Note 10 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.

Plato, Philêbus, pp. 21-22.

It is to be remarked, however, that there was more than one Grecian philosopher who described the Summum Bonum as consisting in absence of pain (ἀλυπία); even without the large measure of intelligence which Sokrates here promises, and without any positive pleasure. These men would of course have accepted the second alternative put by Sokrates, which Protarchus here refuses. They took their standard of comparison from the actualities of human life around them, which exhibited pain and suffering universal, frequent, and unavoidable. They conceived that if painlessness could be obtained, it was as much as could reasonably be demanded, and that pleasure might be dispensed with. In laying down any theory about the Summum Bonum, the preliminary question ought always to be settled — What are the conditions of human life which are to be assumed as peremptory and unalterable? What circumstances are we at liberty to suppose to be suppressed, modified, or reversed? According as these fundamental postulates are given in a larger or narrower sense, the ideal Summum Bonum will be shaped differently. This preliminary requisite to the investigation was little considered by the ancient philosophers.