SOCRATES

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Belief and Desire in the Soul

A question in the dialogues is how desire is related to belief. Socrates, the historical figure, seems to have thought that all desires either are or stem from beliefs or knowledge about what is good and what is bad. This understanding of desire is called "Socratic Intellectualism."

• Charmides 156e

⊕ ἐπῳδάς ("spells"), φίλτρα ("love-charms")

"The persons who followed [behind Protagoras's most highly reputed disciples], listening to what they could of the talk, seemed to be mostly strangers, brought by the great Protagoras from the several cities which he traverses, enchanting (κηλῶν) them with his voice like Orpheus, while they follow where the voice sounds, enchanted; and some of our own inhabitants were also dancing attendance" (Protagoras 315a). Cf. Protagoras 316d.

"Orpheus he led all things by the charm (χαρᾷ) of his voice" (Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1629).

"That is just what surprises me, Gorgias, and has made me ask you all this time what in the world the power of rhetoric can be. For, viewed in this light, its greatness comes over me as something supernatural" (Gorgias 456a).

"There is no subject, Socrates, on which the rhetorician could not speak more persuasively than a member of any other profession whatsoever, before a multitude. So great, so strange, is the power of this art" (Gorgias 456c).

"For incantations divinely inspired by means of speeches are bringers of pleasure and removers of pain. For the power of an incantation, when it is conjoined with the opinion of the soul, beguiles it, persuades it, and transforms it by sorcery (γοητείᾳ)" (Gorgias, Encomium of Helen 10). For all that was good and bad, he [a Thracian physician of Zalmoxis] said, in the body and in man altogether was sprung from the soul.... And the treatment of the soul, so he said, my wonderful friend, is by means of certain spells, and these spells are words of the right sort: by the use of such words is temperance engendered in our souls.

Notes on the Text

Words can change the soul and thus what someone does.

• Protagoras 352a

   Come, my good Protagoras, uncover some more of your thoughts: how are you in regard to knowledge (ἐπιστήμην)? Do you share the view that most people take of this, or have you some other? The opinion generally ⊕ held of knowledge is something of this sort--that it is not powerful, neither a leader nor a ruler (ἡγεμονικὸν); it is not regarded as anything of that kind, but people think that, while a man often has knowledge in him, he is not ruled by it, but by something else--now by anger, now by pleasure, now by pain, at times by love, and often by fear; their feeling about knowledge is just what they have about a slave, that it may be dragged about by any other force. Now do you agree with this view of it, or do you consider that knowledge is something noble and able to govern man, and that whoever learns what is good and what is bad will never be swayed by anything to act otherwise than as knowledge bids, and that intelligence is a sufficient succor for mankind?
⊕ As a σοφιστής himself, Protagoras must exalt σοφία.

David Hume (1711-1776) reverses the answer.

"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" (Treatise on Human Nature, II.iii.3).


ἡγεμονικός, hēgemonikos   My view, Socrates, is precisely that which you express, and what is more, it would be a disgrace for me above all men to assert that wisdom and knowledge were aught but the highest of all human things.

Notes on the Text

The issue is how human beings work, what goes on in their minds when they act. It is necessary to know this to know how words can change the soul and thus what someone does.

Socrates thinks knowledge controls action, that it is a ruler, and that it cannot be overcome.

The "the many" (οἱ πολλοί) think knowledge can be overcome by pleasure.

• Protagoras 352d

  Well and truly spoken. Now you know that most people will not listen to you and me, but say that many, while knowing what is best, refuse to perform it, though they have the power, and do other things instead. And whenever I have asked them to tell me what can be the cause of this, they say that those who act so are ⊕ acting under the influence of pleasure or pain, or under the control of one of the things I have just mentioned.
  Yes, Socrates, he replied, I regard this as but one of the many erroneous sayings of mankind.
  Come then, and join me in the endeavor to persuade the world and explain what is this experience of theirs, which they call being overcome by pleasure, ⊕ and which they give as the reason why they fail to do what is best though they have knowledge of it.

Notes on the Text

To preserve his view about knowledge, Socrates tries to show the many that they themselves believe that those who are overcome by pleasure do not have knowledge.

• Protagoras 354e

If you were to ask me, my friends, Now why on earth do you speak at such length on this point, and in so many ways? I should reply, Forgive me: in the first place, it is not easy to conclude what it is that you mean when you say overcome by pleasures; and secondly, on this point hang all our conclusions. But it is still quite possible to retract, if you can somehow contrive to say that the good is different from pleasure, or the bad from pain.

