the Philebus

Interpreting

OLIVER LETWIN

I. The problem of the Philebus1

The Philebus opens with a question: whether the life of reason or the life of
passion is more desirable (Philebus I lA-C). And in the closing pages of the
dialogue, an answer is offered - an answer couched in terms of a
metaphorical cross-examination. The passions, when asked, reply that they
will admit all forms of reason to cohabit with them (63B-C); whereas
reason, when asked, replies that it opts for such passions as are consonant
with "health, moderation and virtue" (63C-64A); it is consequently con-
cluded that the bios eudaim5n, the desirable life, consists in a mixture of all
forms of reason with some forms of passion (64A).
But this metaphorical cross-examination does not constitute the argu-
ment of the dialogue: it is merely a way of putting the conclusion. The
argument consists, at least in part,2 of a series of complicated and confusing
intellectual manoeuvres involving the terms peras and apeiron.
These terms have the broad general meanings of 'the what makes finite'
and 'the what is infinite', and they appear for the first time in the course of
a description of scientific method.3 We are told at one point (15A5) that
this method is required for the understanding of such concepts as "man, ox,
beauty, good". The same method is then applied to the understanding of
music ( 17B-18A), language (18B-D), and both pleasure and intelligence
( 19A-20B). Finally, it is stated that this kind of thought has been respon-
sible for "everything whatever found out by any skill" ( 16C2). It appears
that the method of thinking being described is held to be suitable for the
understanding of everything that can be understood.4 4
According to the method proposed, a given concept (e.g. sound) is
chosen as an object to be understood. Sound is recognized as a single
concept (hen) but it is also seen to be divisible into several kinds and
aspects. One kind of sound, for instance, is music; and music has the two
aspects, rhythm and pitch. The investigation of sound continues until no
more precise discrimination can be made, at which point the many-ness
(polla) or infinite instantiation of sound is posited as something beyond
understanding. The result is an analysis of the concept "sound"; and, as
this method is put forward as suitable for the understanding of everything
that can be understood, we are left to conclude that any given object of
understanding will appear in its own right as the subject of one analysis and

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 also as a component in other (possibly many other) such analyses. Under-
standing or thought consequently assumes the character of a network of
variously interlocking analyses illustrating the relationships between con-
cepts.
In the course of this investigation of human knowledge, peras and
apeiron are quite often substituted for hen and polla: peras is used as a
substitute for hen (the finitude or unity of any universal, the fact that it is a
single universal), and apeiron is used as a substitute for polla (the many-
ness or infinite particular instantiation of any universal).5 It is clear that
peras and apeiron, when being used in this way, will both be aspects of
every concept, since according to Plato's model every concept or universal
is both a single concept (henlperas) and something instantiated in infinitely
many particulars (pollalapeiron): "man" is one class; but there is no limit
to the possible number of individual men.
When we next meet the terms peras and apeiron it is in a metaphysical
rather than an epistemological section of the Philebus (23B-3 IA); and here
the terms are used to mean something quite different: instead of both being
aspects of every universal, they denote two separate classes.6 The universe
is divided into five classes: "the-what-is-infinite" (apeiron) (27B7), "the-
what-makes-finite" (peras) (27B8), "the-what-is-a-mixture-and-arising-
from-these" (27B8-9) (elsewhere more succinctly referred to as the "mixed
category", koinon genos) (e.g. 31C2), "the -cause -of-the-mixture -and- aris-
ing" (27B9), and, finally, a force capable of analysing what the demiurge
has synthesised (23D9-10).
It is the fourth class, "the-cause-of-the-mixture-and-arising", that is the
most important part of the metaphysical scheme. This is a class with one
member: the "demiurge" (27B1) or creative force of the universe, which is
also described as nous - "thought" or "understanding" or "reason"
(31A7-8). Plato's position is, then, that Thought is the creative force of the
universe; and the relation between this creative universal thought and
human analytical thought is that human thought is the sole member of the
fifth class mentioned. Being in some sense the same kind of thing as the
creative force of the universe, it is capable of analysing what that force has
synthesised.
The result of the creative synthesis is described as the class of "every-
thing which comes into being" (ta gignomena panta), and this is also
described as the "mixed class" (koinon genos) - the class whose members
are mixtures of, and come into being because they are mixtures of,
members of the two classes peras and apeiron. But what is the class of
everything which comes into being? It is, surely, the class of what we should

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call objects in the world - men, tables, beds, and so forth. The word
gignomena (having come into existence) is used as a means of distinguish-
ing what we should call the class of concrete objects. But if the koinon genos
is the genus of the various species of concrete objects, what are the classes
of peras and apeiron whose members combine to produce the members of
this genus? Plato tells us (24A-B) that one of the members of the class
apeiron is the "hotter-colder" pair of opposites. If we give apeiron its
broadest general meaning as "the-what-is-infinite", we are left with the
question, in what sense are "hotter" and "colder" - and other such polar
opposites - "infinite"? Surely, in the sense that there is a continuum
'between' hotter and colder. What Plato is stressing is the non-discrete, or
infinitely variable, or infinitely divisible quality,of this continuum. Apeiron
means here not "infinitely many" (as it meant when substituting for polla
in the model of human reason) but "infinitely divisible". Hotter-colder and
the other polar opposites (e.g. more or less beautiful, longer or smaller,
more or less good) are members of the class of apeiron in the sense that they
are qualities denoting an infinitely divisible continuum - they are the
what-is-infinitely-divisible. Correspondingly, peras ought to be the class of
the-what-makes-finite in the sense of what imposes discreteness on a con-
tinuum. Peras ought, in other words, to be the class of ratios, and sure
- ratios if ever there
enough we are told (25E) that "equal, double" etc.
were any - are the members of this class.
What the Philebus contains is, then, a metaphysical scheme according to
which the various species of concrete object have been brought into exis-
tence by a creative force which imposes ratios on infinitely divisible con-
tinua. We might imagine the species man, for instance, being made up of
10: 1 greedy: self-denying, 5: ugly: beautiful, 3: tall: small and so forth.
And according to the scheme, the various classes of concrete objects thus
created can also be analysed by human thought; because human thought is
held to be in some sense the same sort of thing as the creative force of the
universe. But what has confused many readers is that the terms, peras and
apeiron, which are employed in this metaphysical scheme to denote two
separate classes (the class of ratios and the class of predicate-pairs such as
hot-cold), are the same terms as those which appeared in the model of
human knowledge not as two separate classes, but as substitutes for hen
and polla - the two aspects of any class.
And the Philebus contains yet another confusing shift in the meaning of
these terms. According to the metaphysical scheme of the dialogue, a
species which appears "in the mixed class" is formed when creative uni-
versal thought mixes various ratios with various predicate-pairs. But an

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entirely new idea is introduced when Socrates asks the (rhetorical)
question:
"Is it not the case in illnesses that the right being-together of these things [i.e. ratios
and predicates] generates the nature of health?" (25E7-8)

What we are being told here is that the mixing of ratio with predicate is
responsible not only for the creation of certain species but also for the
creation of health - a mode or condition of such species. And the bringing
about of health does not depend, it seems, on simply imposing any old ratio
on any set of polar opposites; it depends on the imposition of the right
ratios on the right sets of opposites - the "right being-togetherness" of
ratios and predicates. "Man", for instance, might arise from 2:1 hot-
ter :colder, plus 3:1 better: worse, plus 7:4 taller:shorter, etc., but this is
"man" in a certain condition - e.g. when he is healthy. A few wrong ratios,
such as 17:6 hotter:colder, will not stop "man" being "man", but it will
alter his condition by making him unhealthy.
Socrates does not, however, rest content with having elucidated the
metaphysics of health. He continues:
"And in the high and low pitch and the swift and the slow? Since these are infinite
(apeira) things do not the same things [happen]? At the same time a what-makes-
finite (peras) will combine (apêrgasato) them and will establish a whole music in the
most perfect way" (36A2-4).

The rhetorical questions here seem to fit our analysis well enough: "high
and low pitch" and "swift and slow" are pairs of opposites with infinitely
divisible continua stretching between them; and the "same things happen"
clearly means that various ratios imposed upon various of these continua
create various species, and correct ratios establish these species in certain
enviable conditions. But the last sentence springs a surprise. To begin with,
the subject is "a what-makes-finite", that is, presumably, any ratio - not
necessarily the correct one; and Plato seems to be saying that any ratio
imposed on the polar opposites "high-low" (pitch) and "swift-slow"
(speed) will produce music; in other words, 7:1 high:low and 3:2 swift: slow
produces one version of music, and 3:2 high:low and 7:1 swift:slow pro-
duces another version. Taking this to be his meaning, we would take
apërgasato to be conveying the sense of "put them (the pairs of opposites)
together in ratio."
But if we look again at the passage, it appears that new elements have
been added. The music which is established is not just any sound; it is
music "in the most perfect way"; which is analogous not to the creation of
"man", but to the creation of "health". In this case, we sould read aperga-

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sato as conveying its more usual sense of "put into proper order" or "make
perfect". But where does this leave peras? We were told that health required
a "right being-together" of ratios and continua; but now it seems that any
"what-makes-finite" will do the trick. Plato seems once again to have
switched the meaning of peras, this time from "ratio" to "right ratio".7 And
this is confirmed when Socrates asks the further rhetorical question:
"Do not, then, the seasons and whatever other beautiful/good/pleasurable (kala)
things occur to us, arise from this mixture of the what-is-infinite (apeiron) and the
what-makes-finite (peras)?" (26B 1-3).

Here, peras clearly means not "ratio" but "right ratio" - the sort of ratio
which is required to produce enviable conditions. And, just before this
(26A7) we are told that what peras does is to "destroy" what is very
excessive and infinite (apeiron). Just as the "what-makes-finite" has
changed its meaning, so the "what-is-infinite" has changed its meaning
from what is infinitely divisible to what is infinitely great. We have moved
from the idea of nous-demiurge, creating species out of ratios and qualities,
to the idea of nous-demiurge creating enviable conditions of species out of
right ratios and excessive or unlimited quantities and qualities; and the
movement has been achieved by using the terms peras and apeiron, which
were already being used in both an epistemological and metaphysical
sense, to convey also aesthetic and/or moral evaluations: peras is now the
what-makes-good and apeiron the what-is-bad-unless-made-good.
But why did Plato choose to use the same terms in these three confus-
ingly different ways? And how does his manipulation of these terms con-
stitute an argument for the answer which the Philebus provides to the
question with which it begins: the question, what constitutes a desirable
life, and the answer that such a life consists in a mixture of all forms of
reason with some forms of passion? This is the problem of the Philebus;
and the effort to solve it has taxed the ingenuity of ingenious commen-
tators.

II. Gosling on the Philebus

It is to J. C. B. Gosling that we owe the most ingenious and the most

thorough of recent attempts to solve this problem.g Gosling's strategy is to
show that peras and apeiron are in fact used consistently throughout the
dialogue, and that the way in which they are used materially advances
Plato's argument to the effect that the desirable life is a mixture of all kinds
of reason with some kinds of passion.9

