Complete Works

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

  PROTARCHUS: Neither of them will do, Socrates, and there is no need to raise the same question so often.

  [61] SOCRATES: So neither of these two would be perfect, worthy of choice for all, and the supreme good?

  PROTARCHUS: How could they?

  SOCRATES: The good therefore must be taken up precisely or at least in outline, so that, as we said before, we know to whom we will give the second prize.

  PROTARCHUS: You are right.

  SOCRATES: Have we not discovered at least a road that leads towards the good?

  PROTARCHUS: What road?

  SOCRATES: It’s as if, when you are looking for somebody, you first find out [b] where he actually lives. That would be a major step towards finding him.

  PROTARCHUS: No doubt.

  SOCRATES: Similarly here. There is this argument which has now indicated to us, just as it did at the beginning of our discussion, that we ought not to seek the good in the unmixed life but in the mixed one.

  PROTARCHUS: Quite.

  SOCRATES: But there is more hope that what we are looking for will show itself in a well-mixed life rather than in a poorly mixed one?

  PROTARCHUS: Much more.

  SOCRATES: So let us pray to the gods for assistance when we perform our mixture, Protarchus, whether it be Dionysus or Hephaestus or any [c] other deity who is in charge of presiding over such mixtures.

  PROTARCHUS: By all means.

  SOCRATES: We stand like cup-bearers before the fountains—the fountain of pleasure, comparable to honey, and the sobering fountain of intelligence, free of wine, like sober, healthy water—and we have to see how to make a perfect mixture of the two.

  PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

  SOCRATES: But let’s look first into this: Will our mixture be as good as it [d] can be if we mix every kind of pleasure with every kind of intelligence?

  PROTARCHUS: Maybe.

  SOCRATES: It is not without risk, however. But now I have an idea how we might procure a safer mixture.

  PROTARCHUS: Tell us what it is.

  SOCRATES: Didn’t we find that one pleasure turned out to be truer than another, just as one art was more precise than the other?

  PROTARCHUS: Definitely.

  SOCRATES: But there was also a difference between different sciences, since one kind deals with a subject matter that comes to be and perishes, the other [e] is concerned with what is free of that, the eternal and self-same. Since we made truth our criterion, the latter kind appeared to be the truer one.

  PROTARCHUS: That was certainly so.

  SOCRATES: If we took from each sort the segments that possess most truth and mixed them together, would this mixture provide us with the most desirable life, or would we also need less-true ones?

  PROTARCHUS: We should do it this way, it seems to me. [62]

  SOCRATES: Suppose, then, there is a person who understands what justice itself is and can give the appropriate definitions and possesses the same kind of comprehension about all the rest of what there is.

  PROTARCHUS: Let that be presupposed.

  SOCRATES: Will he be sufficiently versed in science if he knows the definition of the circle and of the divine sphere itself but cannot recognize the human sphere and these our circles, using even in housebuilding those [b] other yardsticks and those circles?

  PROTARCHUS: We would find ourselves in a rather ridiculous position if we were confined entirely to those divine kinds of knowledge, Socrates!

  SOCRATES: What are you saying? Ought we at the same time to include the inexact and impure science of the false yardstick and circle, and add it to the mixture?

  PROTARCHUS: Yes, necessarily so, if any one of us ever wants to find his own way home.

  SOCRATES: But how about music: Ought we also to mix in the kind of [c] which we said a little earlier that it is full of lucky hits and imitation but lacks purity?

  PROTARCHUS: It seems necessary to me, if in fact our life is supposed to be at least some sort of life.

  SOCRATES: Do you want me, then, to yield like a doorkeeper to the pushing and shoving of a crowd and to throw open the doors and let the flood of all sorts of knowledge in, the inferior kind mingling with the pure?

  [d] PROTARCHUS: I for my part can’t see what damage it would do to accept all the other kinds of knowledge, as long as we have those of the highest kind.

  SOCRATES: Shall I, then, let the lot of them flow into the vessel like Homer’s very poetical “commingling of mountain glens”?23

  PROTARCHUS: Absolutely.

  SOCRATES: In they go! But now we have to return again to the fountain of pleasure. We cannot any longer carry out our original intention of first mixing only the true parts of each of them together. Our love for every [e] kind of knowledge has made us let them all in together, before any of the pleasures.

  PROTARCHUS: What you say is true.

  SOCRATES: Now it is time for us to decide about pleasures, too, whether we ought to admit the whole tribe in their cases or whether we should at first admit the true ones only.

  PROTARCHUS: It is much safer if we let the true in first!

  SOCRATES: Let them in, then. But what next? If some turn out to be necessary, should we not mix them in also, as we did in the other case?

  PROTARCHUS: No reason why not, at least if they really are necessary.

  [63] SOCRATES: But having decided that it was innocuous or even beneficial to spend our lives in the pursuit of all the arts and crafts, we may now come to the same conclusion about the pleasures. If it is beneficial and harmless to live our lives enjoying all the pleasures, then we should mix them all in.

  PROTARCHUS: So what are we to say in their case, and what are we to do?

