Complete Works (33 page)

It’s easy to figure out that ‘justice’ (‘
dikaiosun
ē
’) is the name given to the comprehension of the just (
dikaiou sunesis
), but the just itself is hard to understand. It seems that many people agree with one another about it [d] up to a point, but beyond that they disagree. Those who think that the universe is in motion believe that most of it is of such a kind as to do nothing but give way, but that something penetrates all of it and generates everything that comes into being. This, they say, is the fastest and smallest thing of all; for if it were not the smallest, so that nothing could keep it out, or not the fastest, so that it could treat all other things as though they were standing still, it wouldn’t be able to travel through everything. However, since it is governor and penetrator (
diaïon
) of everything else, [e] it is rightly called ‘just’ (‘
dikaïon
’)—the ‘
k
’-sound is added for the sake of euphony. As I was saying before, many people agree about the just up to
[413]
this point. As for myself, Hermogenes, because I persisted at it, I learned all about the matter in secret—that this is the just and the cause, since that through which (
di’ ho
) a thing comes to be is the cause. Indeed, someone told me that it is correct to call this ‘
Dia
’ (‘Zeus’) for that reason. Even when I’d heard this, however, I persisted in gently asking, “If all this is true, my friend, what actually
is
the just?” Thereupon, they think I am [b] asking too many questions and demanding the impossible, and they tell me that I have already learned enough. Then they try to satisfy me by having each tell me his own view. But they disagree with each other. One says that the just is the sun, since only the sun governs all of the things that are, penetrating (
diaï
ō
n
) and burning (
ka
ō
n
) them. Well-satisfied, I tell this fine answer to one of the others, but he ridicules me by asking if I think nothing just ever happens in human affairs once the sun has set. So [c] I persist, and ask him to tell me what
he
thinks the just is, and he says that it is fire (
to pur
)—but that isn’t easy to understand. Another says that it isn’t fire, but the heat itself that is in fire. Another says that all these explanations are ridiculous, and that the just is what Anaxagoras talks about, namely, mind; for he says that mind is self-ruling, mixes with nothing else, orders the things that are, and travels through everything.
⁴⁰
Thereupon, my friend, I am even more perplexed than when I set out to learn what the just is. However, the goal of our investigation was the
name
[d] ‘just’, and it seems to have been given for the reasons we mentioned.

H
ERMOGENES
: I think you really must have heard this from someone, Socrates, rather than making it up as you went along.

S
OCRATES
: What about the other explanations I’ve mentioned?

H
ERMOGENES
: I certainly don’t think you heard those.

S
OCRATES
: Listen, then, and perhaps I’ll be able to deceive you into thinking that I haven’t heard the remaining ones either. After justice what’s left? I don’t think we’ve discussed courage—but it’s clear that injustice (
adikia
) is really nothing more than a hindering of that which penetrates (
diaï
ō
n
). ‘Courage’ (‘
andreia
’) signifies that this virtue was given its name [e] in battle. And if indeed the things that are are flowing, then a battle cannot be anything but an opposing flow. If we remove the ‘
d
’ from ‘
andreia
’ to get ‘
anreia
’ (‘flowing back’), the name itself indicates this fact. Of course, it is clear that courage doesn’t oppose every flow, but only the one that is contrary to justice; otherwise, courage wouldn’t be praiseworthy. Similarly,
[414]
‘male’ (‘
arren
’) and ‘man’ (‘
an
ē
r
’) indicate upward flow (
an
ō
rho
ē
). It seems to me that ‘
gun
ē
’ (‘woman’) wants to be ‘
gon
ē
’ (‘womb’), that ‘
th
ē
lus
’ (‘female’) comes from ‘
th
ē
l
ē
’ (‘nipple’), and that a nipple (
th
ē
l
ē
) is so-called, Hermogenes, because it makes things flourish (
teth
ē
lenai
) in just the way that watering makes plants flourish.

H
ERMOGENES
: Probably so, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Yes, ‘
thallein
’ itself seems to me to be like the sudden and rapid growth of the young, for the name-giver has imitated something like this in the name, which he put together from ‘
thein
’ (‘to run’) and [b] ‘
hallesthai
’ (‘to jump’). Notice how I go off course, when I get on the flat. But there are still plenty of names left that seem important.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s true.

S
OCRATES
: And one of them is to see what the name ‘
techn
ē
’ (‘craft’) means.

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: If you remove the ‘
t
’ and insert an ‘
o
’ between the ‘
ch
’ and the ‘
n
’ and the ‘
n
’ and the ‘
ē
’,
⁴¹
doesn’t it signify the possession of understanding (
hexis nou
)? [c]

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes, Socrates, but getting it to do so is like trying to haul a boat up a very sticky ramp!

S
OCRATES
: But then you know, Hermogenes, that the first names given to things have long since been covered over by those who wanted to dress them up, and that letters were added or subtracted to make them sound good in the mouth, resulting in distortions and ornamentation of every kind. You know, too, that time has had a share in this process. Take ‘
katoptron
(‘mirror’), for example, don’t you think that the ‘
r
’ is an absurd addition?
⁴²
In my view, this sort of thing is the work of people who think [d] nothing of the truth, but only of the sounds their mouths make. Hence, they keep embellishing the first names, until finally a name is reached that no human being can understand. One example, among many others, is that they call the Sphinx by that name instead of ‘
Phix
’.
⁴³

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s right, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: And yet, if we can add whatever we like to names, or subtract whatever we like from them, it will be far too easy to fit any name to [e] any thing.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s true.

