10 · Plato: character in persons and cities

From Plato, Republic, Book IV.

“Must we not,” I said, “certainly agree that the same forms and traits of character exist in each of us as in the city? They surely did not arrive there from anywhere else. It would be ridiculous to suppose that spiritedness did not enter cities from the individuals who are reputed to possess it, such as the inhabitants of Thrace and Scythia and, broadly speaking, the northern region; or love of learning, which one might chiefly associate ⟨with⟩ our own region; or love of money, which one might say is especially found among the Phoenicians and the people of Egypt.”¹¹⁹⁹

11.1 · Plato: natural aptitude

From Plato, Republic, Book IV.

“Come now,” we shall say to him, “answer us. Did you mean that one person has a natural aptitude for something and another lacks it when one learns it easily and the other with difficulty; and when one, after a little instruction, can discover much more concerning what he has learned, while the other, despite much instruction and practice, cannot even retain what he has learned?¹²⁰⁰

11.2 · The body’s assistance to thought

“And when in one person the bodily faculties adequately serve thought, while in another they oppose it? Was it by anything other than these criteria that you distinguished the person naturally fitted for each activity from the person who is not?”

“No one,” he said, “will name any others.”¹²⁰¹

12.1 · Plato: the causes of sensation

From Plato, from the Timaeus.

The greatest subject still remaining among the affections common to the whole body is the cause of pleasant and painful experiences among those we have discussed, and of all the experiences that acquire sensations through the bodily parts and have pains and consequent pleasures within them. Let us therefore grasp ⟨the⟩ causes of every perceived and unperceived affection in this way, recalling the distinction we made earlier between a nature easily moved and one difficult to move. By this route we must pursue everything we intend to grasp.¹²⁰²

12.2 · Transmission to the thinking faculty

For that which is naturally easy to move transmits even a slight affection that strikes it: its parts pass it around from one to another, producing the same effect, until they reach the thinking faculty and announce the power of what caused it. The opposite, ⟨being⟩ stationary and passing around no circuit, is affected alone and moves none of its neighbors. Thus, because the parts do not transmit the first affection to one another, it remains within them without moving into the whole creature and leaves the affected part unperceived.¹²⁰³

12.3 · Earthy parts and the organs of sense

This occurs with bones, hair, and all the other predominantly earthy parts within us. The former condition occurs especially with the organs of sight and hearing, because the power of fire and air is greatest in them.¹²⁰⁴ Pleasure and pain must be understood as follows. An affection that occurs violently and all at once, contrary to nature, is painful; a return to nature that likewise occurs all at once is pleasant. What happens gently and little by little is imperceptible; what is opposite to these behaves oppositely.¹²⁰⁵

12.4 · Perception without pleasure or pain

Everything that happens with ease is most readily perceived, ⟨but⟩ has no share in pleasure or pain. Such are the affections of sight itself, which, as was said earlier, becomes by day a body continuous with our own.¹²⁰⁶

13.1 · Plato: harmony, pain, and pleasure

From Plato, from the Philebus.

“I say, then, that when harmony is dissolved in us living creatures, our natural constitution is dissolved and pains arise at that very time.”

“What you say is quite likely.”

“When harmony is restored and returns to its own natural condition, we must say that pleasure arises, if we are to speak as briefly and quickly as possible about matters of the greatest importance.”

“I think you are right, Socrates, but let us try to state these ⟨same⟩ things still more clearly.”¹²⁰⁷

13.2 · Hunger, thirst, and heat

“Surely common and obvious examples are easiest to understand?”

“Which ones?”

“Hunger is, I take it, ⟨pain⟩ and dissolution.”

“Yes.”

“Eating, by replenishing us, is in turn pleasure.”

“Yes.”

“Thirst, again, is damage, pain, and dissolution; the power of moisture to refill what has dried out is pleasure. Unnatural separation and dissolution, the effects of stifling heat, are pain; restoration to nature and cooling are pleasure.”

“Certainly.”¹²⁰⁸

13.3 · Cold and return to the natural condition

“Likewise, the unnatural congealing of a creature’s moisture through cold is [also] pain; when its constituents return to the same condition and separate again, their natural course is pleasure. In a word, consider whether ⟨the⟩ following account seems adequate to you. When the form that has naturally become ensouled from the unlimited and limit, as I said earlier, is damaged, that damage is pain; the journey back to the constituents’ own being, this return of them all, is pleasure.”

“Let it stand; it seems to me to provide at least an outline.”¹²⁰⁹

13.4 · Pleasure and pain in expectation

“Shall we therefore set this down as one kind of pain and of pleasure in these respective affections?”

“Let it be set down.”

“Then set down what belongs to the soul itself in anticipation of these affections: what is hoped for before pleasant experiences is ⟨pleasant⟩ and encouraging, while what precedes painful experiences is fearful and distressing.”

“For this is indeed another kind of pleasure and pain: what arises in the soul itself, apart from the body, through expectation.”¹²¹⁰

14.1 · ⟨In the same work⟩: memory and sensation

⟨In the same work.⟩

“Moreover, the other kind of pleasure, which we said belongs to the soul itself, has all come about through memory.”

“How?”

“We must first take up what memory actually is, it seems; and probably sensation must be taken up even before memory, if these matters are to become suitably clear to us in some way.”

“What do you mean?”¹²¹¹

14.2 · Affections that do and do not reach the soul

“Suppose that, among the affections that occur in our body, some die out within the body before passing through to the soul and leave it unaffected; others pass through both and produce something like a shaking, at once peculiar to each and shared by both.”

“Let that be supposed.”

“If we ⟨say⟩ that the affections not passing through both escape our soul’s notice, while those passing through both do not, shall we be speaking quite correctly?”

“Of course.”¹²¹²