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