Jowett: relative

Or if there be a double which is double of itself and of other doubles, these will be halves ; for the double is relative to the half ? CHARMIDES  

And that which is greater than itself will also be less, and that which is heavier will also be lighter, and that which is older will also be younger : and the same of other things ; that which has a nature relative to self will retain also the nature of its object : I mean to say, for example, that hearing is, as we say, of sound or voice. Is that true ? CHARMIDES

Soc. Well, then, let me now have the rest of my answer : — seeing that rhetoric is one of those arts which works mainly by the use of words, and there are other arts which also use words, tell me what is that quality in words with which rhetoric is concerned : — Suppose that a person asks me about some of the arts which I was mentioning just now ; he might say, "Socrates  , what is arithmetic ?" and I should reply to him, as you replied to me, that arithmetic is one of those arts which take effect through words. And then he would proceed to ask : "Words about what ?" and I should reply, Words about and even numbers, and how many there are of each. And if he asked again : "What is the art of calculation ?" I should say, That also is one of the arts which is concerned wholly with words. And if he further said, "Concerned with what ?" I should say, like the clerks in the assembly, "as aforesaid" of arithmetic, but with a difference, the difference being that the art of calculation considers not only the quantities of odd and even numbers, but also their numerical relations to themselves and to one another. And suppose, again, I were to say that astronomy is only word — he would ask, "Words about what, Socrates ?" and I should answer, that astronomy tells us about the motions of the stars and sun and moon, and their relative swiftness. GORGIAS

Men. There will be no difficulty, Socrates, in answering your question. Let us take first the virtue of a man — he should know how to administer the state, and in the administration of it to benefit his friends and harm his enemies ; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm himself. A woman’s virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described : her duty is to order her house, and keep what is indoors, and obey her husband. Every age, every condition of life, young or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue : there are virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them ; for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And the same may be said of vice, Socrates. MENO

Soc. But would you say, Hermogenes, that the things differ as the names differ ? and are they relative to individuals, as Protagoras tells us ? For he says that man is the measure of all things, and that things are to me as they appear to me, and that they are to you as they appear to you. Do you agree with him, or would you say that things have a permanent essence of their own ? CRATYLUS  

Soc. But if neither is right, and things are not relative to individuals, and all things do not equally belong to all at the same moment and always, they must be supposed to have their own proper and permanent essence : they are not in relation to us, or influenced by us, fluctuating according to our fancy, but they are independent, and maintain to their own essence the relation prescribed by nature. CRATYLUS

Soc. And we saw that actions were not relative to ourselves, but had a special nature of their own ? CRATYLUS

Soc. I am about to speak of a high argument, in which all things are said to be relative ; you cannot rightly call anything by any name, such as great or small, heavy or light, for the great will be small and the heavy light — there is no single thing or quality, but out of motion and change and admixture all things are becoming relatively to one another, which "becoming" is by us incorrectly called being, but is really becoming, for nothing ever is, but all things are becoming. Summon all philosophers — Protagoras, Heracleitus, Empedocles  , and the rest of them, one after another, and with the exception of Parmenides   they will agree with you in this. Summon the great masters of either kind of poetry — Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of Tragedy ; when the latter sings of THEAETETUS  

Soc. He will repeat all those things which we have been urging on his behalf, and then he will close with us in disdain, and say : — The worthy Socrates asked a little boy, whether the same man could remember and not know the same thing, and the boy said No, because he was frightened, and could not see what was coming, and then Socrates made fun of poor me. The truth is, O slatternly Socrates, that when you ask questions about any assertion of mine, and the person asked is found tripping, if he has answered as I should have answered, then I am refuted, but if he answers something else, then he is refuted and not I. For do you really suppose that any one would admit the memory which a man has of an impression which has passed away to be the same with that which he experienced at the time ? Assuredly not. Or would he hesitate to acknowledge that the same man may know and not know the same thing ? Or, if he is afraid of making this admission, would he ever grant that one who has become unlike is the same as before he became unlike ? Or would he admit that a man is one at all, and not rather many and infinite as the changes which take place in him ? I speak by the card in order to avoid entanglements of words. But, O my good sir, he would say, come to the argument in a more generous spirit ; and either show, if you can, that our sensations are not relative and individual, or, if you admit them to be so, prove that this does not involve the consequence that the appearance becomes, or, if you will have the word, is, to the individual only. As to your talk about pigs and baboons, you are yourself behaving like a pig, and you teach your hearers to make sport of my writings in the same ignorant manner ; but this is not to your credit. For I declare that the truth is as I have written, and that each of us is a measure of existence and of non-existence. Yet one man may be a thousand times better than another in proportion as different things are and appear to him. THEAETETUS