S
OCRATES
: Yes, it is true. So, I think a wise supervisor,
⁴⁴
like yourself, will have to keep a close watch, to preserve balance and probability.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s what I want to do.

S
OCRATES
: And I want to do it along with you, Hermogenes, but don’t
[415]
demand too much precision, in case

You enfeeble my strength.
⁴⁵

Now that ‘
techn
ē
’ is out of the way, I’m about to come to the summit of our inquiries. But first I’ll investigate ‘
m
ē
chan
ē
’ (‘device’). It seems to me that ‘
m
ē
chan
ē
’ signifies great accomplishment (
anein epi polu
); for ‘
m
ē
kos
’ signifies some sort of greatness, and these two, ‘
m
ē
kos
’ and ‘
anein
’ make up the name ‘
m
ē
chan
ē
’. But, as I was saying just now, we must go on to the summit of our inquiries, and investigate the names ‘
aret
ē
’ (‘virtue’) [b] and ‘
kakia
’ (‘vice’). I don’t yet understand the first of them, but the other seems clear enough, since it is in harmony with everything we said before. To the degree that things are in motion, all that is moving badly (
kak
ō
s ion
) should be called ‘
kakia
’, but the name for all such things is mostly given to a soul in which this bad movement in relation to things resides. It seems to me that the name ‘
deilia
’ (‘cowardice’), which we haven’t discussed, expresses what this bad movement is.—We ought to have discussed [c] ‘
deilia
’ after ‘
andreia
’ (‘courage’), but we passed it by, as I believe we have passed by lots of other names.—Now, ‘
deilia
’ signifies the soul’s being bound with a strong shackle (
desmos
), for
lian
(too much) is a degree of strength. Therefore, ‘
deilia
’ signifies the strongest of the soul’s shackles.
Aporia
(perplexity, inability to move on) is a vice of the same sort, and so, it seems, is everything else that hinders movement and motion. This makes it clear that the bad movement in question is a restrained or hindered motion, whose possession by a soul causes it to become filled with vice. And, if ‘
kakia
’ is the name of that sort of thing, ‘
aret
ē
’ is the opposite. It signifies, first, lack of perplexity (
euporia
, ease of movement), and, second, that the flow of a good soul is always unimpeded; for it seems that it is [d] given this name ‘
aret
ē
’ because it is unrestrained and unhindered and so is always flowing (
aei rheon
). Thus it is correct to call it ‘
aeirheit
ē
’, but this has been contracted, and it is called ‘
aret
ē
’. Now, maybe you’ll say that I’m inventing things again, but I think that if what I just said about ‘
kakia
’ is correct, then so is what I said about the name
‘aret
ē
’. [e]

H
ERMOGENES
: What about ‘
kakon
’ (‘bad’), which has been involved in many of the previous inquiries? What’s the meaning of it?
[416]

S
OCRATES
: It’s a strange word, by god! At least, that’s what I think. And one that’s hard to interpret. So I’ll use the device I introduced earlier on it as well.

H
ERMOGENES
: Which one?

S
OCRATES
: That of attributing a foreign origin to it.
⁴⁶

H
ERMOGENES
: And you may well be correct. So suppose we leave these inquiries, and try to see what rationale there is for ‘
kalon
’ (‘fine’, ‘beautiful’) and ‘
aischron
’ (‘disgraceful’, ‘ugly’).

S
OCRATES
: The meaning of ‘
aischron
’ seems clear to me, and it is also in harmony with what we said before. It seems to me that the giver of names [b] reviles everything that hinders or restrains the flowing of the things that are. In particular, he gave this name ‘
aeischoroun
’ to what always restrains their flowing (
aei ischei ton rhoun
). But nowadays it is contracted and pronounced ‘
aischron
’.

H
ERMOGENES
: What about ‘
kalon
’?

S
OCRATES
: It’s harder to understand. Indeed, it is pronounced like this only because it sounds harmonious to shorten the ‘
ou
’ to ‘
o
’.

H
ERMOGENES
: How so?

S
OCRATES
: In my view, this name derives from a sort of thought (
dianoia
).

H
ERMOGENES
: What do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: Tell me. What caused each of the things that are to be called [c] by a name? Isn’t it whatever gave them their names?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And wasn’t it thought—whether divine or human or both—that did this?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And isn’t what originally named them the same as what names (
kaloun
) them now, that is to say, thought?

H
ERMOGENES
: Evidently.

S
OCRATES
: Aren’t all the works performed by thought and understanding praiseworthy, while those that aren’t are blameworthy?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Now, medicine performs medical works and carpentry performs [d] works of carpentry? Do you agree?

H
ERMOGENES
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: And to name things (
kaloun
) is to perform beautiful (
kalon
) works?

H
ERMOGENES
: Necessarily.

S
OCRATES
: And we say that it is thought that does this?

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Therefore wisdom (
phron
ē
sis
) is correctly given the name ‘
kalon
’ (‘beautiful’), since it performs the works that we say are beautiful and welcome as such.

H
ERMOGENES
: Evidently.

[e] S
OCRATES
: What other such names still remain for us to examine?

H
ERMOGENES
: Those related to the good and the beautiful, such as ‘
sumpheron
’ (‘advantageous’), ‘
lusiteloun
’ (‘profitable’), ‘
ō
phelimon
’ (‘beneficial’),
[417]
‘
kerdaleon
’ (‘gainful’), and their opposites.