Complete Works (99 page)

P
ROTARCHUS
: They should apply equally to all the tenses: past, present, and future.

[d] S
OCRATES
: Now, did we not say before, about the pleasures and pains that belong to the soul alone, that they might precede those that go through the body? It would therefore be possible that we have anticipatory pleasures and pains about the future.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Undeniably.

S
OCRATES
: And are those writings and pictures which come to be in us, [e] as we said earlier, concerned only with the past and the present, but not with the future?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Decidedly with the future.

S
OCRATES
: If you say ‘decidedly’, is it because all of them are really hopes for future times, and we are forever brimful of hopes, throughout our lifetime?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite definitely.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, in addition to what has been said now, also answer this question.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Concerning what?

S
OCRATES
: Is not a man who is just, pious, and good in all respects, also loved by the gods?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could he fail to be?

S
OCRATES
: But what about someone who is unjust and in all respects evil? Isn’t he that man’s opposite?
[40]

P
ROTARCHUS
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: And is not everyone, as we just said, always full of many hopes?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: There are, then, assertions in each of us that we call hopes?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: But there are also those painted images. And someone often envisages himself in the possession of an enormous amount of gold and of a lot of pleasures as a consequence. And in addition, he also sees, in this inner picture himself, that he is beside himself with delight.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What else! [b]

S
OCRATES
: Now, do we want to say that in the case of good people these pictures are usually true, because they are dear to the gods, while quite the opposite usually holds in the case of wicked ones, or is this not what we ought to say?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is just what we ought to say.

S
OCRATES
: And wicked people nevertheless have pleasures painted in their minds, even though they are somehow false?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: So wicked people as a rule enjoy false pleasures, but the good [c] among mankind true ones?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite necessarily so.

S
OCRATES
: From what has now been said, it follows that there are false pleasures in human souls that are quite ridiculous imitations of true ones, and also such pains.

P
ROTARCHUS
: There certainly are.

S
OCRATES
: Now, it was agreed that whoever judges anything at all is always
really
judging, even if it is not about anything existing in the present, past, or future.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: And these were, I think, the conditions that produce a false [d] judgment and judging falsely, weren’t they?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: But should we not also grant to pleasures and pains a condition that is analogous in these ways?

P
ROTARCHUS
: In what ways?

S
OCRATES
: In the sense that whoever has any pleasure at all, however ill-founded it may be, really does have pleasure, even if sometimes it is not about anything that either is the case or ever was the case, or often (or perhaps most of the time) refers to anything that ever will be the case.

[e] P
ROTARCHUS
: That also must necessarily be so.

S
OCRATES
: And the same account holds in the case of fear, anger, and everything of that sort, namely that all of them can at times be false?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, do we have any other way of distinguishing between bad and good judgments than their falsity?

P
ROTARCHUS
: We have no other.

S
OCRATES
: Nor, I presume, will we find any other way to account for badness in the case of pleasures unless they are false.

[41]
P
ROTARCHUS
: What you say is quite the opposite of the truth, Socrates! It is not at all because they are false that we regard pleasures or pains as bad, but because there is some other grave and wide-ranging kind of badness involved.

S
OCRATES
: But let us discuss bad pleasures and what badness there is in their case a little later, if we still feel like it. Now we have to take up false pleasures in another sense and show that there is a great variety that arise and are at work in us. This argument will perhaps come in handy later, [b] when we have to make our decisions.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That may well be so, at least if there are any such pleasures.

S
OCRATES
: There certainly are, Protarchus; I at least am convinced. But until this is our accepted opinion, we cannot leave this conviction unexamined.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Right.

S
OCRATES
: So let us get ready like athletes to form a line of attack around this problem.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Here we go.

S
OCRATES
: We did say a short while ago in our discussion, as we may [c] recall, that when what we call desires are in us, then body and soul part company and have each their separate experiences.

P
ROTARCHUS
: We do remember, that was said before.

S
OCRATES
: And wasn’t it the soul that had desires, desires for conditions opposite to the actual ones of the body, while it was the body that undergoes the pain or the pleasure of some affection?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That was indeed so.

S
OCRATES
: Draw your conclusions as to what is going on here.

P
ROTARCHUS
: You tell me.

[d] S
OCRATES
: What happens is this: Under these circumstances pains and pleasures exist side by side, and there are simultaneously opposite perceptions of them, as we have just made clear.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes, that is clear.

S
OCRATES
: But did we not also discuss this point and come to an agreement how to settle it earlier?

P
ROTARCHUS
: What point?

S
OCRATES
: That the two of them, both pleasure and pain, admit the more and less and belong to the unlimited kind?

