Philebus
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Philebus in the Greek text edited by John Burnet, with Harold North Fowler's English translation.
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Section 22
Soc. How about the combined life, Protarchus, made up by a union of the two?
Pro. You mean a union of pleasure with mind or wisdom?
Soc. Yes, I mean a union of such elements.
Pro. Every one will prefer this life to either of the two others—yes, every single person without exception.
Soc. Then do we understand the consequences of what we are now saying?
Pro. Certainly. Three lives have been proposed, and of two of them neither is sufficient or desirable for man or any other living being.
Soc. Then is it not already clear that neither of these two contained the good for if it did contain the good, it would be sufficient and perfect, and such as to be chosen by all living creatures which would be able to live thus all their lives; and if any of us chose anything else, he would be choosing contrary to the nature of the truly desirable, not of his own free will, but from ignorance or some unfortunate necessity.
Pro. That seems at any rate to be true.
Soc. And so I think we have sufficiently proved that Philebus’s divinity is not to be considered identical with the good.
Phi. But neither is your mind the good, Socrates; it will be open to the same objections.
Soc. My mind, perhaps, Philebus; but not so, I believe, the true mind, which is also divine; that is different. I do not as yet claim for mind the victory over the combined life, but we must look and see what is to be done about the second place; for each of us might perhaps put forward a claim, one that mind is the cause of this combined life, the other that pleasure is the cause and thus neither of these two would be the good, but one or the other of them might be regarded as the cause of the good. On this point I might keep up the fight all the more against Philebus and contend that in this mixed life it is mind that is more akin and more similar than pleasure to that, whatever it may be, which makes it both desirable and good; and from this point of view pleasure could advance no true claim to the first or even the second place. It is farther behind than the third place, if my mind is at all to be trusted at present.