PLATO PHILEBUS 360 BC IN FIVE WEB-PAGE PARTS - PART TWO TRANSLATED BY Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893) Benjamin Jowett was an English scholar, classicist and theologian. Noted as one of the greatest British educators of the 19th century, he was renowned for his translations of Plato and as an outstanding and influential tutor. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford. PLATO

Plato (Greek Pláton, "broad" 428/427 BC - 348/347 BC), was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science

PHILEBUS The Philebus composed between 360 and 347 BC, is among the last of the late Socratic dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Socrates is the primary speaker in Philebus, unlike in the other late dialogues. The other speakers are Philebus and Protarchus. The dialogue's central question concerns the relative value of pleasure and knowledge, and produces a model for thinking about how complex structures are developed. Socrates begins by summarizing the two sides of the dialogue: Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things. But he then goes on to dismiss both pleasure and knowledge as unsatisfactory, reasoning that the truly good life is one of a measured and sensible mixture of the two. The dialogue is generally considered to contain less humor than earlier dialogues, and to emphasize philosophy and speculation over drama and poetry. (wikipedia)

PHILEBUS
360 BC

SOCRATES: PROTARCHUS: PHILEBUS:



SOCRATES: Let us assume these two principles, and also a third, which is compounded out of them; but I fear that am ridiculously clumsy at these processes of division and enumeration.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my good friend?

SOCRATES: I say that a fourth class is still wanted.

PROTARCHUS: What will that be?

SOCRATES: Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a fourth class to the three others.

PROTARCHUS: And would you like to have a fifth dass or cause of resolution as well as a cause of composition?

SOCRATES: Not, I think, at present; but if I want a fifth at some future time you shall allow me to have it.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Let us begin with the first three; and as we find two out of the three greatly divided and dispersed, let us endeavour to reunite them, and see how in each of them there is a one and many.

PROTARCHUS: If you would explain to me a little more about them, perhaps I might be able to follow you.

SOCRATES: Well, the two classes are the same which I mentioned before, one the finite, and the other the infinite; I will first show that the infinite is in a certain sense many, and the finite may be hereafter discussed.

PROTARCHUS: I agree.

SOCRATES: And now consider well; for the question to which I invite your attention is difficult and controverted. When you speak of hotter and colder, can you conceive any limit in those qualities? Does not the more and less, which dwells in their very nature, prevent their having any end? for if they had an end, the more and less would themselves have an end.

PROTARCHUS: That is most true.

SOCRATES: Ever, as we say, into the hotter and the colder there enters a more and a less.

PROTARCHUS:

Yes.

SOCRATES: Then, says the argument, there is never any end of them, and being endless they must also be infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true.

SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Protarchus, and your answer reminds me that such an expression as "exceedingly," which you have just uttered, and also the term "gently," have the same significance as more or less; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the existence of quantity-they are always introducing degrees into actions, instituting a comparison of a more or a less excessive or a more or a less gentle, and at each creation of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and measure did not disappear, but were allowed to intrude in the sphere of more and less and the other comparatives, these last would be driven out of their own domain. When definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a "hotter" or a "colder" (for these are always progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity is at rest, and has ceased to progress. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter, and the colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite.

PROTARCHUS: Your remark certainly, has the look of truth, Socrates; but these subjects, as you were saying, are difficult to follow at first. I think however, that if I could hear the argument repeated by you once or twice, there would be a substantial agreement between us.

SOCRATES: Yes, and I will try to meet your wish; but, as I would rather not waste time in the enumeration of endless particulars, let me know whether I may not assume as a note of the infinite-

PROTARCHUS: What?

SOCRATES: I want to know whether such things as appear to us to admit of more or less, or are denoted by the words "exceedingly," "gently," "extremely," and the like, may not be referred to the class of the infinite, which is their unity, for, as was asserted in the previous argument, all things that were divided and dispersed should be brought together, and have the mark or seal of some one nature, if possible, set upon them-do you remember?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And all things which do not admit of more or less, but admit their opposites, that is to say, first of all, equality, and the equal, or again, the double, or any other ratio of number and measure-all these may, I think, be rightly reckoned by us in the class of the limited or finite; what do you say?

PROTARCHUS: Excellent, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And now what nature shall we ascribe to the third or compound kind?