Notes on the Text

Socrates gets the many to accept that the pleasant is the good.

Based on this premise, Socrates establishes that "by being overcome you [the many] mean getting the greater bad in exchange for the lesser good" (Protgoras 355e).

To the explanation that this happens because "the immediately pleasant differs widely from the subsequently pleasant or painful" (Protagoras 356a), Socrates explains that the values of possible actions cannot be different in any other way than by pleasure and pain, for there is no other way that they could differ if the pleasant is the good. The values of the actions only can appear different to someone who does not "weigh" the pleasures and pains properly (Protagoras 356b).

What is going on when the immediate pleasure or pain an action causes appear to someone in such a way that he does not take into account the pleasure and pain the action causes later?

• Protagoras 356c

  [P]lease answer me this: Does not the same size appear larger to your sight when ⊕   "Well then, in the case of sight, seeing things from too near at hand or from too great a distance obscures their real sizes and causes us to have false opinions; and does not this same thing happen in the case of pains and pleasures?
  Yes, Socrates, even much more than in the case of sight" (Philebus 41e). near, and smaller when distant? And it is the same with thickness and number? And sounds of equal strength are greater when near, and smaller when distant? Now if our welfare consisted in doing and choosing things of large dimensions, and avoiding and not doing those of small, what would be our salvation in life? Would it be the art of measurement (ἡ μετρητικὴ τέχνη), or the power of appearance (ἡ τοῦ φαινομένου δύναμις)? Is it not the latter that leads us astray, as we saw, and many a time causes us to take things topsy-turvy and to have to change our minds both in our conduct and in our choice of great or small? Whereas the art of measurement would have made this appearance ineffective, and by showing us the truth would have brought our soul into the repose of abiding by the truth, and so would have saved our life. Would men acknowledge, in view of all this, that the art which saves our life is measurement, or some other?
  It is measurement   Well now, if the saving of our life depended on the choice of odd or even, and on knowing when to make a right choice of the greater and when of the less—taking each by itself or comparing it with the other, and whether near or distant—what would save our life? Would it not be knowledge (ἐπιστήμη); a knowledge of measurement, since the art here is concerned with excess and defect, and of numeration, as it has to do with odd and even? People would admit this, would they not?
  Protagoras agreed that they would.
  Well then, my friends, since we have found that the salvation of our life depends on making a right choice of pleasure and pain—of the more and the fewer, the greater and the smaller, and the nearer and the remoter—is it not evident, in the first place, that measurement is a study of their excess and defect and equality in relation to each other?
  This must needs be so.
  And being measurement, I presume it must be an art or science (τέχνη καὶ ἐπιστήμη)?
  They will assent to this.

Notes on the Text

To explain how the immediate pleasure appears the way it does, Socrates appeals to the readily understandable mistakes that can occur when someone judges the sizes of objects by looking at them. He calls attention to the fact that objects appear larger when near and smaller when distant to show that someone who is overcome by pleasure is like someone who aims to possess the largest objects he can see but fails to realize that near objects appear larger than they are.

This makes sense for judging the sizes of objects by looking. We find it natural to say that we would have believed the object is larger had we realized it was as far away as it is.

Is the same true for pleasure and pain?

• Protagoras 357b

  Well, the nature of this art or science we shall consider some other time; but the mere fact of its being a science will suffice for the demonstration which Protagoras and I are required to give in answer to the question you have put to us. You asked it, if you remember, when we were agreeing that there is nothing stronger than knowledge, and that knowledge, wherever it may be found, has always the upper hand of pleasure or anything else; and then you said that pleasure often masters even the man of knowledge, and on our refusing to agree with you, you went on to ask us: Protagoras and Socrates, if this experience is not 'being overcome by pleasure,' whatever can it be, and what do you call it? Tell us. If on the spur of the moment we had replied, 'Ignorance' (ἀμαθία), you would have laughed us to scorn: but now if you laugh at us you will be laughing at yourselves as well. For you have admitted that it is from defect of knowledge that men err, when they do err, in their choice of pleasures and pains—that is, in the choice of good and bad; and from defect not merely of knowledge but of the knowledge which you have now admitted also to be that of measurement. And surely you know well enough for yourselves that the erring act committed without knowledge is done through ignorance. Accordingly 'to be overcome by pleasure' means just this—ignorance in the highest degree which Protagoras here and Prodicus and Hippias profess to cure. But you, through supposing it to be something else than ignorance, will neither go yourselves nor send your children to these sophists, who are the teachers of those things—you say it cannot be taught; you are chary of your money and will give them none, and so you fare badly both in private and in public life.
  Such would have been our answer to the world at large. And I ask you now, Hippias and Prodicus, as well as Protagoras—for I would have you make a joint reply—whether you think what I say is true or false.
  They all thought what I had said was absolutely true.

