Jowett: opposites

opposites desire each other, Lysis   215 E ; have something in common, Protag. 331 E ; everything has one opposite, ib. 332 ; 2 Alcib. 139 B ; reconciliation of, in the philosophy of Heracleitus, Symp. 187 A ; opposites generated out of opposites, Phaedo   70 E, 103 A ; exclusion of opposites, ib. 102 E, 104 B ; Gorg. 496 ; qualification of, Rep.   4.436 ; opposites in nature, ib. 454 ; 5. 475 E ; participation in opposites, Parm. 129 B ; admixtures of opposites, Phil. 25,26; opposites must be learned from opposites, Laws 7. 816 D ; united in the creation of the universe, ib. 10. 889. Cp. Contradiction.

Socrates   : Well now, can there possibly be two opposites of one thing ? ALCIBIADES II  

Socrates : And that the true and the false are different and complete opposites of one another ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : You see, then, that the same man is both false and true in respect to these matters, and the true is in no wise better than the false ? For he is indeed the same man, and the two are not utter opposites, [367d] as you thought just now. LESSER HIPPIAS

Socrates : Do you now, then, perceive that the same man has been found to be false and true, so that if Odysseus was false, he becomes also true, and if Achilles was true, he becomes also false, and the two men are not different from one another, nor opposites, but alike ? LESSER HIPPIAS

Well, he said, I admit that justice bears a resemblance to holiness, for there is always some point of view in which everything is like every other thing ; white is in a certain way like black, and hard is like soft, and the most extreme opposites have some qualities in common ; even the parts of the face which, as we were saying before, are distinct and have different functions, are still in a certain point of view similar, and one of them is like another of them. And you may prove that they are like one another on the same principle that all things are like one another ; and yet things which are like in some particular ought not to be called alike, nor things which are unlike in some particular, however slight, unlike. PROTAGORAS

And we admitted also that what was done in opposite ways was done by opposites ? PROTAGORAS

And that which is done in opposite ways is done by opposites ? PROTAGORAS

And therefore by opposites : — then folly is the opposite of temperance ? PROTAGORAS

Then, Protagoras, which of the two assertions shall we renounce ? One says that everything has but one opposite ; the other that wisdom is distinct from temperance, and that both of them are parts of virtue ; and that they are not only distinct, but dissimilar, both in themselves and in their functions, like the parts of a face. Which of these two assertions shall we renounce ? For both of them together are certainly not in harmony ; they do not accord or agree : for how can they be said to agree if everything is assumed to have only one opposite and not more than one, and yet folly, which is one, has clearly the two opposites wisdom and temperance ? Is not that true, Protagoras ? What else would you say ? PROTAGORAS

Socrates : And life and courage are the extreme opposites of death and cowardice ? ALCIBIADES I

Then we are to say that the greatest friendship is of opposites ? LYSIS

Soc. Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying. That thing or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme opposites of one another. Was not that said ? EUTHYPHRO  

Soc. In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by you in the nature of piety or holiness, and their opposites. EUTHYPHRO

Soc. Wisdom and health and wealth and the like you would call goods, and their opposites evils ? GORGIAS

Soc. And does he have and not have good and happiness, and their opposites, evil and misery, in a similar alternation ? GORGIAS

Soc. Take, for example, the bodily pleasures of eating and drinking, which were just now mentioning — you mean to say that those which promote health, or any other bodily excellence, are good, and their opposites evil ? GORGIAS

Then, I said, Cleinias, the sum of the matter appears to be that the goods of which we spoke before are not to be regarded as goods in themselves, but the degree of good and evil in them depends on whether they are or are not under the guidance of knowledge : under the guidance of ignorance, they are greater evils than their opposites, inasmuch as they are more able to minister to the evil principle which rules them ; and when under the guidance of wisdom and prudence, they are greater goods : but in themselves are nothing ? EUTHYDEMUS  

Her. There are the words which are connected with agathon and kalon, such as sumpheron and lusiteloun, ophelimon, kerdaleon, and their opposites. CRATYLUS  

Her. And what do you say of their opposites ? CRATYLUS

Any one who pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites ; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate, for he says that is united by disunion, like the harmony of bow and the lyre. Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord. But what he probably meant was, that, harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music ; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could be there could be no harmony — clearly not. For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement ; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be ; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees. In like manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long, once differing and now in accord ; which accordance, as in the former instance, medicine, so in all these other cases, music implants, making love and unison to grow up among them ; and thus music, too, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm. Again, in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm there is no difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become double. But when you want to use them in actual life, either in the composition of songs or in the correct performance of airs or metres composed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty begins, and the good artist is needed. Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and heavenly love — the love of Urania the fair and heavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of preserving their love ; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate licentiousness ; just as in my own art it is a great matter so to regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes without the attendant evil of disease. Whence I infer that in music, in medicine, in all other things human as which as divine, both loves ought to be noted as far as may be, for they are both present. SYMPOSIUM  

Then let us consider this question, not in relation to man only, but in relation to animals generally, and to plants, and to everything of which there is generation, and the proof will be easier. Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites ? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust — and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that this holds universally of all opposites ; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less. PHAEDO

And is this true of all opposites ? and are we convinced that all of them are generated out of opposites ? PHAEDO

And there are many other processes, such as division and composition, cooling and heating, which equally involve a passage into and out of one another. And this holds of all opposites, even though not always expressed in words — they are generated out of one another, and there is a passing or process from one to the other of them ? PHAEDO

And these, then, are generated, if they are opposites, the one from the other, and have there their two intermediate processes also ? PHAEDO

Now, said Socrates, I will analyze one of the two pairs of opposites which I have mentioned to you, and also its intermediate processes, and you shall analyze the other to me. The state of sleep is opposed to the state of waking, and out of sleeping waking is generated, and out of waking, sleeping, and the process of generation is in the one case falling asleep, and in the other waking up. Are you agreed about that ? PHAEDO

One of the company, though I do not exactly remember which of them, on hearing this, said : By Heaven, is not this the direct contrary of what was admitted before — that out of the greater came the less and out of the less the greater, and that opposites are simply generated from opposites ; whereas now this seems to be utterly denied. PHAEDO

Socrates inclined his head to the speaker and listened. I like your courage, he said, in reminding us of this. But you do not observe that there is a difference in the two cases. For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself : then, my friend, we were speaking of things in which opposites are inherent and which are called after them, but now about the opposites which are inherent in them and which give their name to them ; these essential opposites will never, as we maintain, admit of generation into or out of one another. At the same time, turning to Cebes, he said : Were you at all disconcerted, Cebes, at our friend’s objection ? PHAEDO

Then now mark the point at which I am aiming : not only do essential opposites exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although not in themselves opposed, contain opposites ; these, I say, also reject the idea which is opposed to that which is contained in them, and at the advance of that they either perish or withdraw. There is the number three for example ; will not that endure annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into an even number, remaining three ? PHAEDO

Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but also there are other things which repel the approach of opposites. PHAEDO

To return then to my distinction of natures which are not opposites, and yet do not admit opposites : as, in this instance, three, although not opposed to the even, does not any the more admit of the even, but always brings the opposite into play on the other side ; or as two does not receive the odd, or fire the cold — from these examples (and there are many more of them) perhaps you may be able to arrive at the general conclusion that not only opposites will not receive opposites, but also that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it brings in that to which it is brought. And here let me recapitulate — for there is no harm in repetition. The number five will not admit the nature of the even, any more than ten, which is the double of five, will admit the nature of the odd — the double, though not strictly opposed to the odd, rejects the odd altogether. Nor again will parts in the ratio of 3 :2, nor any fraction in which there is a half, nor again in which there is a third, admit the notion of the whole, although they are not opposed to the whole. You will agree to that ? PHAEDO