  SOCRATES: We should not turn to ourselves with this question, Protarchus, but to the pleasures themselves, as well as to the different kinds of knowledge, and find out how they feel about each other by putting the question in this way.

  [b] PROTARCHUS: What way?

  SOCRATES: “My friends, whether you ought to be called ‘pleasures’ or some other name,24 would you prefer to live together with every kind of knowledge or rather to live without it entirely?”—To this I think they cannot help giving this answer.

  PROTARCHUS: What answer?

  SOCRATES: What has been said already: “It is neither possible nor beneficial [c] for one tribe to remain alone, in isolation and unmixed. We would prefer to live side by side with that best kind of knowledge, the kind that understands not only all other things but also each one of us, as far as that is possible.”

  PROTARCHUS: “An excellent answer,” we will reply to them.

  SOCRATES: With justice. But after that we have to raise the question with intelligence and reason. “Do you have any need for any association with the pleasures?” That is how we would address reason and knowledge. “What kinds of pleasures?” they might ask in return.

  PROTARCHUS: Very likely.

  SOCRATES: Our discussion would then continue as follows: “Will you [d] have any need to associate with the strongest and most intensive pleasures in addition to the true pleasures?” we will ask them. “Why on earth should we need them, Socrates?” they might reply, “They are a tremendous impediment to us, since they infect the souls in which they dwell with madness or even prevent our own development altogether. Furthermore, they totally destroy most of our offspring, since neglect leads to forgetfulness. [e] But as to the true and pure pleasures you mentioned, those regard as our kin. And besides, also add the pleasures of health and of temperance and all those that commit themselves to virtue as to their deity and follow it around everywhere. But to forge an association between reason and those pleasures that are forever involved with foolishness and other kinds of vice would be totally unreasonable for anyone who aims at the best and most stable mixture or blend. This is true particularly if he wants to discover [64] in this mixture what the good is in man and in the universe and to get some vision of the nature of the good itself.” When reason makes this defense for herself, as
well as for memory and right opinion, shall we not admit that she has spoken reasonably and in accord with her own standards?

  PROTARCHUS: Absolutely.

  SOCRATES: But see whether the following is also necessary and without it not a single thing could come to be?

  PROTARCHUS: What is it? [b]

  SOCRATES: Wherever we do not mix in truth nothing could truly come to be nor remain in existence once it had come to be.

  PROTARCHUS: How should it?

  SOCRATES: In no way. But now, if there is anything else missing in our mixture, it is up to you and Philebus to say so. To me at least it seems that our discussion has arrived at the design of what might be called an incorporeal order that rules harmoniously over a body possessed by a soul.

  PROTARCHUS: Count me as one who shares that opinion, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: Would there be some justification to our claim that we are by [c] now standing on the very threshold of the good and of the house25 of every member of its family?26

  PROTARCHUS: It would seem so, to me at least.

  SOCRATES: What ingredient in the mixture ought we to regard as most valuable and at the same time as the factor that makes it precious to all mankind? Once we have found it, we will inquire further whether it is more closely related and akin to pleasure or to reason, in nature as a whole.

  [d] PROTARCHUS: You are right. This would certainly be very useful in bringing us closer to our final verdict.

  SOCRATES: But it is certainly not difficult to see what factor in each mixture it is that makes it either most valuable or worth nothing at all.

  PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

  SOCRATES: There is not a single human being who does not know it.

  PROTARCHUS: Know what?

  SOCRATES: That any kind of mixture that does not in some way or other possess measure or the nature of proportion will necessarily corrupt its [e] ingredients and most of all itself. For there would be no blending in such cases at all but really an unconnected medley, the ruin of whatever happens to be contained in it.

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: But now we notice that the force of the good has taken refuge in an alliance with the nature of the beautiful. For measure and proportion manifest themselves in all areas as beauty and virtue.

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably.

  SOCRATES: But we did say that truth is also included along with them in our mixture?

  PROTARCHUS: Indeed.

  [65] SOCRATES: Well, then, if we cannot capture the good in one form, we will have to take hold of it in a conjunction of three: beauty, proportion, and truth. Let us affirm that these should by right be treated as a unity and be held responsible for what is in the mixture, for its goodness is what makes the mixture itself a good one.

  PROTARCHUS: Very well stated.

  SOCRATES: Anyone should by now be able to judge between pleasure [b] and intelligence, which of the two is more closely related to the supreme good and more valuable among gods and men.

  PROTARCHUS: Even if it is obvious, it is better to make it explicit in our discussion.

  SOCRATES: So now let us judge each one of the three in relation to pleasure and reason. For we have to see for which of those two we want to grant closer kinship to each of them.

  PROTARCHUS: You mean to beauty, truth, and measure?

  SOCRATES: Yes. Take up truth first, Protarchus, and, holding it in front [c] of you, look at all three: reason, truth, and pleasure. Then, after withholding judgment for a long time, give your answer, whether for you pleasure or reason is more akin to truth.

  PROTARCHUS: What need is there for any length of time? I think there is an enormous difference. For pleasure is the greatest impostor of all, by general account, and in connection with the pleasures of love, which seem to be the greatest of all, even perjury is pardoned by the gods. Pleasures are perhaps rather like children who don’t possess the least bit of reason. [d] Reason, by contrast, either is the same as truth or of all things it is most like it and most true.

  SOCRATES: Next look at measure in the same way, and see whether pleasure possesses more of it than intelligence or intelligence more than pleasure.

  PROTARCHUS: Once again you are setting me a task I am well prepared for. I don’t think that one could find anything that is more outside all measure than pleasure and excessive joy, while nothing more measured than reason and knowledge could ever be found.

  SOCRATES: Well argued. But now go on to the third criterion. Does reason [e] contain more beauty than the tribe of pleasures in our estimate, so that reason is more beautiful than pleasure, or is it the other way round?

  PROTARCHUS: Why, Socrates, no one, awake or dreaming, could ever see intelligence and reason to be ugly; no one could ever have conceived of them as becoming or being ugly, or that they ever will be.

  SOCRATES: Right.

  PROTARCHUS: In the case of pleasures, by contrast, when we see anyone actively engaged in them, especially those that are most intense, we notice [66] that their effect is quite ridiculous, if not outright obscene; we become quite ashamed ourselves and hide them as much as possible from sight, and we confine such activities to the night, as if daylight must not witness such things.

  SOCRATES: So you will announce everywhere, both by sending messengers and saying it in person to those present, that pleasure is not a property of the first rank, nor again of the second, but that first comes what is somehow connected with measure, the measured and the timely, and whatever else is to be considered similar.27

  PROTARCHUS: That seems at least to be the upshot of our discussion now.

  SOCRATES: The second rank goes to the well-proportioned and beautiful, [b] the perfect, the self-sufficient, and whatever else belongs in that family.

  PROTARCHUS: That seems right.

  SOCRATES: If you give the third rank, as I divine, to reason and intelligence, you cannot stray far from the truth.

  PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

  SOCRATES: Nor again if, beside these three, you give fourth place to those things that we defined as the soul’s own properties, to the sciences and [c] the arts, and what we called right opinions, since they are more closely related to the good than pleasure at least.

  PROTARCHUS: Maybe so.

  SOCRATES: The fifth kind will be those pleasures we set apart and defined as painless; we called them the soul’s own pure pleasures, since they are attached to the sciences, some of them even to sense-perception.

  PROTARCHUS: Perhaps.

  SOCRATES: “With the sixth generation the well-ordered song may find its end,” says Orpheus. So it seems that our discussion, too, has found its [d] end at the determination of the sixth ranking. There remains nothing further to do for us except to give a final touch to what has been said.

  PROTARCHUS: We have to do that.

  SOCRATES: Come on, then, “the third libation goes to Zeus the Savior,” let us call the same argument to witness for the third time.

  PROTARCHUS: Which one?

  SOCRATES: Philebus declares that every pleasure of any kind is the good… .

  PROTARCHUS: By the “third libation” you appear to mean, as you just stated, that we have to repeat the argument all over from the beginning!

  [e] SOCRATES: Yes, but let’s also hear what follows. In view of all the considerations laid out here and out of distaste for Philebus’ position pronounced by countless others on many occasions, I maintained that reason is far superior to pleasure and more beneficial for human life.

  PROTARCHUS: That is correct.

  SOCRATES: Suspecting that there are many other goods, I said that if something turned out to be better than these two, then I would fight on the side of reason for the second prize against pleasure, so that pleasure would be deprived even of the second rank.

  [67] PROTARCHUS: You did say that.

  SOCRATES: Afterwards it became most sufficiently clear that neither of those two would suffice.

  PROTARCHUS: Very true.

  SOCRATES: And did it not bec
ome clear at this point in our discussion that both reason and pleasure had lost any claim that one or the other would be the good itself, since they were lacking in autonomy and in the power of self-sufficiency and perfection?

  PROTARCHUS: Exactly.

  SOCRATES: Then, when a third competitor showed up, superior to either of them, it became apparent that reason was infinitely more closely related and akin to the character of the victor.

  PROTARCHUS: Undeniably.

  SOCRATES: And did not pleasure turn out to receive fifth position, according to the verdict we reached in our discussion?

  PROTARCHUS: Apparently.

  [b] SOCRATES: But not first place, even if all the cattle and horses and the rest of the animals gave testimony by following pleasure. Now, many people accept their testimony, as the seers do that of the birds, and judge that pleasures are most effective in securing the happy life; they even believe that the animal passions are more authoritative witnesses than is the love of argument that is constantly revealed under the guidance of the philosophic muse.

  PROTARCHUS: We are all agreed now that what you said is as true as possible, Socrates.

  SOCRATES: So will you let me go now?

  PROTARCHUS: There is still a little missing, Socrates. Surely you will not give up before we do. But I will remind you of what is left!

  1. Cf. Cratylus 400d–401a.

  2. Reading Burnet’s text, but replacing his interrogation mark at b4 with a comma, on the assumption that there are two rather than three problems addressed.

  3. Socrates uses the customary epithet of the gods (cf. Iliad viii.539) to show how serious the problem is. The ambiguity of language, whether words have a unitary and unchangeable meaning, is a serious problem with a flip side that is exploited by the boys who make fun of it.