Complete Works (102 page)

P
ROTARCHUS
: Just what are you after in asking this question, Socrates?

[e] S
OCRATES
: I want to omit nothing in the investigation of both pleasure and knowledge. I want to ask if one part of them is pure, another impure, so that both of them may come to trial in their pure form, and so make it easier for you and me and all those present to come to a verdict in this trial.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite right.

S
OCRATES
: Then let us go on and see whether all items that belong in the pure kind display the following qualification. But let us first pick out one of them and study it.

[53]
P
ROTARCHUS
: Which one shall we choose?

S
OCRATES
: Let us take whiteness first, if you have no objection.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is fine with me.

S
OCRATES
: Now, how can there be purity in the case of whiteness, and what sort of thing is it? Is it the greatest quantity or amount, or is it rather the complete lack of any admixture, that is, where there is not the slightest part of any other kind contained in this color?

P
ROTARCHUS
: It will obviously be the perfectly unadulterated color.

S
OCRATES
: Right. But shall we not also agree that this is the truest and [b] the most beautiful of all instances of white, rather than what is greatest in quantity or amount?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: So we are perfectly justified if we say that a small portion of pure white is to be regarded as whiter than a larger quantity of an impure whiteness, and at the same time more beautiful and possessed of more truth?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Perfectly justified.

S
OCRATES
: Well, now, we don’t need to run through many more examples to justify our account of pleasure, but this example suffices to prove that [c] in the case of pleasure, too, every small and insignificant pleasure that is unadulterated by pain will turn out to be pleasanter, truer, and more beautiful than a greater quantity and amount of the impure kind.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite definitely so, and the example is sufficient.

S
OCRATES
: But what about the following point? Have we not been told that pleasure is always a process of
becoming
, and that there is no
being
at all of pleasure? There are some subtle thinkers who have tried to pass on this doctrine to us, and we ought to be grateful to them.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What does it mean?

S
OCRATES
: I will indeed try to explain it to you, my friend Protarchus, by resuming my questioning. [d]

P
ROTARCHUS
: You have only to keep on asking.

S
OCRATES
: Suppose there are two kinds of things, one kind sufficient to itself, the other in need of something else.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How and what sort of things do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: The one kind by nature possesses supreme dignity; the other is inferior to it.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Express this more clearly, please.

S
OCRATES
: We must have met handsome and noble youths, together with their courageous lovers.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Now, try to think of another set of two items that corresponds to this pair in all the relevant features that we just mentioned. [e]

P
ROTARCHUS
: Do I have to repeat my request for the third time? Please express more clearly what it is you want to say, Socrates!

S
OCRATES
: Nothing fanciful at all, Protarchus; this is just a playful manner of speaking. What is really meant is that all things are either for the sake of something else or they are that for whose sake the other kind comes to be in each case.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I finally managed to understand it, thanks to the many repetitions.

S
OCRATES
: Perhaps, my boy, we will understand better as the argument
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proceeds.

P
ROTARCHUS
: No doubt.

S
OCRATES
: So let’s take another pair.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Of what kind?

S
OCRATES
: Take on the one hand the
generation
of all things, on the other their
being
.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I also accept this pair from you, being and generation.

S
OCRATES
: Excellent. Now, which of the two do you think exists for the other’s sake? Shall we say that generation takes place for the sake of being, or does being exist for the sake of generation?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Whether what is called being is what it is for the sake of generation, is that what you want to know?

S
OCRATES
: Apparently.

P
ROTARCHUS
: By heavens, what a question to ask me! You might as well [b] ask: “Tell me, Protarchus, whether shipbuilding goes on for the sake of ships or whether ships are for the sake of shipbuilding,” or some such thing.

S
OCRATES
: That is precisely what I am talking about, Protarchus.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What keeps you from answering your questions yourself, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: Nothing, provided you take your share in the argument.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I am quite determined to.

S
OCRATES
: I hold that all ingredients, as well as all tools, and quite [c] generally all materials, are always provided for the sake of some process of generation. I further hold that every process of generation in turn always takes place for the sake of some particular being, and that all generation taken together takes place for the sake of being as a whole.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Nothing could be clearer.

S
OCRATES
: Now, pleasure, since it is a process of generation, necessarily comes to be for the sake of some being.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: But that for the sake of which what comes to be for the sake of something comes to be in each case, ought to be put into the class of the things good in themselves, while that which comes to be for the sake of something else belongs in another class, my friend.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Undeniably.

[d] S
OCRATES
: But if pleasure really is a process of generation, will we be placing it correctly, if we put it in a class different from that of the good?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That too is undeniable.

S
OCRATES
: It is true, then, as I said at the beginning of this argument, that we ought to be grateful to the person who indicated to us that there is always only generation of pleasure and that it has no being whatsoever. And it is obvious that he will just laugh at those who claim that pleasure is good.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

[e] S
OCRATES
: But this same person will also laugh at those who find their fulfillment in processes of generation.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How so, and what sort of people are you alluding to?

S
OCRATES
: I am talking of those who cure their hunger and thirst or anything else that is cured by processes of generation. They take delight in generation as a pleasure and proclaim that they would not want to live if they were not subject to hunger and thirst and if they could not experience all the other things one might want to mention in connection with such conditions.

[55]
P
ROTARCHUS
: That is very like them.

S
OCRATES
: But would we not all say that destruction is the opposite of generation?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Necessarily.

S
OCRATES
: So whoever makes this choice would choose generation and destruction in preference to that third life which consists of neither pleasure nor pain, but is a life of thought in the purest degree possible.

P
ROTARCHUS
: So a great absurdity seems to appear, Socrates, if we posit pleasure as good.

S
OCRATES
: An absurdity indeed, especially if we go on to look at it this way.

P
ROTARCHUS
: In what way?

[b] S
OCRATES
: How is this not absurd: that there should be nothing good or noble in bodies or anywhere else except in the soul, but in the soul pleasure should be the only good thing, so that courage or moderation or reason or any of the other goods belonging to the soul would be neither good nor noble? In addition, we would have to call the person who experiences not pleasure but pain
bad
while he is in pain, even if he were the best of all men. By contrast, we would have to say of whoever is pleased that the greater his pleasure whenever he is pleased, the more he excels in virtue! [c]

P
ROTARCHUS
: All that is as absurd as possible, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Now, let us not undertake to give pleasure every possible test, while going very lightly with reason and knowledge. Let us rather strike them valiantly all around, to see if there is some fault anywhere. So we’ll learn what is by nature purest in them. And seeing this, we can use the truest parts of these, as well as of pleasure, to make our joint decision.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Fair enough.

S
OCRATES
: Among the disciplines to do with knowledge, one part is [d] productive, the other concerned with education and nurture, right?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Just so.

S
OCRATES
: But let us first find out whether within the manual arts there is one side more closely related to knowledge itself, the other less closely; secondly, whether we should treat the one as quite pure, as far as it goes, the other as less pure.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is what we ought to do.

S
OCRATES
: So let us sort out the leading disciplines among them.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Which disciplines, and how are we to do it?

S
OCRATES
: If someone were to take away all counting, measuring, and [e] weighing from the arts and crafts, the rest might be said to be worthless.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Worthless, indeed!

S
OCRATES
: All we would have left would be conjecture and the training of our senses through experience and routine. We would have to rely on our ability to make the lucky guesses that many people call art, once it has acquired some proficiency through practice and hard work.
[56]

P
ROTARCHUS
: Undeniably so.

S
OCRATES
: This is clear, to start with, in the case of flute-playing.
¹⁹
The harmonies are found not by measurement but by the hit and miss of training, and quite generally music tries to find the measure by observing the vibrating strings. So there is a lot of imprecision mixed up in it and very little reliability.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very true.

S
OCRATES
: And will we not discover that medicine, agriculture, navigation, [b] and strategy are in the same condition?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: But as to building, I believe that it owes its superior level of craftsmanship over other disciplines to its frequent use of measures and instruments, which give it high accuracy.

P
ROTARCHUS
: In what way?

S
OCRATES
: In shipbuilding and housebuilding, but also in many other [c] woodworking crafts. For it employs straightedge and compass, as well as a mason’s rule, a line, and an ingenious gadget called a carpenter’s square.

P
ROTARCHUS
: You are quite right, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Let us, then, divide the so-called arts into two parts, those like music, with less precision in their practice, and those like building, with more precision.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Agreed.

S
OCRATES
: And let’s take those among them as most accurate that we called primary just now.

P
ROTARCHUS
: I suppose you mean arithmetic and the other disciplines you mentioned after it.

[d] S
OCRATES
: That’s right. But don’t you think we have to admit that they, too, fall into two kinds, Protarchus?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What two kinds do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: Don’t we have to agree, first, that the arithmetic of the many is one thing, and the philosophers’ arithmetic is quite another?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could anyone distinguish these two kinds of arithmetic?

S
OCRATES
: The difference is by no means small, Protarchus. First there are those who compute sums of quite unequal units, such as two armies [e] or two herds of cattle, regardless whether they are tiny or huge. But then there are the others who would not follow their example, unless it were guaranteed that none of those infinitely many units differed in the least from any of the others.

P
ROTARCHUS
: You explain very well the notable difference among those who make numbers their concern, so it stands to reason that there are those two different kinds of arithmetic.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, what about the art of calculating and measuring as builders and merchants use them and the geometry and calculations practiced
[57]
by philosophers—shall we say there is one sort of each of them or two?