Philebus (14)

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?