criticize such conduct in order that in future he’ll behave better towards him—and his other friends, too, who have heard his criticisms.”

  “Do you think that people behave better,” he asked, “if they hear someone speaking properly and making proper requests or if they hear someone going wrong?”

  “Someone speaking properly,” he replied.

  “But you thought that he was not making a proper request?”

  “True,” he said.

  “Then surely people won’t behave better when they hear such criticisms?”

  “No, they won’t,” he replied.

  “Then what is the point of such reproaches?”[c]

  He said that he could not find an answer.

  IV

  Someone was accusing a man of naïveté because he was quick to trust anyone who spoke to him.

  “It’s reasonable to trust your fellow citizens and your relations; but to trust men you’ve never seen or heard before, when you’re well aware that most men are rogues and liars—that’s no small sign of simplicity.”[d]

  One of those present said: “I thought that you would esteem someone who grasped things quickly, no matter what they were, rather than someone who did so slowly?”

  “Indeed I do,” the first man replied.

  “Then why do you criticize him,” he asked, “if he is quick to trust anyone who speaks the truth?”

  “But I’m not criticizing him for that,” he replied; “rather, it’s because he’s quick to trust people who don’t tell the truth.”

  “But suppose he had taken longer to give his trust and hadn’t trusted just anybody, and had then been deceived16—wouldn’t you have criticized him all the more?”

  “I would,” he replied.

  “Because he was slow to trust and didn’t trust just anybody?”[e]

  “Of course not,” he replied.

  “No,” he said, “I’m sure you don’t think it’s right to criticize a man for that reason, but rather because he trusts people who say what’s not trustworthy?”

  “Yes indeed,” he said.

  “Do you think then,” he said, “that it’s not right to criticize him for being slow to trust people and for not trusting just anybody, but that it is right to criticize him for being quick to trust and for trusting just anybody?”

  “No, I don’t,” he replied.

  “Then why are you criticizing him?” he asked.

  “Because he’s wrong to trust just anybody and to trust them quickly, before considering the question.”

  [386] “But if he trusted them slowly before considering the question he wouldn’t be wrong?”

  “Of course he would,” he replied “—in that case he’d be just as wrong. I think, rather, that he shouldn’t trust just anybody.”

  “If you think that he shouldn’t trust just anybody,” he said, “then surely he shouldn’t be quick to trust strangers? Rather, you think that he should first consider whether they’re telling the truth?”

  “I do,” he replied.

  “And if they’re friends and relations, needn’t he consider whether they’re telling the truth?”

  “I should say that he does need to,” he replied.

  “For perhaps even some of these people say what’s not trustworthy?”

  “Yes indeed,” he replied.

  [b] “Then why,” he said, “is it reasonable to trust your friends and relations rather than just anybody?”

  “I can’t say,” he replied.

  “Again, if you should trust your relations17 rather than just anybody, shouldn’t you also think them more trustworthy18 than just anybody?”

  “Of course,” he replied.

  “Then if they’re relations of some people and strangers to others, surely you’ll have to think them more trustworthy than themselves?19For you shouldn’t think that relations and strangers are equally trustworthy, or so you say.”

  “I can’t accept that,” he replied.

  “Equally,” he said, “some will trust20 what they say and others will deem it untrustworthy, and neither party will be wrong.”

  “That too is absurd,” he replied.

  [c] “Again,” he said, “if relations say the same thing as just anybody, surely what they say will be equally trustworthy or untrustworthy?”

  “Necessarily so,” he replied.

  “Then shouldn’t you give equal trust to anyone who says these things when he says them?”

  “That’s plausible,” he replied.

  While they argued in this way I was perplexed as to who on earth I should and shouldn’t trust, and whether I should trust the trustworthy and people who know what they’re talking about, or rather relations an
d acquaintances. What do you think about this?

