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mentioned. You would say—would you not?—that the soul of him who
desires is seeking after the object of his desire; or that he is drawing to
himself the thing which he wishes to possess: or again, when a person wants
anything to be given him, his mind, longing for the realization of his desire,
intimates his wish to have it by a nod of assent, as if he had been asked a
question?
Very true.
And what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of
desire; should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and
rejection?
Certainly.
Admitting this to be true of desire generally, let us suppose a particular
class of desires, and out of these we will select hunger and thirst, as they are
termed, which are the most obvious of them?
Let us take that class, he said.
The object of one is food, and of the other drink?
Yes.
And here comes the point: is not thirst the desire which the soul has of
drink, and of drink only; not of drink qualified by anything else; for example,
warm or cold, or much or little, or, in a word, drink of any particular sort: but
if the thirst be accompanied by heat, then the desire is of cold drink; or, if
accompanied by cold, then of warm drink; or, if the thirst be excessive, then
the drink which is desired will be excessive; or, if not great, the quantity of
drink will also be small: but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and
simple, which is the natural satisfaction of thirst, as food is of hunger?
Yes, he said; the simple desire is, as you say, in every case of the simple
object, and the qualified desire of the qualified object.
But here a confusion may arise; and I should wish to guard against an
opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only, but good
drink, or food only, but good food; for good is the universal object of desire,
and thirst being a desire, will necessarily be thirst after good drink; and the
same is true of every other desire.
Yes, he replied, the opponent might have something to say.
Nevertheless I should still maintain, that of relatives some have a quality
attached to either term of the relation; others are simple and have their
correlatives simple.
1128
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International