PLATO’S DIFFERENT DEVICEto continue the fi ght for intelligence (23b8). Protarchus in response says
that pleasure has “been defeated as if knocked down” and has “fallen in
her fi ght for victory” (22e5– 6). But Socrates also suggests that “we can
reach a like position if each side makes some concessions to the other”
(13d), and adds: “For we are not contending here out of love of victory
for my suggestion to win or for yours,” but are instead acting together
“as allies in support of the truest one” (14b5– 7). This tension between
competition and cooperation plays a positive role: neither the language
nor the issues should come too easily at fi rst, for both must work out
their tensions in due time and measure.^23 Repetition in this dialogue
plays a positive role: the gradual reevaluation of positions and methods
serves to overcome initial antagonisms.
Socrates’ fi rst words already indicate the subtler, more self-
refl ective nature of the language. He advises Protarchus to consider
both positions carefully and reformulate the thesis he inherits from
Philebus, and he then summarizes them again to defi ne the debate
clearly (11a– c). Socrates also moves from pleasure as the good “for all
creatures” to intelligence and knowledge as the good “to all who can
attain them” (11b4– 8), and thus turns the discussion to specifi cally hu-
man concerns. But after this restatement of a foregoing discussion, the
question changes: Socrates proposes that “if it should turn out that there
is another possession” better than either pleasure or knowledge (11d10),
then these two would become rivals for second place, each claiming
the responsibility for the higher good (22d– e). By assuming as given
the simple opposition between hedonism and intellectualism, but then
complicating the issue, the Philebus imposes further determinacy on an
old problem.^24 Plato does not simply have Socrates repeat the critique
of hedonism, which he has presented elsewhere, but moves beyond it
by revising and retesting it.^25 What is inherited is already reexamined;
both the question posed and the method used are more complex. But
obviously much work lies ahead. The two initial categories are unex-
amined conglomerates in need of more determination: “to enjoy...
to be pleased and delighted, and whatever else goes together with that
kind of thing” is one conglomerate, and “knowing, understanding, and
remembering, and what belongs with them, right judgment and true
calculations” is the other (11b– c).
The reader notes right away the absence of “our fair Philebus”
(11c7) as defender of his cause: “I absolve myself of all responsibility
and now call the goddess as my witness” (12b). Philebus gives only his
name to the dialogue.^26 His silence signifi es that the bodily pleasure in
which he believes cannot, even need not, make an argument for itself.
Philebus is thus consistent with his own hedonism; as Gadamer writes in