Complete Works
Page 52
YOUNG SOCRATES: I’ve certainly no objection.
VISITOR: Why then don’t we now do the very same thing with weaving that we did in what preceded, dividing each thing by cutting it into parts, [c] and then cutting them? We’ll get back to what is useful in the present context after covering everything as briefly and quickly as we can.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
VISITOR: I shall make my answer to you by just going through it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: An excellent suggestion.
VISITOR: Well then: all the things we make and acquire are either for the sake of our doing something, or they prevent something’s happening to us. Of preventives, some are charms, whether divine or human, warding [d] things off, others forms of defense. Of forms of defense some are ways of arming for war, others forms of protection. Of forms of protection some are screens, others means of warding off cold and hot weather. Of the latter type of protectives some are shelters, others coverings; of coverings one sort consists of things spread under, a different sort of things put round. Of things put round, some are cut out in one piece, while a different sort are compound; of the compound some are perforated, others bound [e] together without perforation; of the unperforated some are made of the ‘sinews’ of things growing from the earth, others of hair. Of those made of hair, some are stuck together by means of water and earth, others are bound together with themselves. It is to these preventives and coverings manufactured from materials that are being bound together with themselves that we give the name ‘clothes’; as for the expertise that especially [280] has charge of clothes—just as before we gave the name of ‘statesmanship’ to the sort of expertise that especially had charge of the state, so too now shall we call this sort ‘the art of clothes-making’, from the thing itself? And shall we say that weaving too, in so far as it represented the largest part of the manufacture of clothes, does not differ at all, except in name, from this art of clothes-making, just as in that other case we said that the art of kingship did not differ from that of statesmanship?41
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes; absolutely correct.
VISITOR: As for what comes next, let’s reflect that someone might perhaps [b] suppose that weaving had been adequately described when put like this, being unable to grasp that it had not yet been divided off from those cooperative arts that border on it, while it had been parcelled off from many other related ones.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me—which related ones?
VISITOR: You didn’t follow what’s been said, it seems; so it looks as if we must go back again, starting from the end. If you grasp the kinship in this case, we cut off one ‘related’ expertise from weaving just now, separating off the putting together of blankets by means of the distinction between putting round and putting under.
YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand.
[c] VISITOR: What’s more, we took away all craftwork out of flax, esparto, and what we just now by analogy called ‘sinews’ of plants; again we divided off both the art of felting and the sort of putting together that uses perforation and sewing, of which the largest is the art of cobbling.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely.
VISITOR: Still further, working with skins, which looks after coverings cut in a single piece, and those sorts of activities that look after shelters, all those involved in building and carpentry in general and, in other sorts [d] of expertise, contriving shelter from inflowing water—all of these we took away. Also, all those sorts of expertise in forms of protection that offer preventive products in relation to thefts and violent acts, and those that have to do with carrying out the work of lid-making, and fixings to doorways, which are assigned as parts of the art of joinery. And we cut away the art of arms-manufacture, a segment of that great and varied capacity which is defense-production. Then again our first and immediate move [e] was to divide off the whole of the art of magic which is concerned with protective charms, and we have left behind—as we might suppose—the very expertise we looked for, which protects us against cold weather, productive of a woollen defense, and called by the name of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that seems to be so.
VISITOR: But put like this, my boy, it is not yet complete. The person who puts his hand first to the production of clothes seems to do the [281] opposite of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
VISITOR: The business of weaving, I suppose, is a sort of intertwining.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: But in fact what I’m talking about is a matter of breaking apart things that are combined or matted together.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it you’re referring to?
VISITOR: The function of the art of the carder. Or shall we dare to call the art of carding the art of weaving, and treat the carder as if he were a weaver?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
VISITOR: And then too if someone calls the art of manufacturing warp and woof ‘weaving’, he is using a name that is not only odd but false. [b]
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite.
VISITOR: And what about these cases? Are we to put down the whole of the art of fulling, and clothes-mending, as being no sort of care for clothes, nor as any sort of looking after them, or shall we refer to all of these too as arts of weaving?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
VISITOR: Yet all of these will dispute the role of looking after and producing clothes with the capacity which is the art of weaving, conceding a very large part to it, but assigning large shares to themselves too.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. [c]
VISITOR: Then again, in addition to these, we must suppose that the sorts of expertise responsible for making the tools through which the products of weaving are completed will also lay claim to being at least a contributory cause of every woven article.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite correct.
VISITOR: So will our account of that part of the art of weaving that we selected be sufficiently definite, if we proceed to set it down as finest and greatest of all those sorts of care that exist in relation to woollen clothing? [d] Or would we be saying something true, but not clear or complete, until such time as we remove all of these too from around it?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct.
