Philebus (36-40)

Soc. Because of his condition, he is suffering, but he remembers the pleasures the coming of which would bring him an end of his pain; as yet, however, he does not possess them. Well then, shall we say that he is between the affections, or not?

Pro. Let us say so.

Soc. Shall we say that he is wholly pained or wholly pleased?

Pro. No, by Zeus, but he is afflicted with a twofold pain; he suffers in body from his sensation, and in soul from expectation and longing.

Soc. How could you, Protarchus, speak of twofold pain? Is not an empty man sometimes possessed of a sure hope of being filled, and sometimes, on the contrary, quite hopeless?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And do you not think that when he has a hope of being filled he takes pleasure in his memory, and yet at the same time, since he is at the moment empty, suffers pain?

Pro. It cannot be otherwise.

Soc. At such a time, then, a man, or any other animal, has both pain and pleasure at once.

Pro. Yes, I suppose so.

Soc. And when an empty man is without hope of being filled, what then? Is not that the time when the twofold feeling of pain would arise, which you just now observed and thought the pain simply was twofold?

Pro. Very true, Socrates.

Soc. Let us make use of our examination of those affections for a particular purpose.

Pro. For what purpose?

Soc. Shall we say that those pleasures and pains are true or false, or that some are true and others not so?

Pro. But, Socrates, how can there be false pleasures or pains?

Soc. But, Protarchus, how can there be true and false fears, or true and false expectations, or true and false opinions?

Pro. Opinions I would grant you, but not the rest.

Soc. What? I am afraid we are starting a very considerable discussion.

Pro. You are right.

Soc. And yet we must consider, thou son of that man, [*] whether the discussion is relevant to what has gone before.

Pro. Yes, no doubt.

Soc. We must dismiss everything else, tedious or otherwise, that is irrelevant.

Pro. Right.

Soc. Now tell me; for I am always utterly amazed by the same questions we were just proposing.

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. Are not some pleasures false and others true?

Pro. How could that be?

Soc. Then, as you maintain, nobody, either sleeping or waking or insane or deranged, ever thinks he feels pleasure when he does not feel it, and never, on the other hand, thinks he suffers pain when he does not suffer it?

Pro. We have, Socrates, always believed that all this is as you suggest.

Soc. But is the belief correct? Shall we consider whether it is so or not?

Pro. I should say we ought to consider that.

Soc. Then let us analyze still more clearly what we were just now saying about pleasure and opinion. There is a faculty of having an opinion, is there not?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And of feeling pleasure?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And there is an object of opinion?

Pro. Of course.

Soc. And something by which that which feels pleasure is pleased?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And that which has opinion, whether right or wrong, never loses its function of really having opinion?

Pro. Of course not.

Soc. And that which feels pleasure, whether rightly or wrongly, will clearly never lose its function of really feeling pleasure?

Pro. Yes, that is true, too.

Soc. Then we must consider how it is that opinion is both true and false and pleasure only true, though the holding of opinion and the feeling of pleasure are equally real.

Pro. Yes, so we must.

Soc. You mean that we must consider this question because falsehood and truth are added as attributes to opinion, and thereby it becomes not merely opinion, but opinion of a certain quality in each instance?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And furthermore, we must reach an agreement on the question whether, even if some things have qualities, pleasure and pain are not merely what they are, without qualities or attributes.

Pro. Evidently we must.

Soc. But it is easy enough to see that they have qualities. For we said a long time ago that both pains and pleasures are great and small and intense.

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. And if badness becomes an attribute of any of these, Protarchus, shall we say that the opinion or the pleasure thereby becomes bad?

Pro. Why certainly, Socrates.

Soc. And what if rightness or its opposite becomes an attribute of one of them? Shall we not say that the opinion is right, if it has rightness, and the pleasure likewise?

Pro. Obviously.

Soc. And if that which is opined is mistaken, must we not agree that the opinion, since it is at the moment making a mistake, is not right or rightly opining?

Pro. Of course.

Soc. And what if we see a pain or a pleasure making a mistake in respect of that by which the pain or pleasure is caused? Shall we give it the attribute of right or good or any of the words which denote excellence?

Pro. That is impossible if the pleasure is mistaken.

Soc. And certainly pleasure often seems to come to us in connection with false, not true, opinion.

Pro. Of course it does; and in such a case, Socrates, we call the opinion false; but nobody would ever call the actual pleasure false.

Soc. You are an eager advocate of the case of pleasure just now, Protarchus.

Pro. Oh no, I merely say what I hear.

Soc. Is there no difference, my friend, between the pleasure which is connected with right opinion and knowledge and that which often comes to each of us with falsehood and ignorance?

Pro. There is likely to be a great difference.

Soc. Then let us proceed to the contemplation of the difference between them.

Pro. Lead on as you think best.

Soc. Then this is the way I lead.

Pro. What way?

