Informal discussions of human motivation typically start with several common assumptions that are generally considered uncontroversial: while we often want what is best for us and for others, there are also times when we want things that are bad for others and (or) for ourselves. In fact, our desires for bad things often compete with our desires for good things, and the former often overcome the latter. There are bad people – evil ones even. They are bad because their desire to do what's bad almost always wins out over their desire to do what's good. They seek to harm others as a way of benefiting themselves. The most dangerous are those who are very knowledgeable. Smart but evil people are far more effective in harming others than are the ignorant and foolish ones. Even if we focus on good people (people who want to be good and benefit themselves and others), we find that many of them allow their desires for the bad to overwhelm their desires for the good. Weakness of will is a major reason why even good people often do bad things. One of the major problems with the world is that most people usually think about themselves and what is good for them, personally, when they act. The world would be a better place if, rather than focusing on our own self-interest, we were to focus on what is good for others.

We now come to know Socrates' thoughts on the NGNB rather well. We have analyzed Socrates' description of it in the Gorgias and Euthydemus, we have seen how it informs his discussion of friendship in the Lysis, and we have noted its operation as a background assumption in the Charmides. We have also seen that it allows us to discern an appropriate Socratic connection between virtue and happiness. In this chapter, we will look at yet another dialogue in which Socrates' views on the NGNB loom large, despite the fact that there is no direct mention of it. We will see that Socrates' assertions in the Protagoras, that pleasure is what is good and pain is what is bad, also get their stark and elegant structure from his thesis concerning the good, the bad, and the NGNB. Once we recognize that Socrates' discussion of pain and pleasure in the Protagoras contains both the structure and the substance of his views on the NGNB, we will begin to at least approach an answer to the question of what Socrates thought happiness was.

PAIN AND PLEASURE IN THE PROTAGORAS

We have already discussed Protagoras 351b–358e as our source for Socrates' rejection of synchronic belief akrasia and knowledge akrasia (77–81).

Arts to Be Separated from Statesmanship

The final definition begins (287B) with the Stranger's observation that the art of the king (or statesman) has been separated from many others of similar sort, in particular from other arts concerned with herds. This was accomplished in the course of the initial definition. Directly parallel is the separation of weaving from other arts of prevention, accomplished by the initial definition of the weaver's art (see Figure 5.1 and Table 5.2).

But there are still countless (μυρίοι: 279A3) people who challenge the king in his role of caring for cities (περὶ τὰς πόλεις ἐπιμελείας: 279A2). These others must be separated off as well. It was for this purpose expressly (279A) that the paradigm of weaving was introduced.

By the time the final definition has been completed, statesmanship has been distinguished from four classes of skills that also pertain to the care of cities. For reasons that at first appear unclear, the Stranger is careful to enumerate the membership of each class in specific sequence. Let us begin our examination of this final definition with a consideration of the lists of skills (corresponding to those of Table 5.2) to be separated from the art of statesmanship.

The first group of skills to be set aside fall under the general class of contributory causes (τῶν … συναιτίων: 287B6–7), in contrast to that of direct causes to which the statesman belongs.

Platonic Uses of the Term παράδειγμα

Use of παράδειγμα in the standard sense of example can be found throughout the corpus. In the Apology, Socrates suggests that the oracle's pronouncement about none surpassing him in wisdom is a matter of singling him out as an example (παράδειγμα: 23B1) to illustrate the wisdom of recognizing one's own ignorance. In the Phaedrus, he cites his speeches on love as providing an example (παράδειγμα: 262D1) of how a knowledgeable orator can mislead his audience; in the Philebus, he alludes to examples (παραδείγματα: 13C8) of pleasures being at odds with one another; and so forth.

While there is nothing idiosyncratic about Plato's use of παράδειγμα in the sense of example, there is another use of the term in several middle and late dialogues that is distinctly Platonic. For example, Socrates declares in the Republic that the philosophic rulers shall look upon the Form of the Good as a pattern (παραδείγματι: 540A9) for the right ordering of the state. At Theaetetus 176E3, he speaks of patterns (Παραδειγμάτων) of happiness and misery as making a stand in reality. Timaeus, in his namesake dialogue, identifies “patterns that are intelligible and always the same” (παραδείγματος … νοητὸν καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταῦτὰ ὄν: 48E5–6). And the youthful Socrates, at Parmenides 132D1–2, expresses confidence in Forms as patterns (παραδείγματα) fixed in nature. As each passage makes clear in its own way, the term παραδείγματα in this second sense serves as an alternative designation for Forms or Ideas.

Review of Outstanding Questions

It is time to take count of questions raised previously that remain unresolved. These questions spring ultimately from the Stranger's disclosure at Statesman 285D that the purpose of his conversation with YS is to make its participants better dialecticians. In Chapter 10, we concluded that becoming a better dialectician is a matter of becoming increasingly capable of making accurate divisions, which in turn boils down to an ability to divide things according to Forms. Chapter 10 ended with the question of what accuracy in this respect amounts to.