P
ROTARCHUS
: That was what we said. What about it?

S
OCRATES
: Do we have any means of making a right decision about these matters?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Where and in what respect? [e]

S
OCRATES
: In the case where we intend to come to a decision about any of them in such circumstances, which one is greater or smaller, or which one is more intensive or stronger: pain compared to pleasure, or pain compared to pain, or pleasure to pleasure.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes, these questions do arise, and that is what we want to decide.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, does it happen only to eyesight that seeing objects from afar or close by distorts the truth and causes false judgments? Or
[42]
does not the same thing happen also in the case of pleasure and pain?

P
ROTARCHUS
: Much more so, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: But this is the reverse of the result we reached a little earlier.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What are you referring to?

S
OCRATES
: Earlier it was true and false
judgments
which affected the respective pleasures and pains with their own condition.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Quite right. [b]

S
OCRATES
: But now it applies to pleasures and pains themselves; it is because they are alternately looked at from close up or far away, or simultaneously put side by side, that the pleasures seem greater compared to pain and more intensive, and pains seem, on the contrary, moderate in comparison with pleasures.

P
ROTARCHUS
: It is quite inevitable that such conditions arise under these circumstances.

S
OCRATES
: But if you take that portion of them by which they appear greater or smaller than they really are, and cut it off from each of them [c] as a mere appearance and without real being, you will neither admit that this appearance is right nor dare to say that anything connected with this portion of pleasure or pain is right and true.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: Next in order after these, we will find pleasures and pains in animals that are even falser than these, both in appearance and reality, if we approach them in this way.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What are they, and what is the way?

S
OCRATES
: It has by now been said repeatedly that it is a destruction of the nature of those entities through combinations and separations, through processes of filling and emptying, as well as certain kinds of growth and [d] decay, that gives rise to pain and suffering, distress, and whatever else comes to pass that goes under such a name.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Yes, that has often been said.

S
OCRATES
: But when things are restored to their own nature again, this restoration, as we established in our agreement among our selves, is pleasure.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Correct.

S
OCRATES
: But what if nothing of that sort happens to our body, what then?

P
ROTARCHUS
: When could that ever happen, Socrates?

[e] S
OCRATES
: Your objection is not to the point, Protarchus.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How so?

S
OCRATES
: Because you do not prevent me from putting my question to you again.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What question?

S
OCRATES
: If in fact nothing of that sort took place, I will ask you, what would necessarily be the consequence of this for us?

P
ROTARCHUS
: You mean if the body is not moved in either direction, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: That is my question.

P
ROTARCHUS
: This much is clear, Socrates, that in such a case there would not be either any pleasure or pain at all.

[43]
S
OCRATES
: Very well put. But I guess what you meant to say is that we necessarily are always experiencing one or the other, as the wise men say. For everything is in an eternal flux, upward and downward.

P
ROTARCHUS
: They do say that, and what they say seems important.

S
OCRATES
: How else, since they themselves are important people? But I do want to avoid this argument which now assails us. I plan to escape it in this way, and you’d better make your escape with me.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Just tell me how.

S
OCRATES
: “So be it,” we will reply to them. But as for you, answer me [b] this question: whether all living creatures in all cases notice it whenever they are affected in some way, so that we notice when we grow or experience anything of that sort, or whether it is quite otherwise.

P
ROTARCHUS
: It is indeed quite otherwise. Almost all of these processes totally escape our notice.

S
OCRATES
: But then what we just agreed to was not well spoken, that the changes ‘upwards and downwards’ evoke pleasures and pains.

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could it?

[c] S
OCRATES
: But if it is stated in this way, it will be better and become unobjectionable.

P
ROTARCHUS
: In what way?

S
OCRATES
: That great changes cause pleasures and pains in us, while moderate or small ones engender neither of the two effects.

P
ROTARCHUS
: That is more correct than the other statement, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: But if this is correct, then we are back with the same kind of life we discussed before.

P
ROTARCHUS
: What kind?

S
OCRATES
: The life that we said was painless, but also devoid of charm.

P
ROTARCHUS
: Undeniably.

S
OCRATES
: So we end up with three kinds of life, the life of pleasure, the [d] life of pain, and the neutral life. Or what would you say about these matters?

P
ROTARCHUS
: I would put it in the same way, that there are three kinds of life.

S
OCRATES
: But to be free of pain would not be the same thing as to have pleasure?

P
ROTARCHUS
: How could it be the same?

S
OCRATES
: If you hear someone say that it is the most pleasant thing of all to live one’s whole life without pain, how do you understand the speaker’s intention?

P
ROTARCHUS
: To my understanding he seems to identify pleasure with freedom from pain.