Theaet. These I conceive to be notions which are essentially relative, and which the soul also perceives by comparing in herself things past and present with the future. THEAETETUS

True, he said ; and therefore when ideas are what they are in relation to one another, their essence is determined by a relation among themselves, and has nothing to do with the resemblances, or whatever they are to be termed, which are in our sphere, and from which we receive this or that name when we partake of them. And the things which are within our sphere and have the same names with them, are likewise only relative to one another, and not to the ideas which have the same names with them, but belong to themselves and not to them. PARMENIDES

I may illustrate my meaning in this way, said Parmenides : — A master has a slave ; now there is nothing absolute in the relation between them, which is simply a relation of one man to another. But there is also an idea of mastership in the abstract, which is relative to the idea of slavery in the abstract. These natures have nothing to do with us, nor we with them ; they are concerned with themselves only, and we with ourselves. Do you see my meaning ? PARMENIDES

But, surely, the elder is a difference relative to the younger, and to nothing else. PARMENIDES

And is each of these parts — one and being to be simply called a part, or must the word "part" be relative to the word "whole" ? PARMENIDES

Moreover, the one that is not is something and partakes of relation to "that," and "this," and "these," and the like, and is an attribute of "this" ; for the one, or the others than the one, could not have been spoken of, nor could any attribute or relative of the one that is not have been or been spoken of, nor could it have been said to be anything, if it did not partake of "some," or of the other relations just now mentioned. PARMENIDES

Str. But you would agree, if I am not mistaken, that existences are relative as well as absolute ? SOPHIST

Str. And the other is always relative to other ? SOPHIST

Str. But this would not be the case unless being and the other entirely differed ; for, if the other, like being, were absolute as well as relative, then there would have been a kind of other which was not other than other. And now we find that what is other must of necessity be what it is in relation to some other. SOPHIST

Crit. Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true, having been attested by Solon, who was the wisest of the seven sages. He was a relative and a dear friend of my great-grandfather, Dropides, as he himself says in many passages of his poems ; and he told the story to Critias  , my grandfather, who remembered and repeated it to us. There were of old, he said, great and marvellous actions of the Athenian city, which have passed into oblivion through lapse of time and the destruction of mankind, and one in particular, greater than all the rest. This we will now rehearse. It will be a fitting monument of our gratitude to you, and a hymn of praise true and worthy of the goddess, on this her day of festival. TIMAEUS  

Now, when all the stars which were necessary to the creation of time had attained a motion suitable to them, — and had become living creatures having bodies fastened by vital chains, and learnt their appointed task, moving in the motion of the diverse, which is diagonal, and passes through and is governed by the motion of the same, they revolved, some in a larger and some in a lesser orbit — those which had the lesser orbit revolving faster, and those which had the larger more slowly. Now by reason of the motion of the same, those which revolved fastest appeared to be overtaken by those which moved slower although they really overtook them ; for the motion of the same made them all turn in a spiral, and, because some went one way and some another, that which receded most slowly from the sphere of the same, which was the swiftest, appeared to follow it most nearly. That there might be some visible measure of their relative swiftness and slowness as they proceeded in their eight courses, God lighted a fire, which we now call the sun, in the second from the earth of these orbits, that it might give light to the whole of heaven, and that the animals, as many as nature intended, might participate in number, learning arithmetic from the revolution of the same and the like. Thus then, and for this reason the night and the day were created, being the period of the one most intelligent revolution. And the month is accomplished when the moon has completed her orbit and overtaken the sun, and the year when the sun has completed his own orbit. Mankind, with hardly an exception, have not remarked the periods of the other stars, and they have no name for them, and do not measure them against one another by the help of number, and hence they can scarcely be said to know that their wanderings, being infinite in number and admirable for their variety, make up time. And yet there is no difficulty in seeing that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year when all the eight revolutions, having their relative degrees of swiftness, are accomplished together and attain their completion at the same time, measured by the rotation of the same and equally moving. After this manner, and for these reasons, came into being such of the stars as in their heavenly progress received reversals of motion, to the end that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature, and be as like as possible to the perfect and intelligible animal. TIMAEUS

