The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductions — Plato — John Shaqi
The dialogues of Plato in five volumes, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Translated into English with analyses and introductions
Plato · en
[Sidenote: _Analysis 102-107._]
The doctrine of ideas, which has long ago received the assent of 102
the Socratic circle, is now affirmed by the Phliasian auditor to
command the assent of any man of sense. The narrative is continued;
Socrates is desirous of explaining how opposite ideas may
appear to co-exist but do not really co-exist in the same thing or
person. For example, Simmias may be said to have greatness
and also smallness, because he is greater than Socrates and less
than Phaedo. And yet Simmias is not really great and also small,
but only when compared to Phaedo and Socrates. I use the
illustration, says Socrates, because I want to show you not only
that ideal opposites exclude one another, but also the opposites in
us. I, for example, having the attribute of smallness remain small,
and cannot become great: the smallness which is in me drives out
greatness. 103
One of the company here remarked that this was inconsistent
with the old assertion that opposites generated opposites. But
that, replies Socrates, was affirmed, not of opposite ideas either in
us or in nature, but of opposition in the concrete—not of life and
death, but of individuals living and dying. When this objection
has been removed, Socrates proceeds: This doctrine of the mutual
exclusion of opposites is not only true of the opposites themselves,
but of things which are inseparable from them. For example,
cold and heat are opposed; and fire, which is inseparable from
heat, cannot co-exist with cold, or snow, which is inseparable
from cold, with heat. Again, the number three excludes the
number four, because three is an odd number and four is an even
number, and the odd is opposed to the even. Thus we are able to 104
proceed a step beyond ‘the safe and simple answer.’ We may
say, not only that the odd excludes the even, but that the number
three, which participates in oddness, excludes the even. And in 105
like manner, not only does life exclude death, but the soul, of
which life is the inseparable attribute, also excludes death. And
that of which life is the inseparable attribute is by the force of the
terms imperishable. If the odd principle were imperishable, then 106
the number three would not perish but remove, on the approach
of the even principle. But the immortal is imperishable; and
therefore the soul on the approach of death does not perish but
removes.