Notes on the Text

Socrates thinks he has shown that "ignorance" is the cause of being overcome by pleasure.

What is the argument?

His argument is a reductio ad absurdum in which the initial premises encapsulate part of what the many believe about the phenomenon in which they claim knowledge is overcome by pleasure. They think that someone can be "unwilling to do what is best, even though [he] know[s] what it is and [is]able to do it" because "[he is] overcome by pleasure" (352d-e1).

Their beliefs, then, give Socrates the following premises to use against them:

1.  The best thing S can do is a (go to the gym).
2.  S does b, where b (go to the party) ≠ a, because S is overcome by pleasure.

The many also believe, as Socrates works hard to get them to admit, that

PG.  The pleasant is the good.

Since the question is whether "knowledge is ruler" and hence whether S can be overcome by pleasure if he knows what is best in the situation, the assumption for reductio is

3.  S knows that the best thing he can do is a.

Further, since the many think that S is not confused about what is best in the situation in which he is overcome by pleasure, the first inference in the reductio is from (3) to

4.  S does not believe that doing b is as least as good as doing a.

This inference provides the conclusion from the assumption for reductio that Socrates tries to get the many to contradict. He argues that their beliefs commit them to

5. S believes that doing b is as least as good as doing a.

• Protagoras 358a

  [Y]ou agree that the pleasant is good and the painful bad. And let ⊕ me entreat my friend Prodicus to spare me his distinction of terms: for whether you say pleasant (ἡδὺ) or delightful (τερπνὸν) or enjoyable (χαρτόν), my excellent Prodicus, or in whatever style or manner you may be pleased to name these things, pray reply to the sense of my question.
  At this Prodicus laughed and consented, as did the rest.
  Well now, my friends, I said, what of this? All actions aimed at living painlessly and pleasantly are honorable and beneficial, are they not? And honorable activity is both good and beneficial?
  They agreed.
  Then if the pleasant is good, no one who has knowledge or thought (εἰδὼς οὔτε οἰόμενος) of other actions as better than those he is doing, and as possible, will do as he proposes if he is free to do the better ones; and this yielding to oneself is nothing but ignorance, and mastery of ⊕ oneself is as certainly wisdom (σοφία).
  They all agreed.
  Well then, by ignorance do you mean having a false opinion (τὸ ψευδῆ ἔχειν δόξαν) and being deceived about matters of importance?
  They all agreed to this also.
  Then surely, no one willingly (ἑκὼν) goes after what is bad or what he thinks to be bad; it is not in human nature (ἐν ἀνθρώπου φύσει), ⊕ "For Simonides was not so ill-educated as to say that he praised a person who willingly did nothing bad, as though there were some who did something bad willingly. I am fairly sure of this—that none of the wise men considers that anybody ever willingly errs or willingly does base and bad deeds; they are well aware that all who do base and bad things do them unwillingly" (Protagoras 345d).

This is puzzling.

What makes these actions something one does "unwillingly"? apparently, to do so--to wish to go after what one thinks to be bad in preference to the good; and when compelled to choose one of two bads, nobody will choose the greater when he may the lesser.
  All this met with the assent of everyone.

Notes on the Text

Socrates says that when someone is overcome by pleasure, he "yields" to himself.

What is this "yielding"?

• Gorgias 466d

  For I say, Polus, that the orators and the despots alike have the least power in their cities, as I stated just now; since they just about do nothing they wish ⊕   "Did you, Socrates, not admit just now that they do what they think best?
  Yes, I admit it.
  Then do they not do what they wish?
  I say no, Polus.
  When they do what seems to them?
  Yes" (Gorgias 467b).

