Complete Works (184 page)

C
ALLICLES
: I’ve been listening to you for quite some time now, Socrates, and agreeing with you, while thinking that even if a person grants some point to you in jest, you gladly fasten on it, the way boys do. As though you really think that I or anybody else at all don’t believe that some pleasures are better and others worse.

S
OCRATES
: Oh, Callicles! What a rascal you are. You treat me like a child. [c] At one time you say that things are one way and at another that the same things are another way, and so you deceive me. And yet I didn’t suppose at the beginning that I’d be deceived intentionally by you, because I assumed you were a friend. Now, however, I’ve been misled, and evidently have no choice but to “make the best with what I have,” as the ancient proverb has it, and to accept what I’m given by you. The thing you’re saying now, evidently, is that some pleasures are good while others are bad. Is that right?

[d] C
ALLICLES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Are the good ones the beneficial ones, and the bad ones the harmful ones?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.

S
OCRATES
: And the beneficial ones are the ones that produce something good while the bad ones are those that produce something bad?

C
ALLICLES
: That’s my view.

S
OCRATES
: Now, do you mean pleasures like the ones we were just now mentioning in connection with the body, those of eating and drinking? Do some of these produce health in the body, or strength, or some other bodily excellence, and are these pleasures good, while those that produce [e] the opposites of these things are bad?

C
ALLICLES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: And similarly, aren’t some pains good and others bad, too?

C
ALLICLES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: Now, shouldn’t we both choose and act to have the good pleasures and pains?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, we should.

S
OCRATES
: But not the bad ones?

C
ALLICLES
: Obviously.

S
OCRATES
: No, for Polus and I both thought, if you recall, that we should, surely, do all things for the sake of what’s good.
¹⁵
Do you also think as we do that the end of all action is what’s good, and that we should do all
[500]
other things for its sake, but not it for their sake? Are you voting on our side to make it three?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I am.

S
OCRATES
: So we should do the other things, including pleasant things, for the sake of good things, and not good things for the sake of pleasant things.

C
ALLICLES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Now, is it for every man to pick out which kinds of pleasures are good ones and which are bad ones, or does this require a craftsman in each case?

C
ALLICLES
: It requires a craftsman.

S
OCRATES
: Let’s recall what I was actually saying to Polus and Gorgias.
¹⁶
[b] I was saying, if you remember, that there are some practices that concern themselves with nothing further than pleasure and procure only pleasure, practices that are ignorant about what’s better and worse, while there are other practices that do know what’s good and what’s bad. And I placed the “knack” (not the craft) of pastry baking among those that are concerned with pleasure, and the medical craft among those concerned with what’s good. And by Zeus, the god of friendship, Callicles, please don’t think that you should jest with me either, or answer anything that comes to mind, contrary to what you really think, and please don’t accept what you get from me as though I’m jesting! For you see, don’t you, that our [c] discussion’s about this (and what would even a man of little intelligence take more seriously than this?), about the way we’re supposed to live. Is it the way you urge me toward, to engage in these manly activities, to make speeches among the people, to practice oratory, and to be active in the sort of politics you people engage in these days? Or is it the life spent in philosophy? And in what way does this latter way of life differ from the former? Perhaps it’s best to distinguish them, as I just tried to do; [d] having done that and having agreed that these are two distinct lives, it’s best to examine how they differ from each other, and which of them is the one we should live. Now perhaps you don’t yet know what I’m talking about.

C
ALLICLES
: No, I certainly don’t.

S
OCRATES
: Well, I’ll tell you more clearly. Given that we’re agreed, you and I, that there is such a thing as
good
and such a thing as
pleasant
and that the pleasant is different from the good, and that there’s a practice of each of them and a procedure for obtaining it, the quest for the pleasant on the one hand and that for the good on the other—give me first your assent to this point or withhold it. Do you assent to it? [e]

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: Come then, and agree further with me about what I was saying to them too, if you think that what I said then was true. I was saying, wasn’t I, that I didn’t think that pastry baking is a craft, but a knack, whereas medicine is a craft. I said that the one, medicine, has
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investigated both the nature of the object it serves and the cause of the things it does, and is able to give an account of each of these. The other, the one concerned with pleasure, to which the whole of its service is entirely devoted, proceeds toward its object in a quite uncraftlike way, without having at all considered either the nature of pleasure or its cause. It does so completely irrationally, with virtually no discrimination. Through routine and knack it merely preserves the memory of what customarily [b] happens, and that’s how it also supplies its pleasures. So, consider first of all whether you think that this account is an adequate one and whether you think that there are also other, similar preoccupations in the case of the soul. Do you think that some of the latter are of the order of crafts and possess forethought about what’s best for the soul, while others slight this and have investigated only, as in the other case, the soul’s way of getting its pleasure, without considering which of the pleasures is better or worse, and without having any concerns about anything but mere gratification, whether for the better or for the worse? For my part, Callicles, [c] I think there are such preoccupations, and I say that this sort of thing is flattery, both in the case of the body and that of the soul and in any other case in which a person may wait upon a pleasure without any consideration of what’s better or worse. As for you, do you join us in subscribing to the same opinion on these matters or do you dissent from it?

C
ALLICLES
: No, I won’t dissent. I’m going along with you, both to expedite your argument and to gratify Gorgias here.

