Remarks on the conversation — Theory of Good.
These last cited colloquies also, between Sokrates and Aristippus, are among the most memorable remains of Grecian philosophy: belonging to one of the years preceding 399 B.C., in which last year Sokrates perished. Here (as in the former dialogue) the doctrine is distinctly enunciated by Sokrates — That Good and Evil — Beautiful (or Honourable) and Ugly (or Dishonourable — Base) — have no intelligible meaning except in relation to human happiness and security. Good or Evil Absolute (i.e., apart from such relation) is denied to exist. The theory of Absolute Good (a theory traceable to the Parmenidean doctrines, and adopted from them by Eukleides) becomes first known to us as elaborated by Plato. Even in his dialogues it is neither always nor exclusively advocated, but is often modified by, and sometimes even exchanged for, the eudæmonistic or relative theory.
Good is relative to human beings and wants, in the view of Sokrates.
Sokrates declares very explicitly, in his conversation with Aristippus, what he means by the Good and the Beautiful: and when therefore in the name of the Good and the Beautiful, he protests against an uncontrolled devotion to the pleasures of sense (as in one of the Xenophontic dialogues with Euthydemus[175]), what he means is, that a man by such intemperance ruins his prospects of future happiness, and his best means of being useful both to himself and others. Whether Aristippus first learnt from Sokrates the relative theory of the Good and the Beautiful, or had already embraced it before, we cannot say. Some of his questions, as reported in Xenophon, would lead us to suspect that it took him by surprise: just as we find, in the Protagoras of Plato that a theory substantially the same, though in different words, is proposed by the Platonic Sokrates to the Sophist Protagoras: who at first repudiates it, but is compelled ultimately to admit it by the elaborate dialectic of Sokrates.[176] If Aristippus did not learn the theory from Sokrates, he was at any rate fortified in it by the authority of Sokrates; to whose doctrine, in this respect, he adhered more closely than Plato.
[175] Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5.
Sokrates exhorts those with whom he converses to be sparing in indulgences, and to cultivate self-command and fortitude as well as bodily energy and activity. The reason upon which these exhortations are founded is eudæmonistic: that a person will thereby escape or be able to confront serious dangers — and will obtain for himself ultimately greater pleasures than those which he foregoes (Memor. i. 6, 8; ii. 1, 31-33; iii. 12, 2-5). Τοῦ δὲ μὴ δουλεύειν γαστρὶ μηδὲ ὕπνῳ καὶ λαγνείᾳ οἴει τι ἄλλο αἰτιώτερον εἶναι, ἢ τὸ ἕτερα ἔχειν τούτων ἡδίω, ἃ οὐ μόνον ἐν χρείᾳ ὄντα εὐφραίνει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔλπιδας παρέχοντα ὠφελήσειν ἀεί; See also Memor. ii. 4, ii. 10, 4, about the importance of acquiring and cultivating friends, because a good friend is the most useful and valuable of all possessions. Sokrates, like Aristippus, adopts the prudential view of life, and not the transcendental; recommending sobriety and virtue on the ground of pleasures secured and pains averted. We find Plutarch, in his very bitter attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the Hedonistic basis, and professing to prove that Epikurus discarded pleasures more and greater for the sake of obtaining pleasures fewer and less. See Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, pp. 1096-1099.
[176] Plato, Protagoras, pp. 351-361.
Aristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates.
Aristippus is recognised by Aristotle[177] in two characters: both as a Sophist, and as a companion of Sokrates and Plato. Moreover it is remarkable that the doctrine, in reference to which Aristotle cites him as one among the Sophists, is a doctrine unquestionably Sokratic — contempt of geometrical science as useless, and as having no bearing on the good or evil of life.[178] Herein also Aristippus followed Sokrates, while Plato departed from him.
[177] Aristot. Rhetoric. ii. 24; Metaphysic. B. 996, a. 32.