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 In order to demonstrate the consistency of peras and apeiron, Gosling
offers a new interpretation of Plato's description of human understand-
ing.1° According to this new interpretation, Plato is not suggesting that
understanding involves the construction of a network of interlocking
analyses of concepts. Instead, Plato is held to be suggesting that under-
standing involves thinking of certain "general phenomena"11 (e.g. sound)
as infinitely divisible continua, which can, however, be ordered in terms of
"certain elements"12 (e.g. notes on a musical scale) between which there are
certain orderly relationships (e.g. the ratio obtaining between notes within
an octave, and between one octave and the next).13
When it comes, therefore, to the metaphysical section of the dialogue,
there appears to be no inconsistency; because here, too, the imposition of
peras upon apeiron is a question of imposing ratios upon infinitely divisible
continua. The only difference between the two passages, according to
Gosling, is that in the first Plato is concerned with understanding, whereas
in the second he is concerned with what happens when someone (e.g. a
musician) employs his understanding to create something (e.g. music).14
This simultaneously removed the problem of what previously appeared to
be a further shift in terminology, from peras as 'ratio' to peras as 'right
ratio': for the notes on a musical scale are exactly those notes which,
because of the orderly relations between them, are recognized within the
skill of music as the right ratios.
Having thus rendered the use of peras and apeiron consistent, Gosling
faces no difficulty in connecting these passages with the ostensible argu-
ment of the dialogue: for if human reason is what imposes correct ratios
upon an otherwise chaotic world, then a desirable life will clearly be one in
which reason admits only such passions as have been correctly ordered.
Each part of Gosling's argument seems to be deficient in important
respects.
In the first place, Gosling's interpretation of the description of human
understanding makes several of Plato's remarks very difficult to under-
stand. A fairly trivial instance of this problem arises when Plato is discus-
sing the case of people who are too slapdash to understand anything
properly. What Plato says is that:
"From the one they pass straight to the indeterminate and the intervening areas slip
through their fingers" ( 17A2-3,tr. Gosling).

According to Gosling's interpretation, Plato would be meaning here that

slapdash people were inclined to pass straight from the recognition of an
"element", such as A-flat, to the recognition of an infinitely divisible

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continuum, such as pitch, without examining the other notes in the scale.
But it seems quite unclear in what sense this could be regarded as the
archetype of slapdash reasoning.
Even more damaging to Gosling's case is the fact that at another point
Plato puts forward his method of understanding as one suitable for appli-
cation to concepts like "man" and "ox" (15A5). According to Gosling's
interpretation, Plato should be thinking here of "man" and "ox" as in-
finitely divisible continua requiring to be understood in terms of rationally
ordered points on a scale. But how could one think of "man" or "ox" as
infinitely divisible continua?
Gosling recognizes that this poses a problem for his interpretation; and
he attempts to overcome it by saying that:

"As to man, ox, the discovery of a techne will be the discovery that there are respects
in which these items vary indeterminately, ways capable of linear representation,
and a techne, e.g. medicine, is devised with regard to them when a means is
discovered of 'unifying' respects of variation so as to produce certain points of
temperature, weight, and so on which should not be exceeded."15
This solution immediately seems unsatisfactory because Plato does not
appear to be talking about skills relating to men or oxen, but rather about
understanding the concepts "man" and "ox" themselves. There are, how-
ever, yet greater difficulties facing Gosling's position, because we are told
by Plato that
"When someone wishes to posit man, ox, ... each as one, a burning interest in
making divisions within this sort of unit is matter for controversy," (15A5-7)
whereas, according to Gosling's interpretation, the "burning interest"
ought not to be in making divisions within a unit, but in 'unifying', or
imposing a scale of rationally ordered elements upon a continuum.
Nor is even this an end to Gosling's problems, because Plato stresses the
distinction between the imperishability of "the one" and the perishability
of "the indeterminate number of ... things" (15A-C), and it is quite unclear
how or why this would be an important distinction if, by "the one", Plato
means 'a point on a scale, or element, such as A-flat'. In addition to which,
we are left wondering why Plato should wish to confuse us by using apeiron
(indeterminate) to refer here to the infinite number of perishable things
(i.e. particulars), if, as Gosling maintains, apeiron is being used in the rest of
this section of the dialogue to denote not the infinite particular instanti-
ation of a concept but the infinite divisibility of certain continua such as
high-pitch - low-pitch.
All of these difficulties disappear if Plato is interpreted as meaning that

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human understanding consists in the construction of various interlocking
analyses, each designed to illuminate the network of species and aspects
intervening between the mysterious unity (hen or peras) and the unknow-
able infinity of particular instantiations (polla or apeiron) of any given
concept. According to this interpretation, slapdash reasoning might easily
consist in passing "straight to the indeterminate" "from the one", allowing
the "intervening areas" to "slip through" one's "fingers": for this would be
to posit the single concept "sound", and to recognize the fact that there are
infinitely many particular sounds, but not to understand as much as is
understood by someone who recognizes the various species and aspects of
sound - musical sound, rhythm, pitch and so forth. The application of this
method to "man" or "ox" is by no means difficult to imagine - man, for
example, will be recognized as the sum of various species, such as "good
men" or "bad men", and also of various aspects such as "rationality" and
"concupiscence". This at the same time makes sense of Plato's talk about
"a burning interest in making divisions within this sort of unit" - as this
becomes an interest in dividing man into his various species and aspects.
The use of apeiron to stress a distinction between imperishable and
perishable things becomes intelligible as a way of insisting on a distinction
between eternal concepts and the infinity of constantly changing, perish-
able, and hence ultimately unknowable particulars. And this, in turn,
removes the accusation, unwittingly implied by Gosling's thesis, that Plato
is using apeiron confusingly even within this part of the dialogue: since
apeiron would simply mean, here, the infinite particular instantiation of
any concept.
Gosling does not, however, consider the possibility that Plato may have
been concerned with analysis of this sort; instead, he restricts himself to
attacking the pure genus-species interpretation of this part of the Philebus.
According to this interpretation - which has been favoured by commen-
tators such as Ross, Taylor and Hackforth 16 - Plato is concerned to divide
a given concept not into its species and aspects, but only into its species. So,
for example, Plato would be uninterested in dividing "man" into
"rationality" and "concupiscence", and would consider only divisions such
as "good men", "bad men", "tall good men", "short good men", etc.
Gosling produces various objections against this pure genus-species
interpretation,17 the most powerful of which is that such an interpretation
cannot make sense of the examples which Plato himself provides as illus-
trations for his model of understanding. 18 For instance, Plato cites the case
of Theuth, who was said by the Egyptians to have divided "sound" into
"vowels", "others that could be sounded but were not vowels", and