  1. The speaker is not named, but is apparently intended to be taken as Socrates.

  2. Accepting two emendations in d4: adding ouk before epistamenois; changing humin to humōn.

  3. Emending ta auta to tauta in b5.

  4. Replacing the question mark after sumbouleuein in c4 with a comma.

  5. Accepting the emendations of alla to ē in d1, and ē to alla in d2.

  6. Adding kai sunoran after didaxein in a3.

  7. Emending de to d’ei in c6, and replacing the question mark in c7 with a comma.

  8. Emending huparchei to huparxei in d7.

  9. Emending axioun to axion in e2.

  10. Reading prokatagignōskōn in e9.

  11. Emending episteuse to pisteusas in a3.

  12. Hesiod, frg. 338 Merkelbach-West.

  13. Adding hos before erei in a4.

  14. Replacing the period in a5 with a question mark.

  15. Placing a comma after echeis in b1.

  16. Accepting the emendation of ēitiato to ēpatato in d7.

  17. Deleting ou in b2.

  18. Accepting the emendation of ouk apistous to ou kai pistous in b3–4.

  19. Accepting the emendation of autōi to autōn in b6.

  20. Accepting the emendation of pisteuousin to pisteusousin in b10.

  SISYPHUS

  Translated by David Gallop.

  Are some people better than others at thinking about what course of action to follow? Sisyphus certainly assumes so. He stayed behind in Pharsalus a day longer than expected in order to meet with the governing authorities to help them in their deliberations. But Socrates is puzzled about what deliberation can really be, and he wonders how it differs from mere guesswork. By the end of the dialogue, it becomes clear that Sisyphus does not know the first thing about deliberating, and Socrates offers to delve into it again with him.

  Sisyphus thinks that deliberating is trying to find out the best course of action. But Socrates argues that this cannot be right—if you are in a position to deliberate about something, you must already understand that subject, and if you understand it, you won’t try to find it out; unlike inquiry, which presupposes ignorance, meaningful deliberation presupposes knowledge. Since the objects of deliberation are in the future and not yet in determinate existence, deliberation risks being a shot in the dark unless it is aimed at something definite. What target should it be aimed at? What kind of knowledge is presupposed? The dialogue does not tell us, but surely its author (probably a follower of Plato writing in mid-fourth-century B.C.) means to encourage his readers toward Platonic philosophy and its central target—Goodness itself. At roughly the same time, in his Protrepticus, or Exhortation to Philosophy (a work surviving only in fragments), Aristotle was also arguing that political judgment needs a foundation in speculative philosophy (B46–51).

  Aristotle investigated the concept of deliberation in his lectures on ethics, where several passages indicate that this topic had been discussed in Plato’s Academy, apparently in much the same terms as in Sisyphus. Of Plato’s own works, the most relevant are Meno, which raises the paradox that one cannot try to find out either what one knows or what one doesn’t know (80d–e), and Euthydemus, which mentions two related paradoxes in the course of illustrating the difference between mere logic-chopping and real philosophy (275e– 277c).

  We find in Sisyphus certain notable anachronisms which place it firmly in the fourth century B.C.—not the fifth, when Socrates actually lived. Sisyphus of Pharsalus in Thessaly was a contemporary of Plato, not of Socrates, and played a prominent role in local affairs. Stratonicus of Athens, whom the author gratuitously mentions at the beginning of the dialogue, was a renowned performing musician and teacher of the first third of the fourth century, whom Socrates could scarcely have known. And when Socrates asks, “Where is Callistratus?” (388c), he seems to refer to Callistratus of Aphidna, a prominent Athenian politician who was on the run from a death sentence for several years after 362. So the author must have intended his dialogue to resonate with a contemporary mid-fourth-century audience. Plato’s Meno suggests by certain biographical details that it is directed against the rival educational philosophy offered by Isocrates in Athens, and the same may well be true of Sisyphus. Isocrates undertook to make his students good at deliberating, without taking what he regarded as the useless detour of Platonic philosophy, and held that “likely opinion about useful things is far better than exact knowledge of useless things” (Helen 5). Isocrates also declared, “I regard a man as wise whose opinions enable him to hit upon the best course in most cases” (Antidosis 271), a conception of wise deliberation that is called into question in Sisyphus.

  D.S.H.

  [387b] SOCRATES: We waited a long time for you yesterday as well, Sisyphus, before Stratonicus’ show, so that you could join us in hearing a real master giving a performance full of splendid material, both in theory and in practice; but after we gave up thinking you were coming, we went to hear the man by ourselves.

