Philebus

Pro. Which shall we select?

Soc. Let us first, if agreeable to you, consider whiteness.

Pro. By all means.

Soc. How can we have purity in whiteness, and what purity? Is it the greatest and most widespread, or the most unmixed, that in which there is no trace of any other color?

Pro. Clearly it is the most unadulterated.

Soc. Right. Shall we not, then, Protarchus, declare that this, and not the most numerous or the greatest, is both the truest and the most beautiful of all whitenesses?

Pro. Quite right.

Soc. Then we shall be perfectly right in saying that a little pure white is whiter and more beautiful and truer than a great deal of mixed white.

Pro. Perfectly right.

Soc. Well then, we shall have no need of many such examples in our discussion of pleasure; we see well enough from this one that any pleasure, however small or infrequent, if uncontaminated with pain, is pleasanter and more beautiful than a great or often repeated pleasure without purity.

Pro. Most certainly; and the example is sufficient.

Soc. Here is another point. Have we not often heard it said of pleasure that it is always a process or generation and that there is no state or existence of pleasure? There are some clever people who try to prove this theory to us, and we ought to be grateful to them.

Pro. Well, what then?

Soc. I will explain this whole matter, Protarchus, by asking questions.

Pro. Go on; ask your questions.

Soc. There are two parts of existence, the one self-existent, the other always desiring something else.

Pro. What do you mean? What are these two?

Soc. The one is by nature more imposing, the other inferior.

Pro. Speak still more plainly.

Soc. We have seen beloved boys who are fair and good, and brave lovers of them.

Pro. Yes, no doubt of it.

Soc. Try to find another pair like these in all the relations we are speaking of.

Pro. Must I say it a third time? Please tell your meaning more plainly, Socrates.

Soc. It is no riddle, Protarchus; the talk is merely jesting with us and means that one part of existences always exists for the sake of something, and the other part is that for the sake of which the former is always coming into being.

Pro. I can hardly understand after all your repetition.

Soc. Perhaps, my boy, you will understand better as the discussion proceeds.

Pro. I hope so.

Soc. Let us take another pair.

Pro. What are they?

Soc. One is the generation of all things (the process of coming into being), the other is existence or being.

Pro. I accept your two, generation and being.

Soc. Quite right. Now which of these shall we say is for the sake of the other, generation for the sake of being, or being for the sake of generation?

Pro. You are now asking whether that which is called being is what it is for the sake of generation?

Soc. Yes, plainly.

Pro. For Heaven’s sake, is this the kind of question you keep asking me, Tell me, Protarchus, whether you think shipbuilding is for the sake of ships, or ships for the sake of shipbuilding, and all that sort of thing?

Soc. Yes; that is just what I mean, Protarchus.

Pro. Then why did you not answer it yourself, Socrates?

Soc. There is no reason why I should not; but I want you to take part in the discussion.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. I say that drugs and all sorts of instruments and materials are always employed for the sake of production or generation, but that every instance of generation is for the sake of some being or other, and generation in general is for the sake of being in general.

Pro. That is very clear.

Soc. Then pleasure, if it is a form of generation, would be generated for the sake of some form of being.

Pro. Of course.

Soc. Now surely that for the sake of which anything is generated is in the class of the good, and that which is generated for the sake of something else, my friend, must be placed in another class.

Pro. Most undeniably.

Soc. Then if pleasure is a form of generation, we shall be right in placing it in a class other than that of the good, shall we not?

Pro. Quite right.

Soc. Then, as I said when we began to discuss this point, we ought to be grateful to him who pointed out that there is only a generation, but no existence, of pleasure; for he is clearly making a laughing-stock of those who assert that pleasure is a good.

Pro. Yes, most emphatically.

Soc. And he will also surely make a laughing-stock of all those who find their highest end in forms of generation.

Pro. How is that, and to whom do you refer?

Soc. To those who, when cured of hunger or thirst or any of the troubles which are cured by generation are pleased because of the generation, as if it were pleasure, and say that they would not wish to live without thirst and hunger and the like, if they could not experience the feelings which follow after them.

Pro. That seems to be their view.

Soc. We should all agree that the opposite of generation is destruction, should we not?

Pro. Inevitably.

Soc. And he who chooses as they do would be choosing destruction and generation, not that third life in which there was neither pleasure nor pain, but only the purest possible thought.

Pro. It is a great absurdity, as it appears, Socrates, to tell us that pleasure is a good.

Soc. Yes, a great absurdity, and let us go still further.

Pro. How?

Soc. Is it not absurd to say that there is nothing good in the body or many other things, but only in the soul, and that in the soul the only good is pleasure, and that courage and self-restraint and understanding and all the other good things of the soul are nothing of the sort; and beyond all this to be obliged to say that he who is not feeling pleasure, and is feeling pain, is bad when he feels pain, though he be the best of men, and that he who feels pleasure is, when he feels pleasure, the more excellent in virtue the greater the pleasure he feels?

Pro. All that, Socrates, is the height of absurdity.

Soc. Now let us not undertake to subject pleasure to every possible test and then be found to give mind and knowledge very gentle treatment. Let us rather strike them boldly everywhere to see if their metal rings unsound at any point; so we shall find out what is by nature purest in them, and then we can make use of the truest elements of these and of pleasure to form our judgement of both.

Pro. Right.

Soc. Well, then, one part of knowledge is productive, the other has to do with education and support. Is that true?

Pro. It is.

Soc. Let us first consider whether in the manual arts one part is more allied to knowledge, and the other less, and the one should be regarded as purest, the other as less pure.

Pro. Yes, we ought to consider that.

Soc. And should the ruling elements of each of them be separated and distinguished from the rest?

Pro. What are they, and how can they be separated?

Soc. For example, if arithmetic and the sciences of measurement and weighing were taken away from all arts, what was left of any of them would be, so to speak, pretty worthless.

Pro. Yes, pretty worthless.

Soc. All that would be left for us would be to conjecture and to drill the perceptions by practice and experience, with the additional use of the powers of guessing, which are commonly called arts and acquire their efficacy by practice and toil.

Pro. That is undeniable.

Soc. Take music first; it is full of this; it attains harmony by guesswork based on practice, not by measurement; and flute music throughout tries to find the pitch of each note as it is produced by guess, so that the amount of uncertainty mixed up in it is great, and the amount of certainty small.

Pro. Very true.

Soc. And we shall find that medicine and agriculture and piloting and generalship are all in the same case.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. But the art of building, I believe, employs the greatest number of measures and instruments which give it great accuracy and make it more scientific than most arts.

Pro. In what way?

Soc. In shipbuilding and house-building, and many other branches of wood-working. For the artisan uses a rule, I imagine, a lathe, compasses, a chalk-line, and an ingenious instrument called a vice.

Pro. Certainly, Socrates; you are right.

Soc. Let us, then, divide the arts, as they are called, into two kinds, those which resemble music, and have less accuracy in their works, and those which, like building, are more exact.

Pro. Agreed.

Soc. And of these the most exact are the arts which I just now mentioned first.

Pro. I think you mean arithmetic and the other arts you mentioned with it just now.

Soc. Certainly. But, Protarchus, ought not these to be divided into two kinds? What do you say?

Pro. What kinds?

Soc. Are there not two kinds of arithmetic, that of the people and that of philosophers?

Pro. How can one kind of arithmetic be distinguished from the other?

Soc. The distinction is no small one, Protarchus. For some arithmeticians reckon unequal units, for instance, two armies and two oxen and two very small or incomparably large units; whereas others refuse to agree with them unless each of countless units is declared to differ not at all from each and every other unit.

Pro. You are certainly quite right in saying that there is a great difference between the devotees of arithmetic, so it is reasonable to assume that it is of two kinds.

Soc. And how about the arts of reckoning and measuring as they are used in building and in trade when compared with philosophical geometry and elaborate computations—shall we speak of each of these as one or as two?

Pro. On the analogy of the previous example, I should say that each of them was two.

Soc. Right. But do you understand why I introduced this subject?

Pro. Perhaps; but I wish you would give the answer to your question.

Soc. This discussion of ours is now, I think, no less than when we began it, seeking a counterpart of pleasure, and therefore it has introduced the present subject and is considering whether there is one kind of knowledge purer than another, as one pleasure is purer than another.

Pro. That is very clear; it was evidently introduced with that object.

Soc. Well, had not the discussion already found in what preceded that the various arts had various purposes and various degrees of exactness?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And after having given an art a single name in what has preceded, thereby making us think that it was a single art, does not the discussion now assume that the same art is two and ask whether the art of the philosophers or that of the non-philosophers possesses the higher degree of clearness and purity?

Pro. Yes, I think that is just the question it asks.

Soc. Then what reply shall we make, Protarchus?

Pro. Socrates, we have found a marvelously great difference in the clearness of different kinds of knowledge.

Soc. That will make the reply easier, will it not?

Pro. Yes, to be sure; and let our reply be this, that the arithmetical and metrical arts far surpass the others and that of these the arts which are stirred by the impulse of the true philosophers are immeasurably superior in accuracy and truth about measures and numbers.

Soc. We accept that as our judgement, and relying upon you we make this confident reply to those who are clever in straining arguments—

Pro. What reply?

Soc. That there are two arts of arithmetic and two of measuring, and many other arts which, like these, are twofold in this way, but possess a single name in common.

Pro. Let us give this answer, Socrates, to those who you say are clever; I hope we shall have luck with it.

Soc. These, then, we say, are the most exact arts or sciences?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. But the art of dialectic would spurn us, Protarchus, if we should judge that any other art is preferable to her.

Pro. But what is the art to which this name belongs?

Soc. Clearly anybody can recognize the art I mean; for I am confident that all men who have any intellect whatsoever believe that the knowledge which has to do with being, reality, and eternal immutability is the truest kind of knowledge. What do you think, Protarchus?

Pro. I have often heard Gorgias constantly maintain that the art of persuasion surpasses all others for this, he said, makes all things subject to itself, not by force, but by their free will, and is by far the best of all arts; so now I hardly like to oppose either him or you.

Soc. It seems to me that you wanted to speak and threw down your arms out of modesty.

Pro. Very well; have it as you like.

Soc. Is it my fault that you have misunderstood?

Pro. Misunderstood what?

Soc. My question, dear Protarchus, was not as yet what art or science surpasses all others by being the greatest and best and most useful to us: what I am trying to find out at present is which art, however little and of little use, has the greatest regard for clearness, exactness, and truth. See; you will not make Gorgias angry if you grant that his art is superior for the practical needs of men, but say that the study of which I spoke is superior in the matter of the most perfect truth, just as I said in speaking about the white that if it was small and pure it was superior to that which was great but impure. Now, therefore, with careful thought and due consideration, paying attention neither to the usefulness nor to the reputation of any arts or sciences, but to that faculty of our souls, if such there be, which by its nature loves the truth and does all things for the sake of the truth, let us examine this faculty and say whether it is most likely to possess mind and intelligence in the greatest purity, or we must look for some other faculty which has more valid claims.

Pro. I am considering, and I think it is difficult to concede that any other science or art cleaves more closely to truth than this.