CHAPTER XXXII.

PHILEBUS.

Character, Personages, and Subject of the Philêbus 334

Protest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely negative procedure 335

Enquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a happy life? Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive. Philêbus declares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence _ib._

Good--object of universal choice and attachment by men, animals, and plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires _ib._

Pleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite cognitions are so likewise 336

Whether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this description? Appeal to individual choice 337

First Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense Pleasure, without any intelligence--He declines to accept it 338

Second Question--Whether he will accept a life of Intelligence purely without any pleasure or pain? Answer--_No_ _ib._

It is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a Tertium Quid. But Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence is more cognate with it than Pleasure 339

Difficulties about Unum et Multa. How can the One be Many? How can the Many be One? The difficulties are greatest about Generic Unity--how it is distributed among species and individuals _ib._

Active disputes upon this question at the time 340

Order of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the Infinite. The One--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many _ib._

Mistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and the Infinite Many, without looking for the intermediate subdivisions 341

Illustration from Speech and Music 342

Plato's explanation does not touch the difficulties which he had himself recognised as existing 343

It is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical division and classification 344

At that time little thought had been bestowed upon classification as a logical process _ib._

Classification--unconscious and conscious 345

Plato's doctrine about classification is not necessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas _ib._

Quadruple distribution of Existences. 1. The Infinite. 2. The Finient 3. Product of the two former. 4. Combining Cause or Agency 346

Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four Classes--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth 347

In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence with Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two constituents _ib._

Intelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated 348

Pleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain arises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the system--Pleasure from the restoration of it _ib._

Pleasure presupposes Pain 349

Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation belonging to mind alone. Here you may find pleasure without pain _ib._

A life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without pleasure, is conceivable. Some may prefer it: at any rate it is second-best _ib._

Desire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily want, and the memory of satisfaction previously had for it. The mind and body are here opposed. No true or pure pleasure therein 350

Can pleasures be true or false? Sokrates maintains that they are so 351

Reasons given by Sokrates. Pleasures attached to true opinions, are true pleasures. The just man is favoured by the Gods, and will have true visions sent to him _ib._

Protarchus disputes this--He thinks that there are some pleasures bad, but none false--Sokrates does not admit this, but reserves the question 352

No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains--False estimate habitual--These are the false pleasures _ib._

Much of what is called pleasure is false. Gentle and gradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure or pain. Absence of pain not the same as pleasure 353

Opinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers--That pleasure is no reality, but a mere juggle. There is no reality except pain, and the relief from pain 354

Sokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly _ib._

Theory of the pleasure-haters--We must learn what pleasure is by looking at the intense pleasures--These are connected with distempered body and mind 355

The intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness; but there is more pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of health 356

Sokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true. Pleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c. Pleasures of acquiring knowledge _ib._

Pure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and proportion 357

Pleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it cannot therefore be an End, because all generation is only a means towards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good _ib._

Other reasons why pleasure is not the Good 358

Distinction and classification of the varieties of Knowledge or Intelligence. Some are more true and exact than others, according as they admit more or less of measuring and computation _ib._

Arithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the philosopher and teacher: As applied by the artisan 359

Dialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions. Analogy between Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are gradations of truth and purity 360

Difference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for Rhetoric. Sokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness and celebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as satisfying the lover of truth _ib._

Most men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal manifestations of the Kosmos. They neglect the unchangeable essences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained 361

Application. Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure separately, is the Good, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence being the most important. How are they to be mixed? _ib._

We must include all Cognitions--not merely the truest, but the others also. Life cannot be carried on without both 362

But we must include no pleasures except the true, pure, and necessary. The others are not compatible with Cognition or Intelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures _ib._

What causes the excellence of this mixture? It is Measure, Proportion, Symmetry. To these Reason is more akin than Pleasure 363

Quintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good. 1. Measure. 2. Symmetry. 3. Intelligence. 4. Practical Arts and Right Opinions. 5. True and Pure Pleasures 364

Remarks. Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy 365

Discussions of the time about Bonum. Extreme absolute view, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic Sokrates. Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine _ib._

Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics 366

Comparison of Man to the Kosmos (which has reason, but no emotion) is unnecessary and confusing 367

Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine. Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification 368

Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended--yet feebly applied--in this dialogue 369

What is the Good? Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic. Comparison 370

Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known, while it is subject of constant dispute. Plato himself wavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently _ib._

Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the answer in the Philêbus does not satisfy those tests 371

Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question--The alternative which he tenders has no fair application 372

Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared--Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means. Nothing can be compared with Pleasure, except some other End 373

The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing agency 374

Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value. This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis 375

Marked antithesis in the Philêbus between pleasure and avoidance of pain 377

The Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They included both in their acknowledged End _ib._

Arguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The Hedonists enforced the same reasonable view 378

Different points of view worked out by Plato in different dialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Philêbus--True and False Pleasures 379

Opposition between the Gorgias and Philêbus, about Gorgias and Rhetoric 380

Peculiarity of the Philêbus--Plato applies the same principle of classification--true and false--to Cognitions and Pleasures 382

Distinction of true and false--not applicable to pleasures _ib._

Plato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the Absolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why 385

Plato could not have defended this small list of Pleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the Pleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether 387

Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these Pleasure-haters 389

Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of the Philêbus 391

Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and applied in the Protagoras _ib._

How explained in Philêbus--no statement to what items it is applied 393

Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it to Cognitions 394

Valuable principles of this classification--difference with other dialogues 395

Close of the Philêbus--Graduated elements of Good 397

Contrast between the Philêbus and the Phædrus, and Symposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions generally 398