  SISYPHUS: Yes, that’s absolutely right—some business arose, you see, [c] which was fairly urgent, so I couldn’t ignore it. Our authorities were in conference yesterday, so they required me to join their deliberations; and if the authorities summon any of us to join their deliberations, we citizens of Pharsalus are legally bound to comply.

  SOCRATES: Well, it’s a splendid thing to obey the law, and also to be considered a good deliberator by one’s fellow citizens—as you yourself are considered to be one of the good deliberators in Pharsalus. Still, I’m not in a position to take issue with you about good deliberation, Sisyphus, [d] at the moment; that, I think, would call for a lot of leisure and a long argument—but I’d like to propose a discussion with you about deliberation itself, first of all, about what it is.

  What could deliberation itself be? Could you tell me that?—not how to do it well or badly or splendidly, but just what sort of thing deliberation itself is? Surely you could do that quite easily, being such a good deliberator yourself? I hope I’m not being too inquisitive by questioning you on the subject.

  SISYPHUS: Can it really be that you don’t know what deliberation is?

  [e] SOCRATES: Indeed I don’t, Sisyphus, at least if it differs at all from what’s done by a man who lacks understanding on some matter calling for action, guessing his answer by divining or making it up: he says whatever comes into his head, just like people who play odds-and-evens; they have no idea, of course, whether they’re holding an even or an odd number of things in their hands, yet when they say which it is, they hit upon the truth. Perhaps deliberation is also something like that: someone who has [388] no understanding of what he’s deliberating about is just lucky in what he says, and hits upon the truth. If it’s something like that, then I do know roughly what deliberation is; but if it’s not like that, then I don’t understand it at all.

  SISYPHUS: But surely, it’s not like being utterly and completely ignorant of some matter, but like being familiar with part of it, while not yet understanding the rest.

  SOCRATES: Perhaps you mean that deliberation is—Heaven help me! I [b] feel as if I’m almost divining your view about good deliberation—do you mean it’s something like this? Someone is trying to find out what would be the best course of action to take, and doesn’t yet clearly understand it, but is rather in the process of thought, as it were? Is that more or less what you mean?

  SISYPHUS: Yes, it is.

  SOCRATES: Which do people try to find out—matters which they know, or ones which they don’t know?

  SISYPHUS: Both.

  SOCRATES: When you say that people try to find out both—things they do know as well as things they don’t—perhaps you mean something like [c] this: one might, for example, be acquainted with Callistratus—know who he was—yet not know where he was to be found.1 Is that what you mean by trying to find out both?

  SISYPHUS: Yes, it is.

  SOCRATES: Now you wouldn’t try to find out the former
, knowing Callistratus, at least if you knew him?

  SISYPHUS: Of course not.

  SOCRATES: But you might try to find out where he was. [d]

  SISYPHUS: Yes, I think you might.

  SOCRATES: Nor, again, would you try to discover where the man was to be found, if you knew that; in that case, you would go and find him right away, wouldn’t you?

  SISYPHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: Apparently, then, it isn’t things which people know that they try to find out, but things they don’t know.

  But that argument may strike you as captious, Sisyphus, put forward not with a view to the truth of the matter, but merely as a debating point. If so, look at it this way, and see if you agree with what was just said. [e] You know, don’t you, what happens in geometry: the diagonal is unknown to geometers, yet there’s no question whether it is or is not a diagonal—that’s not what they’re trying to find out at all—but rather, how long it is in relation to the sides of the areas it bisects. Isn’t that what they’re trying to find out about the diagonal?

  SISYPHUS: I believe so.

  SOCRATES: And that is something unknown, isn’t it?

  SISYPHUS: Absolutely.

  SOCRATES: Or again, take the doubling of the cube. You know, don’t you, that geometers try to find out, by reasoning, how big it is? As for the cube itself, they don’t try to find out whether it’s a cube or not. That much they know, don’t they?

  SISYPHUS: Yes.

  [389] SOCRATES: Or again, consider the upper air. You surely know that what Anaxagoras and Empedocles and all the rest of the cosmologists are trying to find out is whether it’s infinite or finite.

  SISYPHUS: Yes.

  SOCRATES: But they don’t ask whether it is air, do they now?