Chapter 11 began with an attempt to make headway on this question by considering passages in other dialogues where Plato's characters talk to dividing things according to Forms. One such passage is Phaedrus 273E, in which Socrates likens the dialectician's ability to divide things according to Forms to the ability of a butcher to cut carcasses along their natural joints. This gave rise to a further question of what exactly gets divided in the dialectical process. A possible answer is indicated at Sophist 267D, where the Stranger faults earlier speakers of Greek for a certain laziness with regard to “the division of kinds according to Forms.” But nothing is said in this context about the nature of kinds or about the sense in which they might be subject to dialectical division.

Shifting attention to this further question in section 11.2, we undertook a survey of current views regarding what gets divided in the dialectical process.

Relevant Texts in Other Dialogues

To students of the middle dialogues, the Stranger's talk of dividing things according to Forms may sound reassuringly familiar. Before returning for a closer look at the Stranger's remarks in this regard, let us recall some similar remarks by Socrates of the middle period.

At Republic 454A, Socrates tells Glaucon that people often are unable to distinguish between disputation and genuine discussion because they lack the ability to divide things according to Forms (μὴ δύνασθαι κατ᾿ εἴδη διαιρούμενοι: 454A6). This failure is comparable to that of the “clever people” of Statesman 284E11, whose inability to distinguish the two kinds of measurement is attributed to exactly the same cause (μὴ κατ᾿ εἴδη … διαιρουμένους: 285A4–5).

At Cratylus 424C, in their discussion of letters and syllables, Socrates tells Hermogenes that vowels should be divided from other elements according to Forms (or classes) (διελέσθαι … κατὰ εἴδη: 424C6). This brings to mind the story of Theuth in the Philebus. As we recall (from section 8.4), Theuth was credited with having first discerned vowels, semivowels, and mutes within the Unlimited range of vocal sound. In describing this achievement, Socrates refers to mutes as a third class (τρίτον … εἶδος: 18C2) to be set aside as distinct. The distinctions among phonemic sounds that Hermogenes is advised to observe correspond to those established by Theuth in the story of the Philebus.

The Phaedrus contains three explicit references to the procedure of dividing according to Forms.

Antecedents to the Paradigm of Weaving

Having illustrated the use of paradigms with the modest example of their use in learning letters, the Stranger returns to the task of defining statesmanship. What they need to do next, he tells YS, is to bring a paradigm to bear in grasping the nature of “looking after those in the city” (τὴν τῶν κατὰ πόλιν θεραπείαν: 278E9). In this way, that nature will become present to them “in a waking state instead of a dream” (ὕπαρ ἀντ᾿ ὀνείρατος: 278E10) – a clear allusion to the dreamlike state said at 277D1–4 to be remedied by the use of paradigms.

A chronic problem with previous efforts to define statesmanship in the dialogue was an inability to distinguish it from a host of similar skills. At 268C2 there is reference to myriads of skills that lay claim to the title “rearer of the human herd,” several of which are specified at 267E7–8. According to 275B, this problem was one reason for introducing the Myth of Cronus. The reader is encouraged initially to think that the problem has been resolved, under the influence of the myth, by the replacement of herd rearing (ἀγελαιοτροφικός) by herd keeping (ἀγελαιοκομικός) in the definition. Such at least appears to be the sense of the Stranger's remark at 276B7–C2 that statesmanship has better claim than any other skill to providing civic care (ἐπιμέλεια at 276B7, approximate synonym for ἀγελαιοκομικός according to 275E5–6).

The two parts of this book require separate introductions. Although Part I (on method) comes first in order of presentation below, Part II (on metaphysics) was composed earlier and thus will be introduced first. Part II is a continuation of the inquiry into the metaphysics of Plato's late period that resulted in the publication of Plato's Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved (PLO) in 1983.

PLO was concerned primarily with the once strange-sounding theses attributed to Plato in Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics. Among them are the theses: (i) that numbers come from participation of the Great and the Small in Unity, (ii) that sensible things are constituted by Forms and the Great and Small, (iii) that Forms are composed of the Great and the Small and Unity, and (iv) that Forms are numbers.

Prior to PLO, there were two radically opposed positions on the significance of Aristotle's reports. One (represented by K. Gaiser and H. J. Krämer of Tübingen, among others) held that Aristotle was reporting a set of doctrines passed on orally by Plato but never committed to writing – the so-called unwritten teachings. The other position was championed by Harold Cherniss in The Riddle of the Early Academy, to the effect that Aristotle simply did not understand Plato's views and was reporting them erroneously. Opposed as they were in other respects, both camps maintained that the views attributed to Plato by Aristotle could not be found in Plato's dialogues.