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"mutes" (18B-D) - the suggestion being, according to the genus-species
interpretation, that in this way "the indeterminacy of vocal sound" ( 18B7,
tr. Gosling) was reduced to an orderly pyramid of genus and species. But
Gosling points out that this cannot in fact be what Plato is suggesting,
"because the passage is supposed to illustrate working up to the genus from
particulars through species, whereas in fact Theuth must be operating with
a conception of the genus from the start."19
A similar objection is raised by Gosling on the basis of the example at
17B-E. Here, Plato suggests that sound should be understood in terms of
"high and low pitch" ( 17C 12) and "rhythm and measures" ( 17D6). But, as
Gosling says, this 'division' of sound "has nothing to do with genus and
species"2° which would make it appear either that Plato is too stupid to
provide a proper example for his own theory, or that there is something
very wrong with the pure genus-species interpretation of this part of the
Philebus.
If, however, Plato were not concerned merely with the division of a
concept into its species, but rather with a division into both species and
aspects, then the problem raised by Gosling would disappear. Theuth
might well start with a vague idea of the concept (sound) and of its infinite
particular instantiation, and, travelling the road which the slapdash
reasoners are said to eschew, he might end with a much clearer idea of the
kinds and aspects of sound intervening between the concept and its parti-
cular instantiation. Nor would Plato's concern with "high and low pitch" or
"rhythm and measures" be out of place, since, although these are not
species of sound, they are clearly aspects of it.21
There is consequently no reason to prefer Gosling's account of this part
of the Philebus to the loose analytical interpretation. But even if Gosling
were right about this part, he still would not have succeeded in rendering
the use of peras and apeiron consistent throughout the dialogue, because
his interpretation of the later uses of these terms is by no means convincing.
The fundamental problem is that Gosling talks as if the metaphysical
section of the Philebus (23-28) concerned the creation of certain objects or
conditions (e.g. music) by skilled human beings (e.g. musicians) ;22 whereas
in fact the Reason referred to in this section as active and creative is not
human reason or human skill, but the Demiurge, or Divine Reason.
Human reason appears only as a separate category somehow capable of
understanding what Divine Reason has created.
It is only by regarding this passage as if it were a description of the
activity of human rather than divine reason that Gosling is able to slip over
the shift from peras as ratio to peras as right ratio: for, it might be argued

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that, wherever a trained human understanding (e.g. of a musician) imposes
ratios on continua (e.g. sound), there something 'right' (e.g. music) is
created; but if the metaphysical section of the dialogue is in fact dealing
with the creation of "man" and "ox" by the Demiurge, rather than with the
creation of music by musicians, then the ratios involved cannot be only
'right ratios' unless the Demiurge is taken to have created only perfect "ox"
or perfect "man" - in which case we would be left wondering how it came
about that men and oxen can in fact be less than perfect specimens of their
type.
But even if peras did consistently mean 'right ratio' rather than merely
ratio, this would be of no use to Gosling, because the Reason imposing
right ratio on continua in this section of the dialogue would still be Divine
rather than human Reason; there would consequently be no argument for
the view that the desirable life was one in which human reason imposed
order upon the passions. And this, after all, is the argument that Plato is
ostensibly making in the Philebus - the argument which, according to
Gosling, the consistent use of the terms peras and apeiron is designed to
further.
To all of this, Gosling would no doubt reply that he had at least provided
an interpretation which linked the various uses of peras and apeiron with
one another and with the argument of the dialogue, and that any inter-
pretation of this sort is better than none. If, then, we are to defend the view
that the dialogue does in fact contain confusingly inconsistent uses of peras
and apeiron, we need to provide some other solution to the problem of the
Philebus: we need to show why Plato should have shifted the meaning of
his own terms, and how his having done so constituted a method of
furthering or seeming to further the argument that the desirable life is one
in which reason rules over passion.

III. Understanding the Philebus

In order to provide such a solution we need to look closely at the analysis of

reason and passion given in the dialogue. The analysis of passion is
somewhat more detailed than those contained within the Symposium,
Phaedrus or Republic,23 and it is based upon a discussion of pleasure and
distress.24 We are not told explicitly about the ontological status of either
pleasure or distress, but it appears that both are regarded as actual occur-
rences rather than as dispositions;25 and it is clear that the occurrences are
psychological rather than physiological in character.26 This raises the
question of whether Plato is thinking of them as events which can be

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specified only within a private language, or whether, instead, they can be
specified in terms of a priori connexions with certain kinds of public event.
And here the problem of interpretation is acute, because Plato suggests at
one point that pleasure is what results from the sensation of a restoration of
bodily harmony (3 D), at another that it is what results from the formation
of certain mental images (40A). This might be taken to suggest that pleas-
ure is specifiable as what I feel when certain (in principle) public events are
taking place. But it seems equally likely that Plato is not, in fact, attempting
a conceptual analysis of pleasure, and that what appear to be definitions of
pleasure should instead be taken as meaning only that pleasure tends (as it
happens) to occur when one or other of these things is taking place;27
which would leave unanswered the question of whether Plato is thinking
here of pleasure and distress as experiences which can be talked about in a
public language, or, rather, as purely private events which, in Locke's
words, "cannot be described" or "defined" and which can be known "only
by experience. 1128
This unanswered question of interpretation need not, however, detain
us, because what is important for our purposes is simply the fact that
pleasure and distress are being thought of as some sort of mental events,
whether ultimately disjoined from public language or not. And this is
important because Plato's analysis of the various passions29 - "anger, fear,
longing, mourning,3° love, envy, malice3l and whatever of this sort"
(47E1-2) - is that these passions are made up of contrasts between distress
and pleasure occurring simultaneously (47E-50D). One's feelings on seeing
a clown making a fool of himself, for instance, are analysed in terms of a
contrast between distress at his misdeeds and the pleasure of amusement at
his folly (48B-50A). This same analysis is applied to the phenomenon of
desire - thirst being, for instance, a contrast between the mental event,
distress, arising as a result of the sensation of the depletion of bodily fluids,
and the mental event, pleasure, arising as a result of the memory of past
replenishments (34D-35C). It is stressed that such desires are mental events
without any physiological aspect (35C-35D): and this makes it clear that
Plato is thinking of the relation between desire and action as the relation of
ghost to machine.32
Connected with this analysis of desire is an analysis of doxa, or opinion,
the importance of which has often gone unnoticed.33 An example of an
'opinion' is given, "that - [pointing] - is a man" (38D6), and it is said that
such an opinion arises when "the memory joined with the perceptions34 ...
seem to me as it were to write propositions (logoi) in our psyches" (39A 1-3).
An addition is then made in the form of a painter resident in the psyche

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who paints a picture or image (eikan) consonant with the proposition
"written" by perception and memory (39B-C).
The term translated here as "perception" is aisthesis - the same term as
Plato uses for the sensation of changes within one's body; and there is no
more reason to suggest that Plato was thinking of these perceptions of the
world as dispositional states than there was in the case of bodily sen-
sations.35 We may, therefore, take these perceptions to be mental events.
And this would fit with the view announced earlier in the dialogue that the
recollection of particular perceptions stored within the memory is wholly a
psychological rather than a physiological event (34A-C). But these per-
ceptions - whether immediate or recalled - are not themselves in the form
of propositions or images: for they are said to "write" - that is, to bring
about - propositions in the psyche; and the entertaining of propositions in
turn causes the occurrence of images. Perceptions seem, then, to be mental
events which are pre-thought, and which form the basis of the thought and
imagination that enable the ghost in the machine to identify particulars in
the outside world.
Plato seems to have constructed a model of human action tied to an
epistemology. According to the model of action, the occurrence of certain
combinations of pleasure and distress in the mind constitutes the desires
which lead to action by the body; and, according to the epistemology, the
knowledge which the mind has of the world - the knowledge which can
itself be the cause of desire - is built up out of elements of pre-thought
experience either derived directly from particulars in the world or else
recollected from past encounters with such particulars. The epistemology,
at least, is remarkably similar to the theory developed some two thousand
years later by Hume. There are "impressions" (perceptions) and "ideas"
(recollected perceptions) forming "complex ideas" (logoi) and these
attain vivacity as images or "complex impressions" (pictures painted in
the psyche).36 But one of Hume's intentions in building up such an epis-
temology37 was to provide an analysis of our concepts, in terms of the
pre-thought experience into which they could be broken down; whereas, in
Plato's highly abbreviated account, there is no suggestion whatever of such
an intention. The analysis of "opinion" in the Philebus might be described
as an empiricist epistemology missing its top layer.
This constitutes a sharp contrast to the model of reason proposed earlier
in the dialogue (16C-18D). There, conceptual analysis was by no means
neglected. According to the model proposed, a given concept (e.g. sound)
was chosen as an object to be understood. Sound was recognized as a single
concept (hen or peras), but it was also seen to be divisible into several kinds

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(e.g. music and non-music) and into several aspects (e.g. rhythm and pitch),
and this process of division was to be continued until no more precise
discriminations could be made, at which point the many-ness or infinite
instantiation (polla or apeiron) of sound was posited as something beyond
understanding. The result was an analysis of the concept "sound"; and, as
this method was put forward as suitable for the understanding of every-
thing that can be understood, we were left to conclude that any given object
of understanding would appear in its own right as the subject of one
analysis and also as a component in other (possibly many other) such
analyses. Understanding or thought consequently assumed the character
of a network of variously interlocking analyses illustrating the relationship
between concepts.3g
This model is purely a theory of universals. It contains no attempt to
explain how the most precise conceptual discrimination, once made, could
be applied to particulars, and it may consequently be described as a
conceptualist epistemology missing its bottom layer.
Clearly, the two models, the two epistemologies, are incompatible. Our
knowledge might be either an abstract conceptual framework without
applicability to particulars, or a series of propositions about particulars
automatically arising from various combinations of sense-data; but it
cannot be both of these things. It should, however, be noticed that these
two incompatible models are complementary in their defects and
adequacies. One provides a theory of conceptual analysis which is in-
applicable to particulars, and the other explains our knowledge of parti-
culars without providing any way of analysing concepts; one lacks a
bottom but provides a top and the other lacks a top but provides a bottom.
By simply ignoring the incompatibility and by putting both models
together in the same dialogue, Plato manages to mask the deficiencies of
each. And if we ask how he can have ignored the incompatibility, there is a
ready answer: the two models appear in the course of attempts to answer
two different questions, "What is reason?" and "What is passion?" Because
Plato thought of these as separate questions he failed to see that the
epistemological scheme provided as an answer to the one was incompatible
with the epistemological aspect of that provided to the other. And this
failure was no doubt made all the more likely by the distinction which we
find him making, not only in this but also in many other dialogues,3s
between things known and mere opinion. The model of reason deals with
knowledge; the model of passion deals with opinion. The incompatibility is
masked not only by the fact that a different question is being asked, but
also by the fact that the terms of the answer are different in each case.