"Then, Polus, I spoke the truth when I said that it is possible for a man to do what seems to him and yet not to have great power in a city nor to do what he wishes" (Gorgias 468e). (βούλονται) to do, though they do whatever they think to be best (δόξῃ βέλτιστον εἶναι). ... For do you, Polus, regard it as a good, when a man does what he thinks to be best, without having intelligence? Is that what you call having a great power?
  No, I do not.
  Then will you prove that the orators have intelligence (νοῦν), and that rhetoric is an art, not a flattery, and so refute me? Else, if you are going to leave me unrefuted, the orators who do what they think to be best in their cities, and the despots, will find they have got no good in doing that, if indeed power is, as you say, a good, but doing what one thinks without intelligence is--as you yourself admit, do you not?--an evil.

Notes on the Text

What is this contrast between "wish" and "think best"?

• Gorgias 467c

  Is it your view, Polus, that people wish (βούλεσθαι) merely that which they do each time, or that which is the object of their doing what they do? For instance, do those ⊕ who take medicine by doctor's orders wish, in your opinion, merely what they do,--to take the medicine and suffer the pain of it,--or rather to be healthy, which is the object of their taking it?
  To be healthy, without a doubt.
  And so with seafarers and such as pursue profit generally in trade; what they wish is not what they are doing at each moment--for who wishes to go on a voyage, and incur all its danger and trouble? It is rather, I conceive, the object of their voyage--to get wealth; since it is for wealth that they go on it.
  Certainly.
  And is it not just the same in every case? If a man does something for an object, he does not wish the thing that he does, but the thing for which he does it.
  Yes, Socrates.

Notes on the Text

We "wish" for the end. We do what we "think best" to achieve it.

• Gorgias 467e

⊕   Now is there any existent thing that is not either good or bad or between these--neither good nor bad?
  Most assuredly nothing, Socrates.
  Well, do you call wisdom and health and wealth and everything else of that kind good, and their opposites bad?
  I do.
  And by things neither good nor bad do you mean such things sometimes partake of the good, sometimes of the bad, and sometimes of neither--for example, sitting, walking, running, and sailing, or again, stones and sticks and anything else of that sort? These are what you mean, are they not? Or are there other things that you describe as neither good nor bad?
  No, these are what I mean.
  Then do people do these intermediate things, when they do them, for the sake of the good things, or the good things for the intermediate?
  The intermediate, I presume, for the good.
  Thus it is in pursuit of the good that we walk, when we walk, conceiving it to be better; or on the contrary, stand, when we stand, for the sake of the same thing, the good: is it not so?
  Yes, Socrates.

Notes on the Text

Socrates defines the objects of "wish" and "think best."

Some things are good in all circumstances. Some things are not. They are good in some circumstances and not good in others. So there are two predicates: good and good-in-some-circumstances. If something is good-in-some-circumstances, it is not good.

We do not "wish" for what is good-in-some-circumstances. We "wish" for what is good.

• Gorgias 468b ⊕   "So, my remarkable friend, you have come round again to the view that if doing what one thinks fit is attended by advantage in doing it, this is not merely a good thing but at the same time, it seems, the possession of great power; otherwise it is a bad thing and means little power. And let us consider another point besides; do we not admit that sometimes it is better to do those things that we were mentioning just now—to put people to death and banish them and deprive them of property—while sometimes it is not?
  To be sure.
  Then here is a point, it seems, that is admitted both on your side and on mine.
  Yes.
  Then when do you say it is better to do these things? Tell me where you draw the line.
  Nay, I would rather that you, Socrates, answered that.
  Well then I say, Polus, if you prefer to hear it from me, that it is better when these things are done justly, and worse when unjustly" (Gorgias 470a).

  "Polus and I, if you recollect, decided that everything we do should be for the sake of what is good. Do you agree with us in this view—that the good is the end of all our actions, and it is for its sake that all other things should be done, and not it for theirs? Do you add your vote to ours, and make a third?
  I do.
  Then it is for the sake of what is good that we should do everything, including what is pleasant, not the good for the sake of the pleasant.
  Certainly.
  Now is it in every man's power to pick out which sort of pleasant things are good and which bad, or is professional skill (τεχνικοῦ) required in each case?
  Professional skill" (Gorgias 499e).

  "I really must have your answer on this particular point, Callicles—whether you think that Polus and I were correct or not in finding ourselves forced to admit, as we did in the preceding argument, that no one does wrong of his own wish, but that all who do wrong do it against their will (ἄκοντας).
  Let it be as you would have it, Socrates, in order that you may come to a conclusion of your argument.
  Then for this purpose also, of not doing wrong, it seems we must provide ourselves with a certain power or art" (Gorgias 509e).

