philebus   

pierce our dull minds, but we go on arguing all the same, like the

weakest and most inexperienced reasoners?

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. Why, I mean to say, that in self-defence I may, if I like,

follow your example, and assert boldly that the two things most unlike

are most absolutely alike; and the result will be that you and I

will prove ourselves to be very tyros in the art of disputing; and the

argument will be blown away and lost. Suppose that we put back, and

return to the old position; then perhaps we may come to an

understanding with one another.

Pro. How do you mean?

Soc. Shall I, Protarchus, have my own question asked of me by you?

Pro. What question?

Soc. Ask me whether wisdom and science and mind, and those other

qualities which I, when asked by you at first what is the nature of

the good, affirmed to be good, are not in the same case with the

pleasures of which you spoke.

Pro. What do you mean?

Soc. The sciences are a numerous class, and will be found to present

great differences. But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they

are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of

dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say

(as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between

one science and another;-would not the argument founder and

disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape

drowning by clinging to a fallacy?

Pro. May none of this befall us, except the deliverance! Yet I

like the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments.

Let us assume, then, that there are many and diverse pleasures, and

many and different sciences.

Soc. And let us have no concealment, Protarchus, of the

differences between my good and yours; but let us bring them to the