Philebus (14-15)

Soc. It will appear that the forms of knowledge collectively are many and some of them are unlike each other; but if some of them turn out to be actually opposites, should I be fit to engage in dialectics now if, through fear of just that, I should say that no form of knowledge is unlike any other, and then, as a consequence, our argument should vanish and be lost, like a tale that is told, and we ourselves should be saved by clinging to some irrational notion?

Pro. No, that must never be, except the part about our being saved. However, I like the equal treatment of your doctrine and mine. Let us grant that pleasures are many and unlike and that the forms of knowledge are many and different.

Soc. With no concealment, then, Protarchus, of the difference between my good and yours, but with fair and open acknowledgement of it, let us be bold and see if perchance on examination they will tell us whether we should say that pleasure is the good, or wisdom, or some other third principle. For surely the object of our present controversy is not to gain the victory for my assertions or yours, but both of us must fight for the most perfect truth.

Pro. Yes, we must.

Soc. Then let us establish this principle still more firmly by means of an agreement.

Pro. What principle?

Soc. The principle which gives trouble to all men, to some of them sometimes against their will.

Pro. Speak more plainly.

Soc. I mean the principle which came in our way just now; its nature is quite marvellous. For the assertions that one is many and many are one are marvellous, and it is easy to dispute with anyone who makes either of them.

Pro. You mean when a person says that I, Protarchus, am by nature one and that there are also many of me which are opposites of each other, asserting that I, the same Protarchus, am great and small and heavy and light and countless other things?

Soc. Those wonders concerning the one and the many which you have mentioned, Protarchus, are common property, and almost everybody is agreed that they ought to be disregarded because they are childish and easy and great hindrances to speculation; and this sort of thing also should be disregarded, when a man in his discussion divides the members and likewise the parts of anything, acknowledges that they all collectively are that one thing, and then mockingly refutes himself because he has been compelled to declare miracles—that the one is many and infinite and the many only one.

Pro. But what other wonders do you mean, Socrates, in relation to this same principle, which are not yet common property and generally acknowledged?

Soc. I mean, my boy, when a person postulates unity which is not the unity of one of the things which come into being and perish, as in the examples we had just now. For in cases of a unity of that sort, as I just said, it is agreed that refutation is needless. But when the assertion is made that man is one, or ox is one, or beauty is one, or the good is one, the intense interest in these and similar unities becomes disagreement and controversy.

Pro. How is that?

Soc. The first question is whether we should believe that such unities really exist; the second, how these unities, each of which is one, always the same, and admitting neither generation nor destruction, can nevertheless be permanently this one unity; and the third, how in the infinite number of things which come into being this unity, whether we are to assume that it is dispersed and has become many, or that it is entirely separated from itself—which would seem to be the most impossible notion of all being the same and one, is to be at the same time in one and in many. These are the questions, Protarchus, about this kind of one and many, not those others, which cause the utmost perplexity, if ill solved, and are, if well solved, of the greatest assistance.

Pro. Then is it now, Socrates, our first duty to thresh this matter out?

Soc. Yes, that is what I should say.

Pro. You may assume, then, that we are all willing to agree with you about that; and perhaps it is best not to ask Philebus any questions; let sleeping dogs lie.

Soc. Very well; then where shall we begin this great and vastly complicated battle about the matters at issue? Shall we start at this point?

Pro. At what point?

Soc. We say that one and many are identified by reason, and always, both now and in the past, circulate everywhere in every thought that is uttered. This is no new thing and will never cease; it is, in my opinion, a quality within us which will never die or grow old, and which belongs to reason itself as such. And any young man, when he first has an inkling of this, is delighted, thinking he has found a treasure of wisdom; his joy fills him with enthusiasm; he joyously sets every possible argument in motion, sometimes in one direction, rolling things up and kneading them into one, and sometimes again unrolling and dividing them; he gets himself into a muddle first and foremost, then anyone who happens to be near him, whether he be younger or older or of his own age; he spares neither father nor mother nor any other human being who can hear, and hardly even the lower animals, for he would certainly not spare a foreigner, [*] if he could get an interpreter anywhere.