Complete Works (183 page)
C
ALLICLES
: And Socrates from Alopece doesn’t agree with us about this. Or does he?
S
OCRATES
: He does not. And I believe that Callicles doesn’t either when [e] he comes to see himself rightly. Tell me: don’t you think that those who do well have the opposite experience of those who do badly?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: Now since these experiences are the opposites of each other, isn’t it necessary that it’s just the same with them as it is with health and disease? For a man isn’t both healthy and sick at the same time, I take it, nor does he get rid of both health and disease at the same time.
C
ALLICLES
: What do you mean?
S
OCRATES
: Take any part of the body you like, for example, and think
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about it. A man can have a disease of the eyes, can’t he, to which we give the name “eye disease”?
C
ALLICLES
: Of course.
S
OCRATES
: But then surely his eyes aren’t also healthy at the same time?
C
ALLICLES
: No, not in any way.
S
OCRATES
: What if he gets rid of his eye disease? Does he then also get rid of his eyes’ health and so in the end he’s rid of both at the same time?
C
ALLICLES
: No, not in the least.
S
OCRATES
: For that, I suppose, is an amazing and unintelligible thing to [b] happen, isn’t it?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, it very much is.
S
OCRATES
: But he acquires and loses each of them successively, I suppose.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I agree.
S
OCRATES
: Isn’t it like this with strength and weakness, too?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: And with speed and slowness?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.
S
OCRATES
: Now, does he acquire and get rid of good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery, successively too?
C
ALLICLES
: No doubt he does.
S
OCRATES
: So if we find things that a man both gets rid of and keeps at [c] the same time, it’s clear that these things wouldn’t be what’s good and what’s bad. Are we agreed on that? Think very carefully about it and tell me.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I agree most emphatically.
S
OCRATES
: Go back, now, to what we’ve agreed on previously. You mentioned hunger—as a pleasant or a painful thing? I mean the hunger itself.
C
ALLICLES
: As a painful thing. But for a hungry man to eat is pleasant.
[d] S
OCRATES
: I agree. I understand. But the hunger itself is painful, isn’t it?
C
ALLICLES
: So I say.
S
OCRATES
: And thirst is, too?
C
ALLICLES
: Very much so.
S
OCRATES
: Am I to ask any further, or do you agree that every deficiency and appetite is painful?
C
ALLICLES
: I do. No need to ask.
S
OCRATES
: Fair enough. Wouldn’t you say that, for a thirsty person, to drink is something pleasant?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I would.
S
OCRATES
: And in the case you speak of, “a thirsty person” means “a person who’s in pain,” I take it?
[e] C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: And drinking is a filling of the deficiency, and is a pleasure?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Now, don’t you mean that insofar as a person is drinking, he’s feeling enjoyment?
C
ALLICLES
: Very much so.
S
OCRATES
: Even though he’s thirsty?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I agree.
S
OCRATES
: Even though he’s in pain?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Do you observe the result, that when you say that a thirsty person drinks, you’re saying that a person who’s in pain simultaneously feels enjoyment? Or doesn’t this happen simultaneously in the same place, in the soul or in the body as you like? I don’t suppose it makes any difference which. Is this so or not?
C
ALLICLES
: It is.
S
OCRATES
: But you do say that it’s impossible for a person who’s doing
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well to be doing badly at the same time.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: Yet you did agree that it’s possible for a person in pain to feel enjoyment.
C
ALLICLES
: Apparently.
S
OCRATES
: So, feeling enjoyment isn’t the same as doing well, and being in pain isn’t the same as doing badly, and the result is that what’s pleasant turns out to be different from what’s good.
C
ALLICLES
: I don’t know what your clever remarks amount to, Socrates.
S
OCRATES
: You do know. You’re just pretending you don’t, Callicles. Go just a bit further ahead.
C
ALLICLES
: Why do you keep up this nonsense?
[b] S
OCRATES
: So you’ll know how wise you are in scolding me. Doesn’t each of us stop being thirsty and stop feeling pleasure at the same time as a result of drinking?
C
ALLICLES
: I don’t know what you mean.
G
ORGIAS
: Don’t do that, Callicles! Answer him for our benefit too, so that the discussion may be carried through.
C
ALLICLES
: But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias. He keeps questioning people on matters that are trivial, hardly worthwhile, and refutes them!
G
ORGIAS
: What difference does that make to you? It’s none of your business to appraise them, Callicles. You promised Socrates that he could try to refute you in any way he liked.
C
ALLICLES
: Go ahead, then, and ask these trivial, petty questions, since [c] that’s what pleases Gorgias.
S
OCRATES
: You’re a happy man, Callicles, in that you’ve been initiated into the greater mysteries before the lesser. I didn’t think it was permitted. So answer where you left off, and tell me whether each of us stops feeling pleasure at the same time as he stops being thirsty.
C
ALLICLES
: That’s my view.
S
OCRATES
: And doesn’t he also stop having pleasures at the same time as he stops being hungry or stops having the other appetites?