PROTARCHUS: You, I think, will have to tell me that.

SOCRATES: Rather God will tell you, if there be any God who will listen to my prayers.

PROTARCHUS: Offer up a prayer, then, and think.

SOCRATES: I am thinking, Protarchus, and I believe that some God has befriended us.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, and what proof have you to offer of what you are saying?

SOCRATES: I will tell you, and do you listen to my words.

PROTARCHUS: Proceed.

SOCRATES: Were we not speaking just now of hotter and colder?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Add to them drier, wetter, more, less, swifter, slower, greater, smaller, and all that in the preceding argument we placed under the unity of more and less.

PROTARCHUS: In the class of the infinite, you mean?

SOCRATES: Yes; and now mingle this with the other.

PROTARCHUS: What is the other.

SOCRATES: The class of the finite which we ought to have brought together as we did the infinite; but, perhaps, it will come to the same thing if we do so now;-when the two are combined, a third will appear.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by the class of the finite?

SOCRATES: The class of the equal and the double, and any class which puts an end to difference and opposition, and by introducing number creates harmony and proportion among the different elements.

PROTARCHUS: I understand; you seem to me to mean that the various opposites, when you mingle with them the class of the finite, takes certain forms.

SOCRATES: Yes, that is my meaning.

PROTARCHUS: Proceed.

SOCRATES: Does not the right participation in the finite give health-in disease, for instance?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And whereas the high and low, the swift and the slow are infinite or unlimited, does not the addition of the principles aforesaid introduce a limit, and perfect the whole frame of music?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Or, again, when cold and heat prevail, does not the introduction of them take away excess and indefiniteness, and infuse moderation and harmony?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And from a like admixture of the finite and infinite come the seasons, and all the delights of life?

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: I omit ten thousand other things, such as beauty and health and strength, and the many beauties and high perfections of the soul: O my beautiful Philebus, the goddess, methinks, seeing the universal wantonness and wickedness of all things, and that there was in them no limit to pleasures and self-indulgence, devised the limit of law and order, whereby, as you say, Philebus, she torments, or as I maintain, delivers the soul-What think you, Protarchus?

PROTARCHUS: Her ways are much to my mind, Socrates.

SOCRATES: You will observe that I have spoken of three classes?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, I think that I understand you: you mean to say that the infinite is one class, and that the finite is a second class of existences; but what you would make the third I am not so certain.

SOCRATES: That is because the amazing variety of the third class is too much for you, my dear friend; but there was not this difficulty with the infinite, which also comprehended many classes, for all of them were sealed with the note of more and less, and therefore appeared one.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the finite or limit had not many divisions, and we ready acknowledged it to be by nature one?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; and when I speak of the third class, understand me to mean any offspring of these, being a birth into true being, effected by the measure which the limit introduces.

PROTARCHUS: I understand.

SOCRATES: Still there was, as we said, a fourth class to be investigated, and you must assist in the investigation; for does not everything which comes into being, of necessity come into being through a cause?

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly; for how can there be anything which has no cause?

SOCRATES: And is not the agent the same as the cause in all except name; the agent and the cause may be rightly called one?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the patient, or effect; we shall find that they too differ, as I was saying, only in name-shall we not?

PROTARCHUS: We shall.

SOCRATES: The agent or cause always naturally leads, and the patient or effect naturally follows it?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the cause and what is subordinate to it in generation are not the same, but different?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Did not the things which were generated, and the things out of which they were generated, furnish all the three classes?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And the creator or cause of them has been satisfactorily proven to be distinct from them-and may therefore be called a fourth principle?

PROTARCHUS: So let us call it.

SOCRATES: Quite right; but now, having distinguished the four, I think that we had better refresh our memories by recapitulating each of them in order.

PROTARCHUS: By all means.

SOCRATES: Then the first I will call the infinite or unlimited, and the second the finite or limited; then follows the third, an essence compound and generated; and I do not think that I shall be far wrong in speaking of the cause of mixture and generation as the fourth.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And now what is the next question, and how came we hither? Were we not enquiring whether the second place belonged to pleasure or wisdom?

PROTARCHUS: We were.

SOCRATES: And now, having determined these points, shall we not be better able to decide about the first and second place, which was the original subject of dispute?

PROTARCHUS: I dare say.

SOCRATES: We said, if you remember, that the mixed life of pleasure and wisdom was the conqueror-did we not?

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And we see what is the place and nature of this life and to what class it is to be assigned?

PROTARCHUS: Beyond a doubt.

SOCRATES: This is evidently comprehended in the third or mixed class; which is not composed of any two particular ingredients, but of all the elements of infinity, bound down by the finite, and may therefore be truly said to comprehend the conqueror life.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And what shall we say, Philebus, of your life which is all sweetness; and in which of the aforesaid classes is that to be placed? Perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question before you answer?

PHILEBUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: Have pleasure and pain a limit, or do they belong to the class which admits of more and less?

PHILEBUS: They belong to the class which admits of more, Socrates; for pleasure would not be perfectly good if she were not infinite in quantity and degree.

SOCRATES: Nor would pain, Philebus, be perfectly evil. And therefore the infinite cannot be that element which imparts to pleasure some degree of good. But now-admitting, if you like, that pleasure is of the nature of the infinite-in which of the aforesaid classes, O Protarchus and Philebus, can we without irreverence place wisdom and knowledge and mind? And let us be careful, for I think that the danger will be very serious if we err on this point.

PHILEBUS: You magnify, Socrates, the importance of your favourite god.

SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are also magnifying your favourite goddess; but still I must beg you to answer the question.

PROTARCHUS: Socrates is quite right, Philebus, and we must submit to him.

PHILEBUS: And did not you, Protarchus, propose to answer in my place?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly I did; but I am now in a great strait, and I must entreat you, Socrates, to be our spokesman, and then we shall not say anything wrong or disrespectful of your favourite.

SOCRATES: I must obey you, Protarchus; nor is the task which you impose a difficult one; but did I really, as Philebus implies, disconcert you with my playful solemnity, when I asked the question to what class mind and knowledge belong?

PROTARCHUS: You did, indeed, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Yet the answer is easy, since all philosophers assert with one voice that mind is the king of heaven and earth-in reality they are magnifying themselves. And perhaps they are right. But still I should like to consider the class of mind, if you do not object, a little more fully.

PHILEBUS: Take your own course, Socrates, and never mind length; we shall not tire of you.

SOCRATES: Very good; let us begin then, Protarchus, by asking a question.

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: Whether all this which they call the universe is left to the guidance of unreason and chance medley, or, on the contrary, as our fathers have declared, ordered and governed by a marvellous intelligence and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Wide asunder are the two assertions, illustrious Socrates, for that which you were just now saying to me appears to be blasphemy; but the other assertion, that mind orders all things, is worthy of the aspect of the world, and of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars and of the whole circle of the heavens; and never will I say or think otherwise.

SOCRATES: Shall we then agree with them of old time in maintaining this doctrine-not merely reasserting the notions of others, without risk to ourselves,-but shall we share in the danger, and take our part of the reproach which will await us, when an ingenious individual declares that all is disorder?

PROTARCHUS: That would certainly be my wish.

SOCRATES: Then now please to consider the next stage of the argument.

PROTARCHUS: Let me hear.

SOCRATES: We see that the elements which enter into the nature of the bodies of all animals, fire, water, air, and, as the storm-tossed sailor cries, "land" [i. e., earth], reappear in the constitution of the world.

PROTARCHUS: The proverb may be applied to us; for truly the storm gathers over us, and we are at our wit's end.

SOCRATES: There is something to be remarked about each of these elements.

PROTARCHUS: What is it?

SOCRATES: Only a small fraction of any one of them exists in us, and that of a mean sort, and not in any way pure, or having any power worthy of its nature. One instance will prove this of all of them; there is fire within us, and in the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And is not our fire small and weak and mean? But the fire in the universe is wonderful in quantity and beauty, and in every power that fire has.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And is the fire in the universe nourished and generated and ruled by the fire in us, or is the fire in you and me, and in other animals, dependent on the universal fire?

PROTARCHUS: That is a question which does not deserve an answer.

SOCRATES: Right; and you would say the same, if I am not mistaken, of the earth which is in animals and the earth which is in the universe, and you would give a similar reply about all the other elements?

PROTARCHUS: Why, how could any man who gave any other be deemed in his senses?