Soc. Do we agree that there is such a thing as false opinion and also as true opinion?

Pro. There is.

Soc. And, as we were saying just now, pleasure and pain often follow them—I mean true and false opinion.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And do not opinion and the power of forming an opinion always come to us from memory and perception?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. Do we, then, believe that our relation to these faculties is somewhat as follows?

Pro. How?

Soc. Would you say that often when a man sees things at a distance and not very clearly, he wishes to distinguish between the things which he sees?

Pro. Yes, I should say so.

Soc. Next, then, would he not ask himself—

Pro. What?

Soc.What is that which is visible standing beside the rock under a tree? Do you not think a man might ask himself such a question if he saw such objects presented to his view?

Pro. To be sure.

Soc. And after that our gazer might reply to himself correctly It is a man?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. Or, again, perhaps he might be misled into the belief that it was a work of some shepherds, and then he would call the thing which he saw an image.

Pro. Yes, indeed.

Soc. And if some one is with him, he might repeat aloud to his companion what he had said to himself, and thus that which we called an opinion now becomes a statement?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. But if he is alone when he has this thought, he sometimes carries it about in his mind for a long time.

Pro. Undoubtedly.

Soc. Well, is your view about what takes place in such cases the same as mine?

Pro. What is yours?

Soc. I think the soul at such a time is like a book.

Pro. How is that?

Soc. Memory unites with the senses, and they and the feelings which are connected with them seem to me almost to write words in our souls; and when the feeling in question writes the truth, true opinions and true statements are produced in us; but when the writer within us writes falsehoods, the resulting opinions and statements are the opposite of true.

Pro. That is my view completely, and I accept it as stated.

Soc. Then accept also the presence of another workman in our souls at such a time.

Pro. What workman?

Soc. A painter, who paints in our souls pictures to illustrate the words which the writer has written.

Pro. But how do we say he does this, and when?

Soc. When a man receives from sight or some other sense the opinions and utterances of the moment and afterwards beholds in his own mind the images of those opinions and utterances. That happens to us often enough, does it not?

Pro. It certainly does.

Soc. And the images of the true opinions are true, and those of the false are false?

Pro. Assuredly.

Soc. Then if we are right about that, let us consider a further question.

Pro. What is it?

Soc. Whether this is an inevitable experience in relation to the present and the past, but not in relation to the future.

Pro. It is in the same relation to all kinds of time.

Soc. Was it not said a while ago that the pleasures and pains which belong to the soul alone might come before the pleasures and pains of the body, so that we have the pleasure and pain of anticipation, which relate to the future?

Pro. Very true.

Soc. Do the writings and pictures, then, which we imagined a little while ago to exist within us, relate to the past and present, but not to the future?

Pro. To the future especially.

Soc. Do you say to the future especially because they are all hopes relating to the future and we are always filled with hopes all our lives?

Pro. Precisely.

Soc. Well, here is a further question for you to answer.

Pro. What is it?

Soc. A just, pious, and good man is surely a friend of the gods, is he not?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And an unjust and thoroughly bad man is the reverse?

Pro. Of course.

Soc. But, as we were just now saying, every man is full of many hopes?

Pro. Yes, to be sure.

Soc. And there are in all of us written words which we call hopes?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. And also the images painted there; and often a man sees an abundance of gold coming into his possession, and in its train many pleasures; and he even sees a picture of himself enjoying himself immensely.

Pro. Yes, certainly.

Soc. Shall we or shall we not say that of these pictures those are for the most part true which are presented to the good, because they are friends of the gods, whereas those presented to the bad are for the most part false?

Pro. Surely we must say that.

Soc. Then the bad also, no less than the good, have pleasures painted in their souls, but they are false pleasures.

Pro. Yes, surely.

Soc. Then the bad rejoice for the most part in the false, and the good in true pleasures.

Pro. That is inevitably true.

Soc. According to our present view, then, there are false pleasures in the souls of men, imitations or caricatures of the true pleasures; and pains likewise.

Pro. There are.

Soc. We saw, you remember, that he who had an opinion at all always really had an opinion, but it was sometimes not based upon realities, whether present, past, or future.

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. And this it was, I believe, which created false opinion and the holding of false opinions, was it not?

Pro. Yes.

Soc. Very well, must we not also grant that pleasure and pain stand in the same relation to realities?

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. I mean that he who feels pleasure at all in any way or manner always really feels pleasure, but it is sometimes not based upon realities, whether present or past, and often, perhaps most frequently, upon things which will never even be realities in the future.

Pro. This also, Socrates, must inevitably be the case.

Soc. And the same may be said of fear and anger and all that sort of thing—that they are all sometimes false?

Pro. Certainly.

Soc. Well, can we say that opinions become bad or good except as they become false?

Pro. No.

Soc. And we understand, I believe, that pleasures also are not bad except by being false.