Soc. My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence. PHILEBUS  

Whoever shall wrongfully and of design slay with his own hand any of his kinsmen, shall in the first place be deprived of legal privileges ; and he shall not pollute the temples, or the agora, or the harbours, or any other place of meeting, whether he is forbidden of men or not ; for the law, which represents the whole state, forbids him, and always is and will be in the attitude of forbidding him. And if a cousin   or nearer relative of the deceased, whether on the male or female side, does not prosecute the homicide when he ought, and have him proclaimed an outlaw, he shall in the first place be involved in the pollution, and incur the hatred of the Gods, even as the curse of the law stirs up the voices of men against him ; and in the second place he shall be liable to be prosecuted by any one who is willing to inflict retribution on behalf of the dead. And he who would avenge a murder shall observe all the precautionary ceremonies of lavation, and any others which the God commands in cases of this kind. Let him have proclamation made, and then go forth and compel the perpetrator to suffer the execution of justice according to the law. Now the legislator may easily show that these things must be accomplished by prayers and sacrifices to certain Gods, who are concerned with the prevention of murders in states. But who these Gods are, and what should be the true manner of instituting such trials with due regard to religion, the guardians of the law, aided by the interpreters, and the prophets, and the God, shall determine, and when they have determined let them carry on the prosecution at law. The cause shall have the same judges who are appointed to decide in the case of those who plunder temples. Let him who is convicted be punished with death, and let him not be buried in the country of the murdered man, for this would be shameless as well as impious. But if he fly and will not stand his trial, let him fly for ever ; or, if he set foot anywhere on any part of the murdered man’s country, let any relation of the deceased, or any other citizen who may first happen to meet with him, kill him with impunity, or bind and deliver him to those among the judges of the case who are magistrates, that they may put him to death. And let the prosecutor demand surety of him whom he prosecutes ; three sureties sufficient in the opinion of the magistrates who try the cause shall be provided by him, and they shall undertake to produce him at the trial. But if he be unwilling or unable to provide sureties, then the magistrates shall take him and keep him in bonds, and produce him at the day of trial. LAWS BOOK IX

All the preceding injuries and every kind of assault are deeds of violence ; and every man, woman, or child ought to consider that the elder has the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the Gods and also among men who would live in security and happiness. Wherefore it is a foul thing and hateful to the Gods to see an elder man assaulted by a younger in the city ; and it is reasonable that a young man when struck by an elder should lightly endure his anger, laying up in store for himself a like honour when he is old. Let this be the law : — Every one shall reverence his elder in word and deed ; he shall respect any one who is twenty years older than himself, whether male or female, regarding him or her as his father or mother ; and he shall abstain from laying hands on any one who is of an age to have been his father or his mother, out of reverence to the Gods who preside over birth ; similarly he shall keep his hands from a stranger, whether he be an old inhabitant or newly arrived ; he shall not venture to correct such an one by blows, either as the aggressor or in self-defence. If he thinks that some stranger has struck him out of wantonness or insolence, and ought to be punished, he shall take him to the wardens of the city, but let him not strike him, that the stranger may be kept far away from the possibility of lifting up his hand against a citizen, and let the wardens of the city take the offender and examine him, not forgetting their duty to the God of Strangers, and in case the stranger appears to have struck the citizen unjustly, let them inflict upon him as many blows with the scourge as he has himself inflicted, and quell his presumption. But if he be innocent, they shall threaten and rebuke the man who arrested him, and let them both go. If a person strikes another of the same age or somewhat older than himself, who has no children, whether he be an old man who strikes an old man or a young man who strikes a young man, let the person struck defend himself in the natural way without a weapon and with his hands only. He who, being more than forty years of age, dares to fight with another, whether he be the aggressor or in self defence, shall be regarded as rude and ill-mannered and slavish ; — this will be a disgraceful punishment, and therefore suitable to him. The obedient nature will readily yield to such exhortations, but the disobedient, who heeds not the prelude, shall have the law ready for him : — If any man smite another who is older than himself, either by twenty or by more years, in the first place, he who is at hand, not being younger than the combatants, nor their equal in age, shall separate them, or be disgraced according to law ; but if he be the equal in age of the person who is struck or younger, he shall defend the person injured as he would a brother or father or still older relative. Further, let him who dares to smite an elder be tried for assault, as I have said, and if he be found guilty, let him be imprisoned for a period of not less than a year, or if the judges approve of a longer period, their decision shall be final. But if a stranger or metic smite one who is older by twenty years or more, the same law shall hold about the bystanders assisting, and he who is found guilty in such a suit, if he be a stranger but not resident, shall be imprisoned during a period of two years ; and a metic who disobeys the laws shall be imprisoned for three years, unless the court assign him a longer term. And let him who was present in any of these cases and did not assist according to law be punished, if he be of the highest dass, by paying a fine of a mina ; or if he be of the second class, of fifty drachmas ; or if of the third class, by a fine of thirty drachmas ; or if he be of the fourth class, by a fine of twenty drachmas ; and the generals and taxiarchs and phylarchs and hipparchs shall form the court in such cases. LAWS BOOK IX

Laws are partly framed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they thay live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil. These are the persons who cause the word to be spoken which I am about to utter ; for them the legislator legislates of necessity, and in the hope that there may be no need of his laws. He who shall dare to lay violent hands upon his father or mother, or any still older relative, having no fear either of the wrath of the Gods above, or of the punishments that are spoken of in the world below, but transgresses in contempt of ancient and universal traditions as though he were too wise to believe in them, requires some extreme measure of prevention. Now death is not the worst that can happen to men ; far worse are the punishments which are said to pursue them in the world below. But although they are most true tales, they work on such souls no prevention ; for if they had any effect there would be no slayers of mothers, or impious hands lifted up against parents ; and therefore the punishments of this world which are inflicted during life ought not in such cases to fall short, if possible, of the terrors of the world below. Let our enactment then be as follows : — If a man dare to strike his father or his mother, or their fathers or mothers, he being at the time of sound mind, then let any one who is at hand come to the rescue as has been already said, and the metic or stranger who comes to the rescue shall be called to the first place in the games ; but if he do not come he shall suffer the punishment of perpetual exile. He who is not a metic, if he comes to the rescue, shall have praise, and if he do not come, blame. And if a slave come to the rescue, let him be made free, but if he do not come the rescue, let him receive 100 strokes of the whip, by order of the wardens of the agora, if the occurrence take place in the agora ; or if somewhere in the city beyond the limits of the agora, any warden of the city is in residence shall punish him ; or if in the country, then the commanders of the wardens of the country. If those who are near at the time be inhabitants of the same place, whether they be youths, or men, or women, let them come to the rescue and denounce him as the impious one ; and he who does not come to the rescue shall fall under the curse of Zeus, the God of kindred and of ancestors, according to law. And if any one is found guilty of assaulting a parent, let him in the first place be for ever banished from the city into the country, and let him abstain from the temples ; and if he do not abstain, the wardens of the country shall punish him with blows, or in any way which they please, and if he return he shall be put to death. And if any freeman eat or drink, or have any other sort of intercourse with him, or only meeting him have voluntarily touched him, he shall not enter into any temple, nor into the agora, nor into the city, until he is purified ; for he should consider that he has become tainted by a curse. And if he disobeys the law, and pollutes the city and the temples contrary to law, and one of the magistrates sees him and does not indict him, when he gives in his account this omission shall be a most serious charge. LAWS BOOK IX

Then I will repeat the question which I asked before, in order that our examination of the relative nature of justice and injustice may be carried on regularly. A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance ; this can no longer be questioned by anyone. But I want to view the matter, Thrasymachus, in a different way : You would not deny that a State may be unjust and may be unjustly attempting to enslave other States, or may have already enslaved them, and may be holding many of them in subjection ? THE REPUBLIC   BOOK I

Glaucon and the rest entreated me by all means not to let the question drop, but to proceed in the investigation. They wanted to arrive at the truth, first, about the nature of justice and injustice, and secondly, about their relative advantages. I told them, what I really thought, that the inquiry would be of a serious nature, and would require very good eyes. Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus ; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by someone to read small letters from a distance ; and it occurred to someone else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger — if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser — this would have been thought a rare piece of good-fortune. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Well, you know of course that the greater is relative to the less ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Would you not say that thirst is one of these essentially relative terms, having clearly a relation — THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

Yes, thirst is relative to drink. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And a certain kind of thirst is relative to a certain kind of drink ; but thirst taken alone is neither of much nor little, nor of good nor bad, nor of any particular kind of drink, but of drink only ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV

And knowledge is relative to being and knows being. But before I proceed further I will make a division. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V

I will tell you, I said : The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VII

Then let us now proceed to describe the inferior sort of natures, being the contentious and ambitious, who answer to the Spartan polity ; also the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical. Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. The inquiry will then be completed. And we shall know whether we ought to pursue injustice, as Thrasymachus advises, or in accordance with the conclusions of the argument to prefer justice. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VIII

There can be no mistake, I said, as to which is which, and therefore I will at once inquire whether you would arrive at a similar decision about their relative happiness and misery. And here we must not allow ourselves to be panic-stricken at the apparition of the tyrant, who is only a unit and may perhaps have a few retainers about him ; but let us go as we ought into every corner of the city and look all about, and then we will give our opinion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX

And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK X