Page - 905 - in The Complete Plato
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PROTARCHUS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And there is another point to which we have agreed.
PROTARCHUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: That pleasure and pain both admit of more and less, and that
they are of the class of infinites.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly, we said so.
SOCRATES: But how can we rightly judge of them?
PROTARCHUS: How can we?
SOCRATES: Is it our intention to judge of their comparative importance
and intensity, measuring pleasure against pain, and pain against pain, and
pleasure against pleasure?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, such is our intention, and we shall judge of them
accordingly.
SOCRATES: Well, take the case of sight. Does not the nearness or distance
of magnitudes obscure their true proportions, and make us opine falsely; and
do we not find the same illusion happening in the case of pleasures and pains?
PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, and in a degree far greater.
SOCRATES: Then what we are now saying is the opposite of what we
were saying before.
PROTARCHUS: What was that?
SOCRATES: Then the opinions were true and false, and infected the
pleasures and pains with their own falsity.
PROTARCHUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: But now it is the pleasures which are said to be true and false
because they are seen at various distances, and subjected to comparison; the
pleasures appear to be greater and more vehement when placed side by side
with the pains, and the pains when placed side by side with the pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly, and for the reason which you mention.
SOCRATES: And suppose you part off from pleasures and pains the
element which makes them appear to be greater or less than they really are:
you will acknowledge that this element is illusory, and you will never say that
the corresponding excess or defect of pleasure or pain is real or true.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly not.
905
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book The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Title
- The Complete Plato
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- ~347 B.C.
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- Size
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Pages
- 1612
- Keywords
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Categories
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International