Page - 909 - in The Complete Plato
Image of the Page - 909 -
Text of the Page - 909 -
PROTARCHUS: And would you, Socrates, have us agree with them?
SOCRATES: Why, no, I would rather use them as a sort of diviners, who
divine the truth, not by rules of art, but by an instinctive repugnance and
extreme detestation which a noble nature has of the power of pleasure, in
which they think that there is nothing sound, and her seductive influence is
declared by them to be witchcraft, and not pleasure. This is the use which you
may make of them. And when you have considered the various grounds of
their dislike, you shall hear from me what I deem to be true pleasures. Having
thus examined the nature of pleasure from both points of view, we will bring
her up for judgment.
PROTARCHUS: Well said.
SOCRATES: Then let us enter into an alliance with these philosophers and
follow in the track of their dislike. I imagine that they would say something of
this sort; they would begin at the beginning, and ask whether, if we wanted to
know the nature of any quality, such as hardness, we should be more likely to
discover it by looking at the hardest things, rather than at the least hard? You,
Protarchus, shall answer these severe gentlemen as you answer me.
PROTARCHUS: By all means, and I reply to them, that you should look at
the greatest instances.
SOCRATES: Then if we want to see the true nature of pleasures as a class,
we should not look at the most diluted pleasures, but at the most extreme and
most vehement?
PROTARCHUS: In that every one will agree.
SOCRATES: And the obvious instances of the greatest pleasures, as we
have often said, are the pleasures of the body?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And are they felt by us to be or become greater, when we are
sick or when we are in health? And here we must be careful in our answer, or
we shall come to grief.
PROTARCHUS: How will that be?
SOCRATES: Why, because we might be tempted to answer, ‘When we are
in health.’
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is the natural answer.
SOCRATES: Well, but are not those pleasures the greatest of which
mankind have the greatest desires?
PROTARCHUS: True.
909
back to the
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