Philebus

Philebus Plato ************* Introduction The Philebus is one of the last works of Plato. While one of the clearest markers of a late dialogue is a diminished role for Socrates (in the Laws he does not appear at all, in the Sophist he is a generally silent spectator), here Socrates resumes the role of the principle character that played in the early and middle ones. Despite this seeming discrepancy, the Philebus is clearly a late dialogue and perhaps one of the very last. There are other aspects of the dialogue that make it reminiscent of the early Socratic ones like the Euthyphro and Laches. Socrates opens the dialogue with the question of those early ones, the "What is F?" question. Here, however, rather than a particular concept or Form, Plato has Socrates ask the truly "big" questions — What is the human good and how does one live the good life? While all these features bear quite striking similarities to Plato's early work, what clearly marks this dialogue as a late one is the manner in which Plato treats these questions. What is found in the Philebus is a sophisticated theory of balance and order that is clearly a development of the views expressed in the Republic and a theory that is absent, except in anticipatory passages, in the early dialogues altogether. Another marker that this is clearly a late dialogue is the distinctive way Socrates addresses the second of his interlocutors [Participants in a dialogue.], Protarchus. Before Protarchus appears on the scene, however, Socrates first addresses a very common conception of the human good expressed in the voice of the eponymous [Refers to the character in a dialogue or drama after whom the drama or dialogue is named. For example, Euthyphro is the eponymous character in the Socratic dialogue, Euthyphro.] Philebus. Here, Plato addresses a conception of the good that later vexed Aristotle as well. It is interesting to note that this is yet another place where Aristotle and Plato are found to be in agreement, at least in principle. Philebus claims that the human good is pleasure and that the happy life is the life of pleasure and its pursuit. Aristotle rejects this view in the Nicomachean

Ethics by comparing pleasure to eudaimonia [Greek, often translated as "happiness." A translation more accurate to Aristotelian use is "well-being." Eudaimonia is the highest human good, on Aristotle's view.] (or "well-being") noting that while one endures (eudaimonia), the other is transient and fleeting. While Socrates/Plato agrees with Aristotle concerning pleasure and its failure to be the highest human good, he disagrees with him on this latter point. Socrates responds that knowledge is the human good, or at least is a closer approximation than pleasure. Knowledge, like the Aristotelian conception of eudaimonia, is stable and lasting. Thus, it, too, is superior to pleasure. Here, though, is where Plato puts forward a novel view that further distinguishes the Philebus from his earlier work. Protarchus takes up the view of Philebus after Philebus has faltered in the face of Socratic questioning. Socrates concedes that pleasure is indeed a feature of the good life, but it is only a secondary one. He also concedes that knowledge alone is insufficient. This is an amendment of his earlier views, at least in one sense. In another, however, it is a continuation of an earlier position. That is, Plato fuses two earlier views and, in so doing, alters them both. Knowledge is essential, but not sufficient. Pleasure is helpful. But, the feature that is both necessary and sufficient is balance — between knowledge and pleasure, and any other features of the human good that there may be. Plato has defended the notion of balance as the life of virtue [Virtue is commonly the way the Greek word arête is translated. Arête is, strictly speaking, merely "excellence." So, a virtue is a particular excellence of character.] previously, in the Republic and the Charmides to name but two other dialogues where he has this view. However, the inclusion of pleasure as a component along with knowledge is novel, to say nothing of the possibility that there are yet further components. The Philebus ends without fully exploring what those other features may be, but the door is left open that others may be added. Whatever the case, only with balance can the human do good and the good life be achieved. Reading THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO Soc. Good; and where shall we begin this great and comprehensive battle in which such various points are at issue? Shall we begin thus? Pro. How shall we begin? Soc. We say that the one and many are identified by the reasoning power, and that they run about everywhere together, in and out of every word which is uttered, as they have done in all time present as well as past, and this will never cease, and is not now beginning, but is, as I believe, an everlasting quality of reason, as such, which never grows old in us. Any young man, when he first tastes these subtleties, is delighted, and fancies

that he has found a treasure of wisdom; in the first enthusiasm of his joy he sets (not every stone, but) every thought rolling, now converting the many into the one, and kneading them together, now unfolding and dividing them; he puzzles himself first and above all, and then he proceeds to puzzle his neighbors, whether they are older or younger, or of his own age — that makes no difference; neither father nor mother does he spare; no human being who has ears is safe from him, hardly even his dog, and a barbarian would have no chance with him, if an interpreter could only be found. Pro. Considering, Socrates, how many we are, and that all of us are young men, is there not a danger that we and Philebus may conspire and attack you, if you speak evil of us? Yet we understand; and if there is any better way or manner of quietly escaping out of all this turmoil and perplexity, and arriving at the truth, we hope that you will guide us into that way, and we will do our best to follow, for the inquiry in which we are engaged, Socrates, is not a small one. Soc. Not a small one, my boys, as Philebus calls you, and there neither is nor ever will be a better than my own favorite way, which has nevertheless already often deserted me in the hour of need. Pro. Tell us what that is? Soc. One which may be easily explained, but is by no means easy of application, and is the parent of all the discoveries of the art. Pro. Say only what. Soc. A gift of heaven, which, as I conceive, the gods tossed into the world by the hands of some Prometheus, together with a blaze of fire; and the ancients, who were our betters and nearer the gods than we are, handed down the tradition, that all things which are supposed to exist draw their existence from the one and many, and have the finite and infinite in them as a part of their nature: seeing, then, that such is the order of the world, we too ought in all our investigations to assume that there is one idea of everything; this unity we shall be sure to find, and having found, we may next proceed to look for two, if there be two, or, if not, then for three or some other number, subdividing each of these units, until at last the original one is seen, not only as one and many and infinite, but also in some definite number; the infinite must not be suffered to approach the many until the entire number of the species intermediate between unity and infinity has been found out, — then, and not till then, we may rest from division, and all the remaining individuals may be allowed to pass into infinity. This, as I was saying, is the way of considering and learning and teaching one another, which the gods have handed down to us. But the wise men of our time are either too quick or too slow in conceiving plurality in unity. Having no method, they, make their one and many anyhow, and from unity pass at once to infinity, without thinking of the intermediate steps. And this, I repeat, is what makes the difference between the mere art of disputation and true dialectic.