I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account. But tell me, Zeno  , do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term many, participate — things which participate in likeness become in that degree and manner like ; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in both ? And may not all things partake of both opposites, and be both like and unlike, by reason of this participation ? — Where is the wonder ? Now if a person could prove the absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike to become like, that, in my opinion, would indeed be a wonder ; but there is nothing extraordinary, Zeno, in showing that the things which only partake of likeness and unlikeness experience both. Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing. But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed. And so of all the rest : I should be surprised to hear that the natures or ideas themselves had these opposite qualities ; but not if a person wanted to prove of me that I was many and also one. When he wanted to show that I was many he would say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake of multitude ; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove that I am one, he will say, that we who are here assembled are seven, and that I am one and partake of the one. In both instances he proves his case. So again, if a person shows that such things as wood, stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit that he shows the coexistence the one and many, but he does not show that the many are one or the one many ; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism. If however, as I just now suggested, some one were to abstract simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest, motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these admit of admixture and separation in themselves, I should be very much astonished. This part of the argument appears to be treated by you, Zeno, in a very spirited manner ; but, as I was saying, I should be far more amazed if any one found in the ideas themselves which are apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and entanglement which you have shown to exist in visible objects. PARMENIDES  

But, consider : — Are not the absolute same, and the absolute other, opposites to one another ? PARMENIDES

And opposites are the most unlike of things. PARMENIDES

Then the others are neither like nor unlike nor both, for if they were like or unlike they would partake of one of those two natures, which would be one thing, and if they were both they would partake of opposites which would be two things, and this has been shown to be impossible. PARMENIDES

Str. Strange ! I should think so. See how, by his reciprocation of opposites, the many-headed Sophist has compelled us, quite against our will, to admit the existence of not-being. SOPHIST

Str. And, allowing that justice, wisdom, the other virtues, and their opposites exist, as well as a soul in which they inhere, do they affirm any of them to be visible and tangible, or are they all invisible ? SOPHIST

Str. The next step clearly is to divide the art of measurement into two parts, all we have said already, and to place in the one part all the arts which measure number, length, depth, breadth, swiftness with their opposites ; and to have another part in which they are measured with the mean, and the fit, and the opportune, and the due, and with all those words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes. STATESMAN

Str. The meaning is, that the opinion about the honourable and the just and good and their opposites, which is true and confirmed by reason, is a divine principle, and when implanted in the soul, is implanted, as I maintain, in a nature of heavenly birth. STATESMAN

Soc. Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour ; — in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them ; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white : or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class ; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things ; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar opposition among pleasures. PHILEBUS  

Soc. Most true, O son of Callias ; and the previous argument showed that if we are not able to tell the kinds of everything that has unity, likeness, sameness, or their opposites, none of us will be of the smallest use in any enquiry. PHILEBUS

Soc. And all things which do not admit of more or less, but admit their opposites, that is to say, first of all, equality, and the equal, or again, the double, or any other ratio of number and measure — all these may, I think, be rightly reckoned by us in the class of the limited or finite ; what do you say ? PHILEBUS

Pro. I understand ; you seem to me to mean that the various opposites, when you mingle with them the class of the finite, takes certain forms. PHILEBUS

Ath. Thank you for reminding me. But now, as the habit of courage and fearlessness is to be trained amid fears, let us consider whether the opposite quality is not also to be trained among opposites. LAWS BOOK I

Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible. And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid the evil, and track out and find the chief good ; which when a man has found, he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his life. Wherefore the soul also is second [or next to God] in honour ; and third, as every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are counterfeit. To decide which are which is the business of the legislator ; and he, I suspect, would intimate that they are as follows : — Honour is not to be given to the fair body, or to the strong or the swift or the tall, or to the healthy body (although many may think otherwise), any more than to their opposites ; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate ; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and insolent, and the other, illiberal and base ; and money, and property, and distinction all go to the same tune. The excess of any of these things is apt to be a source of hatreds and divisions among states and individuals ; and the defect of them is commonly a cause of slavery. And, therefore, I would not have any one fond of heaping up riches for the sake of his children, in order that he may leave them as rich as possible. For the possession of great wealth is of no use, either to them or to the state. The condition of youth which is free from flattery, and at the same time not in need of the necessaries of life, is the best and most harmonious of all, being in accord and agreement with our nature, and making life to be most entirely free from sorrow. Let parents, then, bequeath to their children not a heap of riches, but the spirit of reverence. We, indeed, fancy that they will inherit reverence from us, if we rebuke them when they show a want of reverence. But this quality is not really imparted to them by the present style of admonition, which only tells them that the young ought always to be reverential. A sensible legislator will rather exhort the elders to reverence the younger, and above all to take heed that no young man sees or hears one of themselves doing or saying anything disgraceful ; for where old men have no shame, there young men will most certainly be devoid of reverence. The best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time ; not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out your own admonitions in practice. He who honours his kindred, and reveres those who share in the same Gods and are of the same blood and family, may fairly expect that the Gods who preside over generation will be propitious to him, and will quicken his seed. And he who deems the services which his friends and acquaintances do for him, greater and more important than they themselves deem them, and his own favours to them less than theirs to him, will have their good-will in the intercourse of life. And surely in his relations to the state and his fellow citizens, he is by far the best, who rather than the Olympic or any other victory of peace or war, desires to win the palm of obedience to the laws of his country, and who, of all mankind, is the person reputed to have obeyed them best through life. In his relations to strangers, a man should consider that a contract is a most holy thing, and that all concerns and wrongs of strangers are more directly dependent on the protection of God, than wrongs done to citizens ; for the stranger, having no kindred and friends, is more to be pitied by Gods and men. Wherefore, also, he who is most able to avenge him is most zealous in his cause ; and he who is most able is the genius and the god of the stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus, the god of strangers. And for this reason, he who has a spark of caution in him, will do his best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger. And of offences committed, whether against strangers or fellow-countrymen, that against suppliants is the greatest. For the god who witnessed to the agreement made with the suppliant, becomes in a special manner the guardian of the sufferer ; and he will certainly not suffer unavenged. LAWS BOOK V

Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the practices which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who they ought severally to be. But of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we must ; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods. Pleasures and pains and desires are a part of human nature, and on them every mortal being must of necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest. And therefore we must praise the noblest life, not only as the fairest in appearance, but as being one which, if a man will only taste, and not, while still in his youth, desert for another, he will find to surpass also in the very thing which we all of us desire — I mean in having a greater amount of pleasure and less of pain during the whole of life. And this will be plain, if a man has a true taste of them, as will be quickly and clearly seen. But what is a true taste ? That we have to learn from the argument — the point being what is according to nature, and what is not according to nature. One life must be compared with another, the more pleasurable with the more painful, after this manner : — We desire to have pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose pain ; and the neutral state we are ready to take in exchange, not for pleasure but for pain ; and we also wish for less pain and greater pleasure, but less pleasure and greater pain we do not wish for ; and an equal balance of either we cannot venture to assert that we should desire. And all these differ or do not differ severally in number and magnitude and intensity and equality, and in the opposites of these when regarded as objects of choice, in relation to desire. And such being the necessary order of things, we wish for that life in which there are many great and intense elements of pleasure and pain, and in which the pleasures are in excess, and do not wish for that in which the opposites exceed ; nor, again, do we wish for that in which the clements of either are small and few and feeble, and the pains exceed. And when, as I said before, there is a balance of pleasure and pain in life, this is to be regarded by us as the balanced life ; while other lives are preferred by us because they exceed in what we like, or are rejected by us because they exceed in what we dislike. All the lives of men may be regarded by us as bound up in these, and we must also consider what sort of lives we by nature desire. And if we wish for any others, I say that we desire them only through some ignorance and inexperience of the lives which actually exist. LAWS BOOK V

Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible ? Let us say that the temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and the courageous another, and the healthful another ; and to these four let us oppose four other lives — the foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate, the diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures, and placid desires and loves not insane ; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous in all things, and has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and stinging desires, and loves utterly insane ; and in the temperate life the pleasures exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains exceed the pleasures in greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of the two lives is naturally and necessarily more pleasant and the other more painful, and he who would live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to live intemperately. And if this is true, the inference clearly is that no man is voluntarily intemperate ; but that the whole multitude of men lack temperance in their lives, either from ignorance, or from want of self-control, or both. And the same holds of the diseased and healthy life ; they both have pleasures and pains, but in health the pleasure exceeds the pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the pleasure. Now our intention in choosing the lives is not that the painful should exceed, but the life in which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have determined to be the more pleasant life. And we should say that the temperate life has the elements both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller and less frequent than the intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish life, and the life of courage than the life of cowardice ; one of each pair exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one dass of lives exceeds the other class in pleasure ; the temperate and courageous and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and diseased lives ; and generally speaking, that which has any virtue, whether of body or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious life, and far superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and reputation, and causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely happier than the opposite. LAWS BOOK V

I have described the dances which are appropriate to noble bodies and generous souls. But it is necessary also to consider and know uncomely persons and thoughts, and those which are intended to produce laughter in comedy, and have a comic character in respect of style, song, and dance, and of the imitations which these afford. For serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to have intelligence of either ; but he can not carry out both in action, if he is to have any degree of virtue. And for this very reason he should learn them both, in order that he may not in ignorance do or say anything which is ridiculous and out of place — he should command slaves and hired strangers to imitate such things, but he should never take any serious interest in them himself, nor should any freeman or freewoman be discovered taking pains to learn them ; and there should always be some element of novelty in the imitation. Let these then be laid down, both in law and in our discourse, as the regulations of laughable amusements which are generally called comedy. And, if any of the serious poets, as they are termed, who write tragedy, come to us and say — "O strangers, may we go to your city and country or may we not, and shall we bring with us our poetry — what is your will about these matters ?" — how shall we answer the divine men ? I think that our answer should be as follows : — Best of strangers, we will say to them, we also according to our ability are tragic poets, and our tragedy is the best and noblest ; for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy. You are poets and we are poets, both makers of the same strains, rivals and antagonists in the noblest of dramas, which true law can alone perfect, as our hope is. Do not then suppose that we shall all in a moment allow you to erect your stage in the agora, or introduce the fair voices of your actors, speaking above our own, and permit you to harangue our women and children, and the common people, about our institutions, in language other than our own, and very often the opposite of our own. For a state would be mad which gave you this licence, until the magistrates had determined whether your poetry might be recited, and was fit for publication or not. Wherefore, O ye sons and scions of the softer Muses, first of all show your songs to the magistrates, and let them compare them with our own, and if they are the same or better we will give you a chorus ; but if not, then, my friends, we cannot. Let these, then, be the customs ordained by law about all dances and the teaching of them, and let matters relating to slaves be separated from those relating to masters, if you do not object. LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. I will explain my meaning still more clearly. They say that fire and water, and earth and air, all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order — earth, and sun, and moon, and stars — they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them — of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. Art sprang up afterwards and out of these, mortal and of mortal birth, and produced in play certain images and very partial imitations of the truth, having an affinity to one another, such as music and painting create and their companion arts. And there are other arts which have a serious purpose, and these co-operate with nature, such, for example, as medicine, and husbandry, and gymnastic. And they say that politics cooperate with nature, but in a less degree, and have more of art ; also that legislation is entirely a work of art, and is based on assumptions which are not true. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. In the next place, must we not of necessity admit that the soul is the cause of good and evil, base and honourable, just and unjust, and of all other opposites, if we suppose her to be the cause of all things ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. And their opposites, therefore, would fall under the opposite class ? LAWS BOOK X

Ath. I mean that there is greater difficulty in seeing and hearing the small than the great, but more facility in moving and controlling and taking care of and unimportant things than of their opposites. LAWS BOOK X

Ath. I have spoken with vehemence because I am zealous against evil men ; and I will tell dear Cleinias, why I am so. I would not have the wicked think that, having the superiority in argument, they may do as they please and act according to their various imaginations about the Gods ; and this zeal has led me to speak too vehemently ; but if we have at all succeeded in persuading the men to hate themselves and love their opposites, the prelude of our laws about impiety will not have been spoken in vain. LAWS BOOK X

Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition) ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Yes, he said, they are opposites. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV