Profit

Use in the book

At 146b–c2 Socrates considers acting upon what one knows or seems to know when “the beneficially” accompanies the action. Such a condition is profitable both for the city and for oneself. The contrary case is not. The beneficiary is thus expressly specified, and the question concerns the outcome of enacted knowledge, rather than the prestige of being considered an expert.

At 146d the conclusion turns paradoxical. Given that the many have missed the best and trusted opinion without sense, neither knowing nor thinking one knows is presented as advantageous when either makes them more eager to act and thereby more exposed to harm. The Greek places the negated infinitives under lysitelei: being without these action-enabling states is what the many stand to gain under the stated condition. The printed English’s “it profits the many neither to know anything nor to think they know” should be read with the whole following condition, not as a maxim against knowledge in every setting.

The argument does not claim that the absence of knowledge has an independent positive yield, like a possession added to someone’s estate. Its value is comparative and preventive. Remove the stipulated harmful consequences, or supply the knowledge of the best, and the rationale for this valuation changes. The city and soul are immediately told to hold fast to that governing knowledge at 146e.

Places to read

1. 146b–c2Action is profitable for city and self when it is accompanied by beneficially acting.
2. 146cThe many are characterised as missing the best.
3. 146dThe paradoxical profit of not knowing is conditional on harmful eagerness to act.
4. 146eThe positive requirement is dependence on knowledge of the best.

Translation in this edition

“Profit” translates lysitelein, while “benefit” translates ōphelein. The unusual wording at 146d carries the scope of the negation; paraphrases should make its conditional structure explicit rather than turn it into the simple claim that knowledge never pays.

Use in the book

The early examples ask whether a knowledgeable practitioner thinks he gains from worthless material. Their force depends on taking gain as success or benefit in the practice concerned. The companion’s complaint may instead concern a profit extracted through shoddy goods or morally objectionable dealings. The dialogue never fully separates gain for the user of an object from gain for a seller who transfers its costs to someone else. This is a limit on the reach of the examples, not a reason to deny their ordinary practical point.

At 226e–227a gain is opposed to loss, loss is harmful and bad, and gain is pronounced good. The inference is stronger than the bare lexical contrast: from the fact that one opposite is bad it does not universally follow that the other is good. At 227d Socrates retrospectively formulates gaining as being benefited, although that identity was not previously agreed in those words. The pair kerdos/kerdainein is later recited explicitly at 229e when the companion chooses which premise to retract.

After some gain is allowed to be bad, Socrates asks what makes the good and bad instances alike gain. At 230c–d, being equally instances of gain becomes “gains no more” and the exclusion of more and less. Equal membership in a kind does not by itself imply equal amounts or equal benefit: two sums may be equally money and unequal in amount. The subsequent inquiry into their common character should therefore be distinguished from this quantitative overreach.

The proposed answer at 231a treats gain as a possession acquired at no expense or for less than one gets. Disease acquired at a free feast defeats acquisition without evaluation. Gold exchanged for a greater quantity of silver defeats mere quantitative increase. The final sequence moves through worth, worth possessing, benefit and goodness. It thus restricts gain to genuine advantage, but leaves open whether ordinary morally bad profit has been explained or defined away.

Places to read

1. 227aἈγαθὸν ἄρα τὸ κέρδος. — The first conclusion joins gain and goodness.
2. 229eτὸ κέρδος καὶ τὸ κερδαίνειν — Noun and infinitive are paired when the earlier agreements are reopened.
3. 230cΟὐδὲν ἄρα μᾶλλον κερδαίνει — The claim about equal status as gain is extended to how much someone gains.
4. 231eτὸ δὲ ἀνάξιον ἀκερδές — Worthlessness is paired with absence of gain.

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “gain” consistently instead of alternating unobtrusively among profit, benefit and advantage. This exposes, rather than solves, the relation between result, possession and activity. “Gainful” and “without gain” preserve the later derived adjectives. The supplied introduction itself notes that the gaining and the thing gained are two sides on which the reasoning turns.

Use in the book

The world’s profitableness appears in breathing, nourishment, fertility, delight, and the recognition of divine love. Its parts are useful through relations that sustain and enrich life. III.21 contrasts this ordered usefulness with a single infinite material body, whose bulk would exclude every other thing and defeat enjoyment.

Love is profitable in a still wider way. It lets the soul receive goods beyond the body’s limited pleasures and inclines it to do good to many others. Profit therefore need not imply competition between recipient and beneficiary. The higher advantage is often the power to give, understand, or share, and a gain that excludes those relations may count as remarkably poor.

Places to read

1. II.21Natural services disclose goodness through their benefit to life, sense, and love.
2. II.51Love profits the lover through receiving and others through communicated good.
3. III.21Finite bodies become infinite in profit and delight through their fitted relations.

In this edition

Translate profitable mentally as beneficial where money is not at issue. In III.21 infinity of profit is expressly distinguished from infinity of bulk.