SOCRATES: I do not think that he could-but now go on to the next step. When we saw those elements of which we have been speaking gathered up in one, did we not call them a body?

PROTARCHUS: We did.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of the cosmos, which for the same reason may be considered to be a body, because made up of the same elements.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: But is our body nourished wholly by this body, or is this body nourished by our body, thence deriving and having the qualities of which we were just now speaking?

PROTARCHUS: That again, Socrates, is a question which does not deserve to be asked.

SOCRATES: Well, tell me, is this question worth asking?

PROTARCHUS: What question?

SOCRATES: May our body be said to have a soul?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly.

SOCRATES: And whence comes that soul, my dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe, which contains elements like those in our bodies but in every way fairer, had also a soul? Can there be another source?

PROTARCHUS: Clearly, Socrates, that is the only source.

SOCRATES: Why, yes, Protarchus; for surely we cannot imagine that of the four classes, the finite, the infinite, the composition of the two, and the cause, the fourth, which enters into all things, giving to our bodies souls, and the art of self-management, and of healing disease, and operating in other ways to heal and organize, having too all the attributes of wisdom;-we cannot, I say, imagine that whereas the self-same elements exist, both in the entire heaven and in great provinces of the heaven, only fairer and purer, this last should not also in that higher sphere have designed the noblest and fairest things?

PROTARCHUS: Such a supposition is quite unreasonable.

SOCRATES: Then if this be denied, should we not be wise in adopting the other view and maintaining that there is in the universe a mighty infinite and an adequate limit, of which we have often spoken, as well as a presiding cause of no mean power, which orders and arranges years and seasons and months, and may be justly called wisdom and mind?

PROTARCHUS: Most justly.

SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind cannot exist without soul?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: And in the divine nature of Zeus would you not say that there is the soul and mind of a king, because there is in him the power of the cause? And other gods have other attributes, by which they are pleased to be called.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: Do not then suppose that these words are rashly spoken by us, O Protarchus, for they are in harmony with the testimony of those who said of old time that mind rules the universe.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And they furnish an answer to my enquiry; for they imply that mind is the parent of that class of the four which we called the cause of all; and I think that you now have my answer.

PROTARCHUS: I have indeed, and yet I did not observe that you had answered.

SOCRATES: A jest is sometimes refreshing, Protarchus, when it interrupts earnest.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: I think, friend, that we have now pretty clearly set forth the class to which mind belongs and what is the power of mind.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: And the class to which pleasure belongs has also been long ago discovered?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: And let us remember, too, of both of them, (1) that mind was akin to the cause and of this family; and (2) that pleasure is infinite and belongs to the class which neither has, nor ever will have in itself, a beginning, middle, or end of its own.

PROTARCHUS: I shall be sure to remember.

SOCRATES: We must next examine what is their place and under what conditions they are generated. And we will begin with pleasure, since her class was first examined; and yet pleasure cannot be rightly tested apart from pain ever

PROTARCHUS: If this is the road, let us take it.

SOCRATES: I wonder whether you would agree with me about the origin of pleasure and pain.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean to say that their natural seat is in the mixed class.

PROTARCHUS: And would you tell me again, sweet Socrates, which of the aforesaid classes is the mixed one?

SOCRATES: I will my fine fellow, to the best of my ability.

PROTARCHUS: Very good.

SOCRATES: Let us then understand the mixed class to be that which we placed third in the list of four.

PROTARCHUS: That which followed the infinite and the finite; and in which you ranked health, and, if I am not mistaken, harmony.

SOCRATES: Capital; and now will you please to give me your best attention?

PROTARCHUS: Proceed; I am attending.

SOCRATES: I say that when the harmony in animals is dissolved, there is also a dissolution of nature and a generation of pain.

PROTARCHUS: That is very probable.

SOCRATES: And the restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source of pleasure, if I may be allowed to speak in the fewest and shortest words about matters of the greatest moment.

PROTARCHUS: I believe that you are right, Socrates; but will you try to be a little plainer?

SOCRATES: Do not obvious and every-day phenomena furnish the simplest illustration?

PROTARCHUS: What phenomena do you mean?

