VI. We may now endeavour to ascertain the relation of the “Philebus” to the other dialogues. Here Plato shows the same indifference to his own doctrine of Ideas which he has already manifested in the “Parmenides” and the “Sophist.” The principle of the one and many of which he here speaks, is illustrated by examples in the “Sophist” and “Statesman.” Notwithstanding the differences of style, many resemblances may be noticed between the “Philebus” and “Gorgias.” The theory of the simultaneousness of pleasure and pain is common to both of them (“Philebus” 36 B, “Gorgias” 496 E); there is also a common tendency in them to take up arms against pleasure, although the view of the “Philebus,” which is probably the later of the two dialogues, is the more moderate. At 46 A, B, there seems to be an allusion to the passage in the “Gorgias” (494), in which Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates, at 58, is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect: “Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:—this does not prove that dialectic is not the purest and most exact.” From the “Sophist” and “Statesman” we know that his hostility towards the sophists and rhetoricians was not mitigated in later life; although both in the “Statesman” and Laws he admits of a higher use of rhetoric.
Reasons have been already given for assigning a late date to the “Philebus.” That the date is probably later than that of the Republic, may be further argued on the following grounds:—1. The general resemblance to the later dialogues and to the Laws: 2. The more complete account of the nature of good and pleasure: 3. The distinction between perception, memory, recollection, and opinion (34–38) which indicates a great progress in psychology; also between understanding and imagination, which is described under the figure of the scribe and the painter (39). A superficial notion may arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such as the “Philebus,” the “Sophist,” and the “Statesman,” as studies or preparations for longer ones. This view may be natural; but on further reflection is seen to be fallacious, because these three dialogues are found to make an advance upon the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can more easily suppose that Plato composed shorter writings after longer ones, than suppose that he lost hold of further points of view which he had once attained.
It is more easy to find traces of the Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Megarians, Cynics, Cyrenaics and of the ideas of Anaxagoras, in the “Philebus,” than to say how much is due to each of them. Had we fuller records of those old philosophers, we should probably find Plato in the midst of the fray attempting to combine Eleatic and Pythagorean doctrines, and seeking to find a truth beyond either Being or number; setting up his own concrete conception of good against the abstract practical good of the Cynics, or the abstract intellectual good of the Megarians, and his own idea of classification against the denial of plurality in unity which is also attributed to them; warring against the Eristics as destructive of truth, as he had formerly fought against the Sophists; taking up a middle position between the Cynics and Cyrenaics in his doctrine of pleasure; asserting with more consistency than Anaxagoras the existence of an intelligent mind and cause. Of the Heracliteans, whom he is said by Aristotle to have cultivated in his youth, he speaks in the “Philebus,” as in the “Theaetetus” and “Cratylus,” with irony and contempt. But we have not the knowledge which would enable us to pursue further the line of reflection here indicated; nor can we expect to find perfect clearness or order in the first efforts of mankind to understand the working of their own minds. The ideas which they are attempting to analyse, they are also in process of creating; the abstract universals of which they are seeking to adjust the relations have been already excluded by them from the category of relation.
The “Philebus,” like the “Cratylus,” is supposed to be the continuation of a previous discussion. An argument respecting the comparative claims of pleasure and wisdom to rank as the chief good has been already carried on between Philebus and Socrates. The argument is now transferred to Protarchus, the son of Callias (19 B), a noble Athenian youth, sprung from a family which had spent “a world of money” on the Sophists (compare “Apology” 20 A, B; “Cratylus” 391 C; “Protagoras” 337 D). Philebus, who appears to be the teacher (16 B,