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 But, once the two models are separated, they can be seen to share an
important oddity: neither is able to give an account of moral activity. Even
if (which is not the case) the model of reason could explain how men
discover that a given particular action is to be classed as good or prudent,
there would still be no explanation of how or why men choose to perform
actions so classified. The model of passion, meanwhile, provides a picture
of a life which is a series of automatic distresses and pleasures, and which
contains no procedure for sorting out those pleasures to be preferred or for
acting on such preferences even if they could be established.
The character of these two models is, indeed, such as to make it difficult
to see how Plato could have gone on in the Philebus to do what he
attempted in the Symposium, Phaedrus and Republic: namely, to construct
an account of human action in terms of a relation between reason and
passion. How can thought, if it is concerned exclusively with the
examination of universals, be said to affect desire, when desire is conceived
as a mental event arising automatically from bodily sensation and the
perception of particulars?
It was in order to overcome this problem that Plato engaged in the series
of intellectual manoeuvres involving shifting the meaning of the terms
peras and apeiron in ways which have proved so confusing for his readers.
The process, as we have seen, begins with the model of human reason, in
which peras and apeiron are regarded as the conceptual unity and the
infinite particular instantiation, the hen and the polla, of any concept or
class.4° Next, peras and apeiron appear in the course of a description of
the metaphysical structure of the universe: and here they refer to two
separate classes, the class of ratios and the class of predicate-pairs such as
hot-and-cold which denote infinitely divisible continua. These two classes
are said to be the building-blocks out of which the universe is constructed.
Finally, peras and apeiron take on the connotation not simply of ratio and
predicate-pair but of right ratio and correct predicate-pair - the sort of
ratio which, when imposed upon the correct predicate-pair, does not
simply create the various classes of concrete objects, but rather puts those
objects into correct or enviable conditions.41
In all of these discussions, two kinds of nous or reason are involved.
There is nous-knower: human reason employed in knowing or under-
standing concepts. And there is nous-demiurge: the creator of the
metaphysical structure of the universe. By referring to both of these as
nous, Plato seems to be suggesting that human reason is somehow con-
nected with the Divine Reason which ordered the universe. This suggestion
is reinforced by the use of the same terms, peras and apeiron, in both the

200
epistemological and the metaphysical sections of the dialogue. The sense in
which the demiurge is dealing with the world in terms of peras and apeiron
is, of course, quite different from the sense in which human reason is doing
this. But the mere fact that both human reason and divine are concerned
with peras and apeiron makes it appear that each is somehow engaged in
the same kind of operation as the other. The suggestion seems, in fact, to be
that human reason is able to understand the structure of the universe
precisely because it is connected with the Reason which created or ordered
that structure. And it is this notion which illuminates a feature of the model
of human reason which would otherwise remain obscure. The activity of
the demiurge as it is pictured in the metaphysical passages of the dialogue
does not have any relation to physical matter: we are to imagine not a
workman moulding particular objects out of shapeless clay, but, instead,
disembodied creative thought putting together universals such as "man",
"table", and so forth out of ratios and predicates. And it is precisely
because - according to the metaphysical scheme - nous-demiurge has
created only universals that - according to the model of human reason -
nous-knower can only understand universals. Particulars are beyond the
comprehension of human reason because they are outside the range of the
creative force whose activity human reason in some sense reflects. This is
why the epistemology proposed in the model of human reason is without a
bottom layer.42
It seems, then, that the parts of the Philebus concerned with peras and
apeiron contain a whole world-view, a metaphysical-epistemological
complex. If this is laid out in logical order, rather than in the order in which
it appears in the dialogue, a hierarchy appears. First, there is nous-
demiurge, Universal Reason, creating concrete universals out of ratios and
predicate-pairs of abstract universals; next, there is human reason under-
standing all classes (including ratio, concrete universals, abstract uni-
versals, and nous itself) as hen, polla and a finite number of sub-classes;
then, there is human reason employing this method of understanding to
recognize the species, concrete universal, as one of 4 (or 5)43 sub-classes of
the class of all real existents, and one which is formed by the mixture of 2
others; and finally, there is creative Reason again producing a mixture, but
this time a right mixture of the right ratios of the correct abstract universals,
and so bringing about what is good and beautiful and pleasurable.
But is it really clear that universal creative Reason rather than human
reason forms this last, value-creating type of mixture? No statement in the
Philebus tells us this. Are we right to assume it? True, human reason is held
to be merely a knower, incapable of doing anything. But human reason is

201
also seen as a reflection of universal creative Reason; and this makes it
seem at least possible that there is some lack of clarity about which sort of
nous it is that performs the operation of combining peras and apeiron in the
third sense of these terms - the operation of bringing about the good,
beautiful and pleasant.
A glance at Socrates' last statement in this patch of dialogue confirms the
possibility:
"The goddess herself, my dear Philebus, seeing the hubris and pain of all things and
seeing that there is no finitude (peras) either of pleasure or of surfeits in them,
established law and order having correct ratio (peras)" (26B7-10).

The evasion appears at once: it is not nous which is said to do the good work
but a goddess; and, by invoking the goddess, Plato is saved from having to,
explain whether it is human reason or divine, nous-knower or nous-
demiurge that is involved in the creation of good.
We have seen that the Philebus contains incompatible models of reason
and passion, neither of which can account for moral activity. But we have
also seen that the dialogue contains a shift in the meaning of the terms
peras and apeiron, which makes it appear that human reason when
operating according to the model proposed is a reflection of a demiurge
responsible for the creation of the class of concrete species. Moreover, a
further shift in the meaning of the same terms makes it appear that the
activity of so ordering members of the class of concrete species that they
rejoice in conditions such as beauty, goodness, strength and health is
fundamentally the same activity as that performed by the demiurge in
creation, and so - by implication - the same activity as that performed by
human reason when mirroring the activity of the demiurge. And from this
it follows that human reason, operating according to the model in the
Philebus is actually doing what according to that very same model it is
incapable of doing: namely, to engage in moral activity. The multiple use
of peras and apeiron thus makes it possible for Plato to reach the conclusion
which his own analysis precludes - the conclusion that human reason is
responsible for the creation of what is beautiful, good and pleasant, and
that the desirable life consequently depends upon the dominance of reason
over passion.

Princeton University

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 NOTES
1 I am aware, of course, that much of the present interest in the Philebus centres on its
analysis of false pleasures; but the place of this analysis in the structure of the whole
dialogue does not seem to me to present great problems of interpretation - and, since my
effort here is purely to elucidate the structure, I do not treat the question of false pleasures
as part of "the problem".
2 I take it that the discussion of false
pleasures (Philebus 32-43) is intended as another
part of the same argument; but (cf. note 1 )I have rigorously excluded this from my
discussion.
3
Taking 'scientific' in its broadest sense: "scientific method" = "method of knowing".
4 For a defence of the
exposition provided in the next four paragraphs, see Section II.
5 'A of course, is more nearly an extension and abuse of the concept 'finite' than a
unity',
mere specification of one of its senses; whereas 'infinitely many' really is no more than a
specific sense of 'infinite' - and this probably explains why Plato more often substitutes
apeiron for polla than peras for hen.
6 For a discussion of
Gosling's attempt to establish that peras and apeiron are in fact
being used consistently throughout the dialogue, see Section II.
7
Gosling (Plato, Philebus (Oxford, 1975),pp. 186-206)takes it that this is not a shift, and
that Plato is consistently using peras as right ratio: on this, see Section II.
8 J. C. B.
Gosling, Plato, Philebus (Oxford, 1975); hereafter referred to as Gosling -
Philebus.
9
Gosling - Philebus, pp. 139-228.
lo
Gosling - Philebus, pp. 153-181.
il
Gosling - Philebus, p. 196.
lz
Gosling - Philebus, p. 197.
13 I
hope, in this paragraph, to be providing a correct interpretation of Gosling's dictum
(pp. 200-1) that "apeiron does not stand for a class of concepts, but certain words suggest
"
apeira.
14
Gosling - Philebus, pp. 185-206.
ls
Gosling - Philebus, p. 175.
ls W. D. Ross, Plato's
Theory of Ideas (Oxford, 1951) pp. 130-138.R. Hackforth, Plato's
Examination of Pleasure (Cambridge, 1945), reprinted 1972 as Plato's Philebus;
references hereafter to reprint, under heading, 'Hackforth - Philebus'; pp. 20-21, 24-26.
A. E. Taylor, Plato, Philebus and Epinomis (London, 1956); hereafter referred to as
Taylor - Philebus; p. 33.
17
Gosling - Philebus, pp. 160-165.
18
Gosling - Philebus, pp. 162-165.
ls
Gosling - Philebus, p. 163.
20
Gosling - Philebus, p. 183.
21 Another reason for
thinking that Plato was concerned with analysis into both species
and aspects rather than just species is that his arguments were partly directed against a
certain kind of reasoner who:
"distinguishes the limbs and parts of any given thing and then gets agreement that
all these things are the one thing he started with, then jeers because he has argued
one into the monstrous assertion that the one is indefinitely many things, and the
many things one" ( 14E,tr. Gosling).
The sophist protrayed here is not discussing a genus and its species, but rather a body and

203
its parts; and if this was the sort of sophistical argument that Plato was trying to combat,
then he will have wished to move freely between the notion of genus and species and the
notion of a thing (or concept) and its aspects. Cf. the conclusion of J. R. Trevaskis
('Division and its relation to dialectic and ontology in Plato', Phronesis XII (1967), pp.
118-129),who, at the end of a review of several dialogues in which the method of division
is employed, tells us that (p. 128):
"From this review of Plato's use of the method of Division and of his comments on
its current use, I think we may conclude, in opposition to the generally held view,
that Division is not essentially concerned with the splitting of a genus into its
constituent species (although of course it may do this)."
Cf. also, on the same lines, J. Ackrill, 'In Defence of Platonic Division' in Ryle, ed. O. P.
Wood and G. Pitcher (London, 1971 ),pp. 373-392.
22
Gosling - Philebus, e.g. p. 200: "1Je [Plato] is thinking of a person producing the
objects of his skill."
23 Cf.
especially: Symposium, 199-212;Phaedru.s,237-238 ;Republic, 439D.
z4 I have followed
Gosling in translating lup? as distress, in order to capture, as far as
possible, the whole range from pain to grief.
25 I
say 'appear', here, because the evidence is negative: Plato talks in terms of things
going on in the psyche, and never urges us to take such talk as shorthand for description
of dispositions; nor (so far as I can see) is there anything else to suggest that Plato was
thinking of pleasure or distress as dispositional properties.
26 Plato does sometimes talk as if
pleasures or pains could be bodily (e.g. 47C-D); but it is
clear from the argument of 42C-43C that he in fact thinks of them as experiences of the
psyche, sometimes caused by bodily change. Cf. also 33D2-6.
27
Gosling seems to suggest at one point that Plato is merely trying to establish when (as
it happens) pleasure tends to occur: "The sort of account envisaged is not conceptual
analysis but a theory of the conditions for the occurrence of pleasure, and statements of
what pleasure is have to be construed in that way" (Gosling - Philebus, p. 213). But
Gosling's early article on false pleasures in the Philebus ('False Pleasures: Philebus
35C-41B', Phronesis IV (1959), pp. 44-53) stirred up some controversy (A. Kenny, 'False
Pleasures in the Philebus: A Reply to Mr Gosling', Phronesis V (1960), pp. 45-52;
Gosling, 'Father Kenny on False Pleasures', Phronesis VI (1961), pp. 41-45; J.
Dybikowski, 'False Pleasures and the Philebus, Phronesis XV (1970), pp. 147-165;T. M.
I. Penner, 'False Anticipatory Pleasures, Philebus 36a3-41a6', Phronesis XV (1970), pp.
166-178).And it is interesting to note that, throughout this controversy, Gosling's position
seems to have been that Plato thought of the activity of experiencing various (in principle)
public happenings (e.g. repletion of the stomach) as actually constituting the pleasure.
Indeed, on p. 216 of his commentary on the Philebus (written after all the articles
mentioned above), Gosling reiterates that Plato is "as usual thinking that the pleasure is
the activity or experience enjoyed." The apparent inconsistency of this view with the view
(p. 213) that Plato is providing only "a theory of the conditions for the occurrence of
pleasure" is removed on p. 215, where Gosling tells us that: "By the time of the Philebus
Plato had abandoned earlier flirtation with a general characterization of pleasure, but it is
still true that there are more specific types of characterization such as, e.g., 'picturing a
false pleasure', 'perceiving the return of one's constitution to its natural state', and so on
which give what constitutes the pleasures of the various types". In short, Gosling
consistently maintains that Plato identifies pleasure with the experience of certain (in
principle) public events. And this is the view which forms the basis for his position in the