SOCRATES: Hunger, for example, is a dissolution and a pain.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Whereas eating is a replenishment and a pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Thirst again is a destruction and a pain, but the effect of moisture replenishing the dry Place is a pleasure: once more, the unnatural separation and dissolution caused by heat is painful, and the natural restoration and refrigeration is pleasant.

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And the unnatural freezing of the moisture in an animal is pain, and the natural process of resolution and return of the elements to their original state is pleasure. And would not the general proposition seem to you to hold, that the destroying of the natural union of the finite and infinite, which, as I was observing before, make up the class of living beings, is pain, and that the process of return of all things to their own nature is pleasure?

PROTARCHUS: Granted; what you say has a general truth.

SOCRATES: Here then is one kind of pleasures and pains originating severally in the two processes which we have described?

PROTARCHUS: Good.

SOCRATES: Let us next assume that in the soul herself there is an antecedent hope of pleasure which is sweet and refreshing, and an expectation of pain, fearful and anxious.

PROTARCHUS: Yes; this is another class of pleasures and pains, which is of the soul only, apart from the body, and is produced by expectation.

SOCRATES: Right; for in the analysis of these, pure, as I suppose them to be, the pleasures being unalloyed with pain and the pains with pleasure, methinks that we shall see clearly whether the whole class of pleasure is to be desired, or whether this quality of entire desirableness is not rather to be attributed to another of the classes which have been mentioned; and whether pleasure and pain, like heat and cold, and other things of the same kind, are not sometimes to be desired and sometimes not to be desired, as being not in themselves good, but only sometimes and in some instances admitting of the nature of good.

PROTARCHUS: You say most truly that this is the track which the investigation should pursue.

SOCRATES: Well, then, assuming that pain ensues on the dissolution, and pleasure on the restoration of the harmony, let us now ask what will be the condition of animated beings who are neither in process of restoration nor of dissolution. And mind what you say: I ask whether any animal who is in that condition can possibly have any feeling of pleasure or pain, great or small?

PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then here we have a third state, over and above that of pleasure and of pain?

PROTARCHUS: Very true.

SOCRATES: And do not forget that there is such a state; it will make a great difference in our judgment of pleasure, whether we remember this or not. And I should like to say a few words about it.

PROTARCHUS: What have you to say?

SOCRATES: Why, you know that if a man chooses the life of wisdom, there is no reason why he should not live in this neutral state.

PROTARCHUS: You mean that he may live neither rejoicing nor sorrowing?

SOCRATES: Yes; and if I remember rightly, when the lives were compared, no degree of pleasure, whether great or small, was thought to be necessary to him who chose the life of thought and wisdom.

PROTARCHUS: Yes, certainly, we said so.

SOCRATES: Then he will live without pleasure; and who knows whether this may not be the most divine of all lives?

PROTARCHUS: If so, the gods, at any rate, cannot be supposed to have either joy or sorrow.

SOCRATES: Certainly not-there would be a great impropriety in the assumption of either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not indifferent to pleasure is a point which may be considered hereafter if in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever is the conclusion we will place it to the account of mind in her contest for the second place, should she have to resign the first.

PROTARCHUS: Just so.

SOCRATES: The other class of pleasures, which as we were saying is purely mental, is entirely derived from memory.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I must first of all analyse memory, or rather perception which is prior to, memory, if the subject of our discussion is ever to be properly cleared up.

PROTARCHUS: How will you proceed?

SOCRATES: Let us imagine affections of the body which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and leave her unaffected; and again, other affections which vibrate through both soul and body, and impart a shock to both and to each of them.

PROTARCHUS: Granted.

SOCRATES: And the soul may be truly said to be oblivious of the first but not of the second?

PROTARCHUS: Quite true.

SOCRATES: When I say oblivious, do not suppose that I mean forgetfulness in a literal sense; for forgetfulness is the exit of memory, which in this case has not yet entered; and to speak of the loss of that which is not yet in existence, and never has been, is a contradiction; do you see?

PROTARCHUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then just be so good as to change the terms.

PROTARCHUS: How shall I change them?

SOCRATES: Instead of the oblivion of the soul, when you are describing the state in which she is unaffected by the shocks of the body, say unconsciousness.

PROTARCHUS: I see.

SOCRATES: And the union or communion of soul and body in one feeling and motion would be properly called consciousness?

PROTARCHUS: Most true.