[d] S
OCRATES
: Now is this the case with one soul only, and not with two or many?

C
ALLICLES
: No, it’s also the case with two or many.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t it also possible to gratify a group of souls collectively at one and the same time, without any consideration for what’s best?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I suppose so.

S
OCRATES
: Can you tell me which ones are the practices that do this? Better yet, if you like I’ll ask you and you say yes for any which you think [e] falls in this group, and no for any which you think doesn’t. Let’s look at fluteplaying first. Don’t you think that it’s one of this kind, Callicles? That it merely aims at giving us pleasure without giving thought to anything else?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I think so.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t all such practices do that, too? Lyreplaying at competitions, for example?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: What about training choruses and composing dithyrambs? Doesn’t that strike you as being something of the same sort? Do you think that Cinesias the son of Meles gives any thought to saying anything of a sort that might lead to the improvement of his audience, or to what is
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likely to gratify the crowd of spectators?

C
ALLICLES
: Clearly the latter, Socrates, at least in Cinesias’ case.

S
OCRATES
: What about his father Meles? Do you think he sang to the lyre with a regard for what’s best? Or did he fail to regard even what’s most pleasant? For he inflicted pain upon his spectators with his singing. But consider whether you don’t think that all singing to the lyre and composing of dithyrambs has been invented for the sake of pleasure.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do think so.

[b] S
OCRATES
: And what about that majestic, awe-inspiring practice, the composition of tragedy? What is it after? Is the project, the intent of tragic composition merely the gratification of spectators, as you think, or does it also strive valiantly not to say anything that is corrupt, though it may be pleasant and gratifying to them, and to utter in both speech and song anything that might be unpleasant but beneficial, whether the spectators enjoy it or not? In which of these ways do you think tragedy is being composed?

[c] C
ALLICLES
: This much is obvious, Socrates, that it’s more bent upon giving pleasure and upon gratifying the spectators.

S
OCRATES
: And weren’t we saying just now that this sort of thing is flattery?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, we were.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, if one stripped away from the whole composition both melody, rhythm, and meter, does it turn out that what’s left is only speeches?

C
ALLICLES
: Necessarily.

S
OCRATES
: Aren’t these speeches given to a large gathering of people?

C
ALLICLES
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: So poetry is a kind of popular harangue.
¹⁷

C
ALLICLES
: Apparently. [d]

S
OCRATES
: And such popular harangue would be oratory, then. Or don’t you think that poets practice oratory in the theatres?

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: So now we’ve discovered a popular oratory of a kind that’s addressed to men, women, and children, slave and free alike. We don’t much like it; we say that it’s a flattering sort.

C
ALLICLES
: Yes, that’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Very well. What about the oratory addressed to the Athenian people and to those in other cities composed of free men? What is our [e] view of this kind? Do you think that orators always speak with regard to what’s best? Do they always set their sights on making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches? Or are they, too, bent upon the gratification of the citizens, and, slighting the common good for the sake of their own private good, do they treat the people like children, their sole attempt being to gratify them?
[503]

C
ALLICLES
: This issue you’re asking about isn’t just a simple one, for there are those who say what they do because they do care for the citizens, and there are also those like the ones you’re talking about.

S
OCRATES
: That’s good enough. For if this matter really has two parts to it, then one part of it would be flattery, I suppose, and shameful public harangue, while the other—that of getting the souls of the citizens to be as good as possible and of striving valiantly to say what is best, whether the audience will find it more pleasant or more unpleasant—is something admirable. But you’ve never seen this type of oratory—or, if you can [b] mention any orator of this sort, why haven’t you let me also know who he is?

C
ALLICLES
: No, by Zeus! I certainly can’t mention any of our contemporary orators to you.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, can you mention anyone from former times through whom the Athenians are reputed to have become better after he began his public addresses, when previously they had been worse? I certainly don’t know who this could be.

C
ALLICLES
: What? Don’t they tell you that Themistocles proved to be a [c] good man, and so did Cimon, Miltiades and Pericles who died just recently, and whom you’ve heard speak, too?

S
OCRATES
: Yes, Callicles, if the excellence you were speaking of earlier, the filling up of appetites, both one’s own and those of others, is the true kind. But if this is not, and if what we were compelled to agree on in our subsequent discussion is the true kind instead—that a man should satisfy those of his appetites that, when they are filled up, make him better, and [d] not those that make him worse, and that this is a matter of craft—I don’t see how I can say that any of these men has proved to be such a man.

C
ALLICLES
: But if you’ll look carefully, you’ll find that they were.
¹⁸

S
OCRATES
: Let’s examine the matter calmly and see whether any of these men has proved to be like that. Well then, won’t the good man, the man [e] who speaks with regard to what’s best, say whatever he says not randomly but with a view to something, just like the other craftsmen, each of whom keeps his own product in view and so does not select and apply randomly what he applies, but so that he may give his product some shape? Take a look at painters for instance, if you would, or housebuilders or shipwrights or any of the other craftsmen you like, and see how each one
[504]
places what he does into a certain organization, and compels one thing to be suited for another and to fit to it until the entire object is put together in an organized and orderly way. The other craftsmen, too, including the ones we were mentioning just lately, the ones concerned with the body, physical trainers and doctors, no doubt give order and organization to the body. Do we agree that this is so or not?