C
ALLICLES
: That’s so.
S
OCRATES
: Doesn’t he then also stop having pains and pleasures at the [d] same time?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: But, he certainly doesn’t stop having good things and bad things at the same time, as you agree. Don’t you still agree?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes I do. Why?
S
OCRATES
: Because it turns out that good things are not the same as pleasant ones, and bad things not the same as painful ones. For pleasant and painful things come to a stop simultaneously, whereas good things and bad ones do not, because they are in fact different things. How then could pleasant things be the same as good ones and painful things the same as bad ones?
Look at it this way, too, if you like, for I don’t suppose that you agree with that argument, either. Consider this. Don’t you call men good because [e] of the presence of good things in them, just as you call them good-looking because of the presence of good looks?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: Well then, do you call foolish and cowardly men good? You didn’t a while ago; you were then calling brave and intelligent ones good.
Or don’t you call these men good?
C
ALLICLES
: Oh yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: Well then, have you ever seen a foolish child feel enjoyment?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I have.
S
OCRATES
: But you’ve never yet seen a foolish man feel enjoyment?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I suppose I have. What’s the point?
S
OCRATES
: Nothing. Just answer me.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I’ve seen it.
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S
OCRATES
: Well now, have you ever seen an intelligent man feel pain or enjoyment?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I daresay I have.
S
OCRATES
: Now who feels pain or enjoyment more, intelligent men or foolish ones?
C
ALLIGLES
: I don’t suppose there’s a lot of difference.
S
OCRATES
: Good enough. Have you ever seen a cowardly man in combat?
C
ALLICLES
: Of course I have.
S
OCRATES
: Well then, when the enemy retreated, who do you think felt enjoyment more, the cowards or the brave men?
[b] C
ALLICLES
: Both felt it, I think; maybe the cowards felt it more. But if not, they felt it to pretty much the same degree.
S
OCRATES
: It makes no difference. So cowards feel enjoyment too?
C
ALLICLES
: Oh yes, very much so.
S
OCRATES
: Fools do too, evidently.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Now when the enemy advances, are the cowards the only ones to feel pain, or do the brave men do so too?
C
ALLICLES
: They both do.
S
OCRATES
: To the same degree?
C
ALLICLES
: Maybe the cowards feel it more.
S
OCRATES
: And when the enemy retreats, don’t they feel enjoyment more?
C
ALLICLES
: Maybe.
S
OCRATES
: So don’t foolish men and intelligent ones, and cowardly men [c] and brave ones feel enjoyment and pain to pretty much the same degree, as you say, or cowardly men feel them more than brave ones?
C
ALLICLES
: That’s my view.
S
OCRATES
: But surely the intelligent and brave men are good and the cowardly and foolish are bad?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Hence the degree of enjoyment and pain that good and bad men feel is pretty much the same.
C
ALLICLES
: I agree.
S
OCRATES
: Now are good and bad men pretty much equally both good and bad, or are the bad ones even better?
[d] C
ALLICLES
: By Zeus! I don’t know what you mean.
S
OCRATES
: Don’t you know that you say that the good men are good and the bad men bad because of the presence of good or bad things in them, and that the good things are pleasures and the bad ones pains?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: Aren’t good things, pleasures, present in men who feel enjoyment, if in fact they do feel it?
C
ALLICLES
: Of course.
S
OCRATES
: Now aren’t men who feel enjoyment good men, because good things are present in them?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Well then, aren’t bad things, pains, present in men who feel pain?
C
ALLICLES
: They are.
[e] S
OCRATES
: And you do say that it’s because of the presence of bad things that bad men are bad. Or don’t you say this any more?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.
S
OCRATES
: So all those who feel enjoyment are good, and all those who feel pain are bad.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.
S
OCRATES
: And those feeling them more are more so, those feeling them less are less so, and those feeling them to pretty much the same degree are good or bad to pretty much the same degree.
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Now aren’t you saying that intelligent men and foolish ones, and cowardly and courageous ones, experience pretty much the same degree of enjoyment and pain, or even that cowardly ones experience more of it?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I am.
S
OCRATES
: Join me, then, in adding up what follows for us from our agreements. They say it’s an admirable thing to speak of and examine
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what’s admirable “twice and even thrice.” We say that the intelligent and brave man is good, don’t we?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: And that the foolish and cowardly man is bad?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.
S
OCRATES
: And again, that the man who feels enjoyment is good?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: And the one experiencing pain is bad?
C
ALLICLES
: Necessarily.
S
OCRATES
: And that the good and the bad man feel pain and enjoyment to the same degree, and that perhaps the bad man feels them even more?
C
ALLICLES
: Yes.
S
OCRATES
: Doesn’t it then turn out that the bad man is both good and bad to the same degree as the good man, or even that he’s better? Isn’t this what follows, along with those earlier statements, if one holds that [b] pleasant things are the same as good things? Isn’t this necessarily the case, Callicles?