VISITOR: Then after this we must do what we’re saying we should do, in order that our account may proceed in due order.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite.
VISITOR: Well then, let’s look at two sorts of expertise that there are in relation to all the things that people do.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Which are they?
VISITOR: One which is a contributory cause of production, one which is itself a cause.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
[e] VISITOR: Those which do not make the thing itself, but which provide tools for those that do—tools which, if they were not present, what has been assigned to each expertise would never be accomplished: these are what I mean by contributory causes, while those that bring the thing itself to completion are causes.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That seems to make sense.
VISITOR: Then as a next step shall we call contributory causes all those that are concerned with spindles and shuttles and whatever other tools share in the process of production in relation to garments, calling those that look after and make garments themselves causes?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite correct.
[282] VISITOR: Then among the causes, washing and mending and the whole business of looking after clothes in these sorts of ways—it’s perfectly reasonable to encompass this part of the extensive field covered by the art of preparation by calling it all ‘the art of the fuller’.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Right.
VISITOR: Again, carding and spinning and everything relating to the making of clothes itself—which is the thing whose parts we’re talking about—all constitute a single expertise among those everybody recognizes, namely wool-working.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
[b] VISITOR: Next, there are two segments of wool-working, and each of t
hese is a part of two sorts of expertise at once.
YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
VISITOR: What has to do with carding, and half of the art of the shuttle, and all those activities that set apart from each other things that are together—all of this we can, I suppose, declare as one and as belonging to wool-working itself? And there were, we agreed, two great sorts of expertise in every sphere, that of combination and that of separation.42
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: Well then, it’s to the art of separation that belong that of carding [c] and all the things just mentioned; for separation in the case of wool and the warp, which happens in different ways, in the first case through the shuttle, in the second through use of the hands, has acquired as many names as we referred to a moment ago.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely.
VISITOR: Then again, by contrast, let’s take a part that is simultaneously a part of combination and of wool-working and takes place in the latter; and whatever parts of separation there were here, let’s let all of them go, cutting wool-working into two by means of the cut between separation and combination.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Count it as divided.
VISITOR: Then in its turn, Socrates, you should divide the part that is [d] simultaneously combination and wool-working, if indeed we are going to capture the aforesaid art of weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then I must.
VISITOR: Indeed you must: and let’s say that part of it is twisting, part intertwining.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Do I understand correctly? By twisting, you seem to me to be talking about what relates to the manufacture of the warp.
VISITOR: Not only of the warp, but of the woof too; or are we going to find some origin for the woof which doesn’t involve twisting?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not.
VISITOR: Well, define each of these two things too; perhaps you might [e] find defining them timely.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Define them how?
VISITOR: Like this: among the products of carding, when its material is drawn out to a certain length and has acquired breadth, do we say that there’s a ‘flock’ of wool?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: Of this, then, the yarn that has been twisted by the spindle and been made firm you’ll call the warp, and the expertise that guides its production ‘warp-spinning’.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct.
VISITOR: But those threads that in their turn get a loose twisting, and have a softness appropriate to the twining in of the warp, but also to what is needed for drawing out in the dressing process, you’ll call these—the products of the spinning—the woof, and the expertise that is set over their production—let’s call it ‘woof-spinning’.43 [283]
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite correct.
VISITOR: And as for the part of weaving that we put forward for investigation, I suppose that’s now clear to anyone. When the part of combination which is contained in wool-working produces something intertwined, by the regular intertwining of woof and warp, the whole product of the intertwining we refer to as a piece of woollen clothing, and we refer to the expertise that is over this as weaving.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite correct.
VISITOR: Good; so why ever, then, didn’t we immediately reply that [b] weaving was an intertwining of woof and warp, instead of going round in a circle defining a whole collection of things to no purpose?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To me at least, visitor, nothing of what we have said seemed to have been said to no purpose.
VISITOR: And that isn’t at all surprising, I may say; but perhaps, my dear fellow, it might seem so. So against such a malady, in case it should come [c] upon you later (that wouldn’t be at all surprising), listen to a point which it’s appropriate to make in all cases like this.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Do make it.
VISITOR: First, then, let’s look at excess and deficiency in general, so that we may distribute praise and censure proportionately on each occasion, when things are said at greater length than necessary and when the opposite occurs in discussions like the present one.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That’s what we must do, then.
VISITOR: If we talked about these very things, I think we’d be proceeding correctly.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What things?
