Philebus

Soc. Of drink, or of being filled with drink?

Pro. Of being filled, I suppose.

Soc. The man, then, who is empty desires, as it appears, the opposite of what he feels for, being empty, he longs to be filled.

Pro. That is very plain.

Soc. Well then, is there any source from which a man who is empty at first can gain a comprehension, whether by perception or by memory, of fulness, a thing which he does not feel at the time and has never felt before?

Pro. It cannot be done.

Soc. And yet he who desires, desires something, we say.

Pro. Of course.

Soc. And he does not desire that which he feels; for he is thirsty, and that is emptiness, but he desires fulness.

Pro. Yes.

Soc. Then somehow some part of him who is thirsty can apprehend fulness.

Pro. Yes, obviously.

Soc. But it cannot be the body, for that is empty.

Pro. True.

Soc. The only remaining possibility is that the soul apprehends it, which it must do by means of memory; for what other means could it employ?

Pro. No other, I should say.

Soc. And do we understand the consequences of this argument?

Pro. What are the consequences?

Soc. This argument declares that we have no bodily desire.

Pro. How so?

Soc. Because it shows that the endeavor of every living being is always towards the opposite of the actual conditions of the body.

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And the impulse which leads towards the opposite of those conditions shows that there is a memory of the opposite of the conditions.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And the argument, by showing that memory is that which leads us towards the objects of desire, has proved that all the impulse, the desire, and the ruling principle in every living being are of the soul.

Pro. Quite right.

Soc. So the argument denies utterly that the body hungers or thirsts or has any such affection.

Pro. Very true.

Soc. Let us consider a further point in connection with those very affections. For I think the purpose of the argument is to point out to us a state of life existing in them.

Pro. Of what sort of life are you speaking, and in what affections does it exist?

Soc. In the affections of fulness and emptiness and all which pertain to the preservation and destruction of living beings, and I am thinking that if we fall into one of these we feel pain, which is followed by joy when we change to the other.

Pro. That is true.

Soc. And what if a man is between the two?

Pro. How between them?

Soc. Because of his condition, he is suffering, but he remembers the pleasures the coming of which would bring him an end of his pain; as yet, however, he does not possess them. Well then, shall we say that he is between the affections, or not?

Pro. Let us say so.

Soc. Shall we say that he is wholly pained or wholly pleased?

Pro. No, by Zeus, but he is afflicted with a twofold pain; he suffers in body from his sensation, and in soul from expectation and longing.

Soc. How could you, Protarchus, speak of twofold pain? Is not an empty man sometimes possessed of a sure hope of being filled, and sometimes, on the contrary, quite hopeless?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And do you not think that when he has a hope of being filled he takes pleasure in his memory, and yet at the same time, since he is at the moment empty, suffers pain?

Pro. It cannot be otherwise.

Soc. At such a time, then, a man, or any other animal, has both pain and pleasure at once.

Pro. Yes, I suppose so.

Soc. And when an empty man is without hope of being filled, what then? Is not that the time when the twofold feeling of pain would arise, which you just now observed and thought the pain simply was twofold?

Pro. Very true, Socrates.

Soc. Let us make use of our examination of those affections for a particular purpose.

Pro. For what purpose?

Soc. Shall we say that those pleasures and pains are true or false, or that some are true and others not so?

Pro. But, Socrates, how can there be false pleasures or pains?

Soc. But, Protarchus, how can there be true and false fears, or true and false expectations, or true and false opinions?

Pro. Opinions I would grant you, but not the rest.

Soc. What? I am afraid we are starting a very considerable discussion.

Pro. You are right.

Soc. And yet we must consider, thou son of that man, [*](Son of that man may mean son of Philebus, in so far as Protarchus is a pupil of Philebus, or (so Bury) son of Gorgias, the orator and teacher (cf. Plat. Phaedo 58b), or the father of Protarchus may be referred to by the pronoun, possibly because Socrates does not at the moment recall his name or because he wishes to imply that he was a man of mark.) whether the discussion is relevant to what has gone before.

Pro. Yes, no doubt.

Soc. We must dismiss everything else, tedious or otherwise, that is irrelevant.

Pro. Right.

Soc. Now tell me; for I am always utterly amazed by the same questions we were just proposing.

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. Are not some pleasures false and others true?

Pro. How could that be?

Soc. Then, as you maintain, nobody, either sleeping or waking or insane or deranged, ever thinks he feels pleasure when he does not feel it, and never, on the other hand, thinks he suffers pain when he does not suffer it?

Pro. We have, Socrates, always believed that all this is as you suggest.

Soc. But is the belief correct? Shall we consider whether it is so or not?

Pro. I should say we ought to consider that.

Soc. Then let us analyze still more clearly what we were just now saying about pleasure and opinion. There is a faculty of having an opinion, is there not?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And of feeling pleasure?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And there is an object of opinion?

Pro. Of course.

Soc. And something by which that which feels pleasure is pleased?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And that which has opinion, whether right or wrong, never loses its function of really having opinion?

Pro. Of course not.

Soc. And that which feels pleasure, whether rightly or wrongly, will clearly never lose its function of really feeling pleasure?

Pro. Yes, that is true, too.

Soc. Then we must consider how it is that opinion is both true and false and pleasure only true, though the holding of opinion and the feeling of pleasure are equally real.

Pro. Yes, so we must.

Soc. You mean that we must consider this question because falsehood and truth are added as attributes to opinion, and thereby it becomes not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality in each instance?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And furthermore, we must reach an agreement on the question whether, even if some things have qualities, pleasure and pain are not merely what they are, without qualities or attributes.

Pro. Evidently we must.

Soc. But it is easy enough to see that they have qualities. For we said a long time ago that both pains and pleasures are great and small and intense.

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And if badness becomes an attribute of any of these, Protarchus, shall we say that the opinion or the pleasure thereby becomes bad?

Pro. Why certainly, Socrates.

Soc. And what if rightness or its opposite becomes an attribute of one of them? Shall we not say that the opinion is right, if it has rightness, and the pleasure likewise?

Pro. Obviously.

Soc. And if that which is opined is mistaken, must we not agree that the opinion, since it is at the moment making a mistake, is not right or rightly opining?

Pro. Of course.

Soc. And what if we see a pain or a pleasure making a mistake in respect of that by which the pain or pleasure is caused? Shall we give it the attribute of right or good or any of the words which denote excellence?

Pro. That is impossible if the pleasure is mistaken.

Soc. And certainly pleasure often seems to come to us in connection with false, not true, opinion.