Though there are several other passages of the Platonic dialogues in which the method of logical division is inculcated, there is none (I think) in which it is prescribed so formally, or enunciated with such comprehensive generality, as this before us in the Philêbus. Yet the method, after being emphatically announced, is but feebly and partially applied, in the distinction of different species, both of pleasure and of cognition.[100] The announcement would come more suitably, as a preface to the Sophistês and Politikus: wherein the process is applied to given subjects in great detail, and at a length which some critics consider excessive: and wherein moreover the particular enquiry is expressly proclaimed as intended to teach as well as to exemplify the general method.[101]
[100] The purpose of discriminating the different sorts of pleasure is intimated, yet seemingly not considered as indispensable, by Sokrates; and it is executed certainly in a very unsystematic and perfunctory manner, compared with what we read in the Sophistês and Politikus. (Philêbus, pp. 19 B, 20 C, 32 B-C.)
Mr. Poste, in his note on p. 55 A, expresses surprise at this point; and notices it as one among other grounds for suspecting that the Philêbus is a composition of two distinct fragments, rather carelessly soldered together:— “Again after Division and Generalization have been propounded as the only satisfactory method, it is somewhat strange that both the original problems are solved by ordinary Dialectic without any recourse to classification. All this becomes intelligible if we assume the Philêbus to have arisen from a boldly executed junction of two originally separate dialogues.”
Acknowledging the want of coherence in the dialogue, I have difficulty in conceiving what the two fragments could have been, out of which it was compounded. Schleiermacher (Einleit. pp. 136-137) also points out the negligent execution and heavy march of the dialogue.
[101] See Politikus, pp. 285-286; Phædrus, p. 265; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 12.
I have already observed that Socher (Ueber Platon. pp. 260-270) and Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Politik. pp. 52-54-65-67, &c.) agree in condemning the extreme minuteness, the tiresome monotony, the useless and petty comparisons, which Plato brings together in the multiplied bifurcate divisions of the Sophistês and Politikus. Socher adduces this as one among his reasons for rejecting the dialogue as spurious.
What is the Good? Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic. Comparison.
The same question as that which is here discussed in the Philêbus, is also started in the sixth book of the Republic. It is worth while to compare the different handling, here and there. “Whatever else we possess (says Sokrates in the Republic), and whatever else we may know is of no value, unless we also possess and know Good. In the opinion of most persons, Pleasure is The Good: in the opinion of accomplished and philosophical men, intelligence (φρόνησις) is the Good. But when we ask Intelligence, of what? these philosophers cannot inform us: they end by telling us, ridiculously enough, Intelligence of The Good. Thus, while blaming us for not knowing what The Good is, they make an answer which implies that we do already know it: in saying, Intelligence of the Good, they of course presume that we know what they mean by the word. Then again, those who pronounce Pleasure to be the Good, are not less involved in error; since they are forced to admit that some Pleasures are Evil; thus making Good and Evil to be the same. It is plain therefore that there are many and grave disputes what The Good is.”[102]
[102] Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 B-C. οἱ τοῦτο ἡγύμενοι οὐκ ἔχουσι δεῖξαι ἥ τις φρόνησις, ἀλλ’ ἀναγκάζονται τελευτῶντες τὴν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ φάναι … ὀνειδίζοντές γε ὅτι οὐκ ἴσμεν τὸ ἀγαθόν, λέγουσι πάλιν ὡς εἰδόσι· φρόνησιν γὰρ αὐτό φασιν εἶναι ἀγαθοῦ, ὡς αὖ συνιέντων ἡμῶν ὅ, τι λέγουσιν, ἐπειδὰν τὸ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ φθέγξωνται ὄνομα.
In the Symposion, there is a like tenor of questions about Eros or Love. Love must be Love of something: the term is relative. You confound Love with the object loved. See Plato, Symposion, pp. 199 C, 204 C.