204
controversy over false pleasures. Any proper investigation into Plato's view, here, of the
ontological status of pleasure is consequently bound to involve immersion in that con-
troversy ; and, both because I am not sure which of the controversialists has the right of
the matter, and because the point is not in any case material to my argument, I prefer
simply to leave the question unanswered. '
zs
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. II, Cap. XX, Section i.
29 Other
passions are analysed in terms of double distress (36B 10-C 1 and ); presumably
others yet might be analysed on the same lines as differing combinations of pleasures and
distresses relating to various objects variously placed in past, present and future.
3o The term here is threnon; and it is translated
literally by Hackforth as "lamenting"; but
lamenting seems to me to suggest an activity which might be part of an emotional
condition or which might (just as well) be part of a pretence at emotion; and Plato seems
to have the emotional condition itself in mind - which makes H ackforth'sversion slightly
unsatisfactory. Gosling remedies this by providing "sorrow"; but that translation has the
much greater defect that (with most forms of sorrow) one cannot imagine what Plato
would mean by saying that there is a contrast between pleasure and distress: sorrow (as
such) seems to be purely a question of distress. This problem is, in turn, eliminated by
Taylor, with "self-pity"; but that seems to move rather far from the literal "lamenting".
So I choose "mourning" - which is an emotional condition, but one particularly
associated with lamentation, and one which might conceivably involve distress (at the
losing of the lost) combined with pleasure (of relief at the end of illness, or the liberation
of a dead man's psyche).
31 Here I
simply accept Gosling's advice (Gosling - Philebus, p. 120).
32 Here I am
referring, of course, to Gilbert Ryle's image in Concept of Mind (London,
1949), though (cf. pp. 00) I am not insisting that Plato's is a Cartesian or Lockian ghost
from the point of view of private language.
33 Cf.
Gosling - Philebus, Taylor - Philebus, Hackforth - Philebu.s,each of which takes
note of the passages in question, but none of which takes it seriously as an epistemology.
W. G. Runciman (Plato's Later Epistemology,(Cambridge, 1962))does not take up this
passage either.
34 The full sentence reads: "The
memory joined with the perception and with those things
whichare undergone with these seem to me as it were to write propositions in our psyches."
My omission of the underlined passage is due to the fact that this has proved difficult to ,
interpret; and its precise meaning is not (I think) material to my argument. Gosling
appears to argue (Gosling - Philebus, pp. 110-111) that the "things undergone with"
perception and memory are bodily lacks and replenishments, past and present; but if this
is his meaning, I cannot agree with him, because the perceptions and memories referred
to here seem to be of external objects, not of bodily changes. I am therefore inclined to
take Hackforth's view (implied, Hackforth - Philebus, p. 74) that the things undergone
with (recollected) memory and perception are feelings of pleasure or distress. Gosling
takes Hackforth to be referring to feelings such as fear, and consequently refutes him. But
it seems to me that Hackforth (and Plato) may simply be referring forward to pleasures
and distress caused directly by perception (50E-51E). In any case, as I say, this point of
interpretation does not seem material to my argument.
35 The kind of
dispositional analysis which I have in mind - and which I believe Plato
not to be suggesting - is: "X may be said to have perceived p if and only if (given certain
circumstances, intentions and beliefs) he would do q, where q is an action related in a
certain way to p."

205
36 Treatise Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. I, Section iv - Bk. I, Pt. III, Section v; and
of
elsewhere.
37 Nor is Hume alone in this intention; cf. (earlier) Locke and
(later) Ayer, in the
empiricist tradition.
38 Cf. Sections I and II for a fuller
exposition and defence of this interpretation.
39
E.g. Republic (esp. 477B), Gorgias (esp. 454D), Theaetetus (throughout).
4o Here, and in
succeeding paragraphs, cf. Section I of the present work.
41 I locate here a shift not
only in peras (ratio, to right ratio) and apeiron (infinitely
divisible continuum between predicate pairs, to excessive quantity of given predicate),
but also in the mixed class, from being the class of concrete universalsto being the class of
concrete objects in enviable conditions. According to my interpretation, this transition
from talk of universals to talk of particulars is needed by Plato, if he is to suggest that
human reason, by imposing peras on apeiron - i.e. limit on excessive passion - is actually
capable in practice of creating a desirable life.
Cf. S. MacClintock, 'More on the structure of the Philebus', Phronesis VI (1961), pp.
46-52, p. 52: "The One-Many-Unlimited and the Limit-Unlimited-Mixed-Cause
schemes are supplementary, and their simultaneous presence in the Philebus is essential...
The first provides a methodology, the second, presenting the structure of reality, gua-
rantees the adequacy of the method."
43 Cf. 188.The fifth class is often
p. neglected even by careful commentators, e.g. J. M. E.
Moravcsik, 'Forms, Nature and the Good in the Philebus', Phronesis XXIV (1978), p. 94:
"The ontological scheme divides things into three, and later four, kinds of ingredients".

206