HIPPIAS (major) by Plato - Complete text

Page 29

Soc.: "Why, then," he will say, "if they are pleasures no less than the others, do you take from them this designation and deprive them of being beautiful?" "Because," we shall say, "everybody would laugh at us if we should say that eating is not pleasant but is beautiful, and that a pleasant odor is not pleasant but is beautiful ; and as to the act of sexual love, we should all, no doubt, contend that it is most pleasant, but that one must, if he perform it, do it so that no one else shall see, because it is most repulsive to see." If we say this, Hippias, "I too understand," he will perhaps say, "that you have all along been ashamed to say that these pleasures are beautiful, because they do not seem so to people ; but that is not what I asked, what seems to most people to be beautiful, but what is so." We shall, then, I fancy, say, as we suggested, "We say that that part of the pleasant which comes by sight and hearing is beautiful." Do you think the statement is of any use, Hippias, or shall we say something else?

Hip.: Inevitably, in view of what has been said, Socrates, we must say just that.

Soc.: "Excellent !" he will say. "Then if that which is pleasant through sight and hearing is beautiful, that among pleasant things which does not happen to be of that sort would evidently not be beautiful?" Shall we agree?

Hip.: Yes.

Soc.: "Is, then, that which is pleasant through sight," he will say, "pleasant through sight and hearing, or is that which is pleasant through hearing pleasant through hearing and sight?" "No," we shall say, "that which is pleasant through each of these would not in the least be pleasant through both — for that is what you appear to us to mean — but we said that either of these pleasant things would be beautiful alone by itself, and both together." Is not that the reply we shall make?

Hip.: Certainly.

Soc.: "Does, then," he will say, "any pleasant thing whatsoever differ from any pleasant thing whatsoever by this, by being pleasant? I ask not whether any pleasure is greater or smaller or more or less, but whether it differs by just this very thing, by the fact that one of the pleasures is a pleasure and the other is not a pleasure." "We do not think so." Do we?

Hip.: No, we do not.

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Plato : HIPPIAS (major)

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