[d] VISITOR: About length and brevity, and excess and deficiency in general. I suppose the art of measurement relates to all of these.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
VISITOR: Then let’s divide it into two parts; that’s what we need towards our present objective.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Please tell me how we should divide it.
VISITOR: This way: one part will relate to the association of greatness and smallness with each other, the other to what coming into being necessarily is.44
YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
VISITOR: Does it not seem to you that by its nature the greater has to be said to be greater than nothing other than the less, and the less in its turn [e] less than the greater, and than nothing else?
YOUNG SOCRATES: It does.
VISITOR: What about this: shan’t we also say that there really is such a thing as what exceeds what is in due measure, and everything of that sort, in what we say or indeed in what we do? Isn’t it just in that respect that those of us who are bad and those who are good45 most differ?
YOUNG SOCRATES: It seems so.
VISITOR: In that case we must lay it down that the great and the small exist and are objects of judgment in these twin ways. It is not as we said just before, that we must suppose them to exist only in relation to each other, but rather as we have now said, that we should speak of their existing in one way in relation to each other, and in another in relation to what is in due measure. Do we want to know why?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
VISITOR: If someone will admit the existence of the greater and everything [284] of the sort in relation to nothing other than the less, it will never be in relation to what is in due measure—you agree?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That’s so.
VISITOR: Well, with this account of things we shall destroy—shan’t we?—both the various sorts of expertise themselves and their products, and in particular we shall make the one we’re looking for now, statesmanship, disappear, and the one we said was weaving. For I imagine all such sorts of expertise guard against what is more and less than what is in due measure, not as something which is not, but as something which is and is troublesome in relation to what they do. It is by preserving measure in this way that they produce all the good and fine things they do produce. [b]
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
VISITOR: If, then, we make the art of statesmanship disappear, our search after that for the knowledge of kingship will lack any way forward?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very much so.
VISITOR: Is it the case then that just as with the sophist we compelled what is not into being as well as what is, when our argument escaped us down that route,46 so now we must compel the more and less, in their turn, to become measurable not only in relation to each other but also in [c] relation to the coming into being of what is in due measure? For if this has not been agreed, it is certainly not possible for either the statesman or anyone else who possesses knowledge of practical subjects to acquire an undisputed existence.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Then now too we must do the same as much as we can.
VISITOR: This task, Socrates, is even greater than the former one—and we remember what the length of that was. Still, it’s very definitely fair to propose the following hypothesis about the subject in question.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What’s that?
VISITOR: That at some time we shall need what I referred to just now47 [d] for the sort of demonstration that would be commensurate with the precise truth itself. But so far as concerns what is presently being shown, quite adequately for our immediate purposes, the argument we are using seems to me to come to our aid in magnificent fashion. Namely, we should surely suppose that it is similarly the case
that all the various sorts of expertise exist, and at the same time that greater and less are measured not only in relation to each other but also in relation to the coming into being of what is in due measure. For if the latter is the case, then so is the former, and also if it is the case that the sorts of expertise exist, the other is the case too. But if one or the other is not the case, then neither of them will ever be.
YOUNG SOCRATES: This much is right; but what’s the next move after this? [e]
VISITOR: It’s clear that we would divide the art of measurement, cutting it in two in just the way we said, positing as one part of it all those sorts of expertise that measure the number, lengths, depths, breadths and speeds of things in relation to what is opposed to them, and as the other, all those that measure in relation to what is in due measure, what is fitting, the right moment, what is as it ought to be—everything that removes itself from the extremes to the middle.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Each of the two sections you refer to is indeed a large one, and very different from the other.
VISITOR: Yes, Socrates; and what many sophisticated people sometimes [285] say, supposing themselves to be expressing something clever, to the effect that there is in fact an art of measurement relating to everything that comes into being—that’s actually the very thing we have just said. For it is indeed the case, in a certain way, that all the products of the various sorts of expertise share in measurement. But because of their not being accustomed to carrying on their investigations by dividing according to real classes, the people in question throw these things together at once, despite the degree of difference between them, thinking them alike—and then again they also do the opposite of this by dividing other things not according [b] to parts, when the rule is that when one perceives first the community between the members of a group of many things, one should not desist until one sees in it all those differences that are located in classes, and conversely, with the various unlikenesses, when they are seen in multitudes, one should be incapable of pulling a face and stopping before one has penned all the related things within one likeness and actually surrounded them in some real class. So let this be enough for us to say about these things, and about modes of defect and excess; and let’s just [c] keep hold of the fact that two distinct classes of measurement have been discovered in relation to them, and remember what we say they are.