  And so we put a man to death, if we do put him to death, or expel him or deprive him of his property, because we think it better for us to do this than not?
  Certainly.
  So it is for the sake of the good that the doers of all these things do them?
  I agree.
  And we have admitted that when we do things for an object, we do not wish those things, but the object for which we do them?
  Quite so.
  Then we do not simply wish to slaughter people or expel them from our cities or deprive them of their property, but if these things are beneficial we wish to do them, while if they are harmful, we do not wish them. For we wish what is good, as you say; but what is neither good nor bad we do not wish, nor what is bad either, do we? Is what I say true in your opinion, Polus, or not? Why do you not answer?

Notes on the Text

Socrates is talking about how the soul works.

His view, it seems, is that wish is a standing desire for the good. Given this desire, human beings try to get what they believe is good and avoid what they believe is bad.

Socrates asks, and Polus agrees, that "we put a man to death, if we do put him to death, or expel him or deprive him of his property, because we think it better for us." If, however, they are not better for us, then what we are doing will not accomplish our wish.

This conception of what happens in the soul can appear to contradict the intellectualism about desire the character Socrates seems to hold in the Protagoras.

Why?

The "wish" for the good seems to be a desire that does not stem from knowledge or a belief about what is good and what is bad. It is somehow a fixed part of the soul.

It may be, though, that Plato only changes how Socrates talks. There is no standing desire for the good in the soul. Instead, human beings act on the basis of their beliefs about what is good and bad. This is how they work. No antecedent desire sets this process in motion. No such desire is necessary because the process of acting on the basis of their beliefs about what is good and bad belongs to reason and thus is what human beings do. In the Gorgias and the Meno, Socrates describes this fact about human beings by saying that they have a "wish for the good." Plato, however, does not take this way of talking about how human beings function to mean that there is a counterexample to the intellectualism about desire he has Socrates express in the Protagoras. All desires stem from knowledge or belief about what is good and what is bad.

• Meno 77b

  Well, in my view, Socrates, virtue is, in the poet's words, ⊕ Meno tries to answer the "What is virtue?" question. 'to rejoice in fine things and be able for them'; and that, I say, is virtue (ἀρετήν)-- to desire (ἐπιθυμοῦντα) what is fine and be able to procure it.
  Do you say that he who desires the fine is desirous of the good?
  Certainly.
  Implying that there are some who desire the bad, and others the good? Do not all men, in your opinion, my dear sir, desire the good?
  I think not.
  There are some who desire the bad?
  Yes.
  Thinking the bad to be good, do you mean, or actually recognizing it to be bad, and desiring it nevertheless?
  Both, I believe.
  Do you really believe, Meno, that a man knows the bad to be bad, and still desires it?
  Certainly.
  What do you mean by 'desires'? Desires the possession of it?
  Yes; what else could it be?
  And does he think the bad benefits him who gets it, or does he know that it harms him who has it?
  There are some who think the bad is a benefit, and others who know that it does harm.
  And, in your opinion, do those who think the bad a benefit know that it is bad?
  I do not think that at all.
  Obviously those who are ignorant of the bad do not desire it, but only what they supposed to be good, though it is really bad; so that those who are ignorant of it and think it good are really desiring the good. Is not that so?
  It would seem to be so in their case.
  Well now, I presume those who, as you say, desire the bad, and consider that the bad harms him who gets it, know that they will be harmed by it?
  They needs must.
  But do they not hold that those who are harmed are miserable in proportion to the harm they suffer?
  That too must be.
  And are not the miserable ill-starred?
  I think so.
  Then is there anyone who wishes (βούλεται) to be miserable and ill-starred (κακοδαίμονας)?
  I do not suppose there is, Socrates.
  No one, then, Meno, wishes bad, if no one wishes to be such an one: for what is being miserable but desiring bad and obtaining it?
  It seems that what you say is true, Socrates, and that nobody wishes bad.
  Well now, you were saying a moment ago that virtue is the wish and ability for good (ὅτι ἔστιν ἡ ἀρετὴ βούλεσθαί τε τἀγαθὰ καὶ δύνασθαι)?
  Yes, I was.
⊕   One part of the statement--the wish--is something everyone has, and in this respect one man is no better than another?
  Apparently, Socrates.