Page - 895 - in The Complete Plato

we in view when we call them by a single name? PROTARCHUS: By heavens, Socrates, that is a question which is not easily answered; but it must be answered. SOCRATES: Then let us go back to our examples. PROTARCHUS: Where shall we begin? SOCRATES: Do we mean anything when we say ‘a man thirsts’? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: We mean to say that he ‘is empty’? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And is not thirst desire? PROTARCHUS: Yes, of drink. SOCRATES: Would you say of drink, or of replenishment with drink? PROTARCHUS: I should say, of replenishment with drink. SOCRATES: Then he who is empty desires, as would appear, the opposite of what he experiences; for he is empty and desires to be full? PROTARCHUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: But how can a man who is empty for the first time, attain either by perception or memory to any apprehension of replenishment, of which he has no present or past experience? PROTARCHUS: Impossible. SOCRATES: And yet he who desires, surely desires something? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: He does not desire that which he experiences, for he experiences thirst, and thirst is emptiness; but he desires replenishment? PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: Then there must be something in the thirsty man which in some way apprehends replenishment? PROTARCHUS: There must. SOCRATES: And that cannot be the body, for the body is supposed to be emptied? PROTARCHUS: Yes. 895