Complete Works (103 page)

P
ROTARCHUS
: Going by what was said before, I ought to vote for the option that they are two of each sort.

S
OCRATES
: Right. But do you realize why we have brought up this question here?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Possibly, but I would appreciate it if you answered the question yourself.

S
OCRATES
: The aim of our discussion now seems to be, just as it was [b] when we first set out, to find an analogue here to the point we made about pleasure. So now we ought to find out whether there is a difference in purity between different kinds of knowledge in the same way as there was between different kinds of pleasures.

P
ROTARCHUS
: This obviously was the purpose of our present question.

S
OCRATES
: But what next? Have we not discovered before that different subject matters require different arts and that they have different degrees of certainty?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes, we did.

S
OCRATES
: It is questionable, then, whether an art that goes under one name and is commonly treated as one should not rather be treated as two, depending on the difference in certainty and purity. And if this is so, we [c] must also ask whether the art has more precision in the hands of the philosopher than its counterpart in the hands of the nonphilosopher.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is indeed the question here.

S
OCRATES
: So what answer shall we give to it, Protarchus?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Socrates, we have come across an amazing difference between the sciences, as far as precision is concerned.

S
OCRATES
: Will that facilitate our answer?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Obviously. And let it be said that these sciences are far superior to the other disciplines, but that those among them that are [d] animated by the spirit of the true philosophers are infinitely superior yet in precision and truth in their use of measure and number.

S
OCRATES
: Let us settle for this doctrine, and trusting you, we will confidently answer those powerful makers of word traps.
²⁰

P
ROTARCHUS
: What answer shall we give them?

S
OCRATES
: That there are two kinds of arithmetic and two kinds of geometry, and a great many other sciences following in their lead, which have the same twofold nature while sharing one name.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Let us give our answer, with best wishes, to those powerful [e] people, as you call them, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Do we maintain that these kinds of sciences are the most precise?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: But the power of dialectic would repudiate us if we put any other science ahead of her.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What science do we mean by that again?

S
OCRATES
: Clearly everybody would know what science I am referring
[58]
to now! For I take it that anyone with any share in reason at all would consider the discipline concerned with being and with what is really and forever in every way eternally self-same by far the truest of all kinds of knowledge. But what is your position? How would you decide this question, Protarchus?

P
ROTARCHUS
: On many occasions, Socrates, I have heard Gorgias insist that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the [b] best of all the arts. Now I am reluctant to take up a position against either him or you.

S
OCRATES
: I suspect that at first you wanted to say “take up arms,” but then suppressed it in embarrassment.
²¹

P
ROTARCHUS
: You may take this whatever way pleases you.

S
OCRATES
: But am I to blame for a misunderstanding on your part?

P
ROTARCHUS
: In what respect?

S
OCRATES
: What I wanted to find out here, my dear friend Protarchus, [c] was not what art or science excels all others by its grandeur, by its nobility, or by its usefulness to us. Our concern here was rather to find which one aims for clarity, precision, and the highest degree of truth, even if it is a minor discipline and our benefit is small. Look at it this way: You can avoid making an enemy of Gorgias so long as you let his art win as far as the actual profit for human life is concerned.

But as to the discipline I am talking about now, what I said earlier about the white also applies in this case: Even in a small quantity it can [d] be superior in purity and truth to what is large in quantity but impure and untrue. We must look for this science without concern for its actual benefit or its prestige, but see whether it is by its nature a capacity in our soul to love the truth and to do everything for its sake. And if thorough reflection and sufficient discussion confirms this for our art, then we can say that it is most likely to possess purity of mind and reason. Otherwise we would have to look for a higher kind of knowledge than this.

[e] P
ROTARCHUS
: Well, thinking it over, I agree that it would be difficult to find any other kind of art or any other science that is closer to the truth than this one.

S
OCRATES
: When you gave this answer now, did you realize that most of the arts and sciences and those who work at them are in the first place
[59]
only concerned with opinions and make opinions the center of their search? For even if they think they are studying nature, you must realize that all their lives they are merely dealing with this world order, how it came to be, how it is affected, and how it acts? Is that our position or not?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite so.

S
OCRATES
: So such a person assumes the task of dealing, not with things eternal, but with what comes to be, will come to be, or has come to be?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Undeniably.

S
OCRATES
: So how could we assert anything definite about these matters [b] with exact truth if it never did possess nor will possess nor now possesses any kind of sameness?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Impossible.

S
OCRATES
: And how could we ever hope to achieve any kind of certainty about subject matters that do not in themselves possess any certainty?

P
ROTARCHUS
: I see no way.

S
OCRATES
: Then there can be no reason or knowledge that attains the highest truth about these subjects!

P
ROTARCHUS
: At least it does not seem likely.

S
OCRATES
: We must therefore dismiss entirely you and me and also Gorgias and Philebus, but must make this declaration about our investigation.

[c] P
ROTARCHUS
: What declaration?

S
OCRATES
: Either we will find certainty, purity, truth, and what we may call integrity among the things that are forever in the same state, without anything mixed in it, or we will find it in what comes as close as possible to it. Everything else has to be called second-rate and inferior.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very true.

S
OCRATES
: Would not strict justice demand that we call the noblest things by the noblest names?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That’s only fair.

S
OCRATES
: And aren’t reason and knowledge names that deserve the [d] highest honor?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So, in their most accurate sense and appropriate use, they are applied to insights into true reality?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: But these were the very names that I put forward at the beginning for our verdict.

P
ROTARCHUS
: The very ones, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Good. But as to the
mixture
of intelligence and pleasure, if one likened our situation to that of builders with ingredients or materials [e] to use in construction, this would be a fitting comparison.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very fitting.

S
OCRATES
: So next we ought to try our hands at the mixture?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: But had we not better repeat and remind ourselves of certain points?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What are they?

S
OCRATES
: Those we kept reminding ourselves of before. The proverb fits well here that says that good things deserve repeating ‘twice or even thrice’.
[60]

P
ROTARCHUS
: Definitely.

S
OCRATES
: On, then, by the heavens! This is, I think, the general drift of what we said.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What was it?

S
OCRATES
: Philebus says that pleasure is the right aim for all living beings and that all should try to strive for it, that it is at the same time the good for all things, so that good and pleasant are but two names that really belong to what is by nature one and the same. Socrates, by contrast, affirms [b] that these are not one and the same thing but two, just as they are two in name, that the good and the pleasant have a different nature, and that intelligence has a greater share in the good than pleasure. Isn’t that the matter at issue now, just as it was before, Protarchus?
²²

P
ROTARCHUS
: Very much so.

S
OCRATES
: And are we also agreed on this point now, just as we were before?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What point?

S
OCRATES
: That the difference between the nature of the good and everything else is this?

[c] P
ROTARCHUS
: What is it?

S
OCRATES
: Any creature that was in permanent possession of it, entirely and in every way, would never be in need of anything else, but would live in perfect self-sufficiency. Is that right?

P
ROTARCHUS
: It is right.

S
OCRATES
: But didn’t we try to give them a separate trial in our discussion, assigning each of them a life of its own, so that pleasure would remain unmixed with intelligence, and, again, intelligence would not have the tiniest bit of pleasure?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That’s what we did.

[d] S
OCRATES
: Did either of the two seem to us self-sufficient at that time for anyone?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could it?

S
OCRATES
: If some mistake was made then, anyone now has the opportunity to take it up again and correct it. Let him put memory, intelligence, knowledge, and true opinion into one class, and ask himself whether anybody would choose to possess or acquire anything else without that [e] class. Most particularly, whether he would want pleasure, as much and as intensive as it can be, without the true opinion that he enjoys it, without recognizing what kind of experience it is he has, without memory of this affection for any length of time. And let him put reason to the same test, whether anyone would prefer to have it without any kind of pleasure, even a very short-lived one, rather than with some pleasures, provided that he does not want all pleasures without intelligence rather than with some fraction of it.

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

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

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could they?

S
OCRATES
: 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.

P
ROTARCHUS
: You are right.

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

P
ROTARCHUS
: What road?

S
OCRATES
: 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.

P
ROTARCHUS
: No doubt.

S
OCRATES
: 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.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite.

S
OCRATES
: 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?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Much more.

S
OCRATES
: 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.

P
ROTARCHUS
: By all means.

S
OCRATES
: 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.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: 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?