We have then to consider, first (i) whether men fail in self-restraint knowing what they do is wrong, or not knowing, and if knowing, knowing in what sense; and next (ii) what are to be set down as the objects with which Self-restraint and Unrestraint are concerned: I mean, are they concerned with pleasure and pain of all sorts, or only with certain special pleasures and pains? and (iii) is Self-restraint the same as Endurance or distinct from it? and so on with (iv) the other questions akin to this subject.
A starting-point for our investigation is to ask Footnote 1This question is not pursued below; indeed the contents of the following chapters are correctly outlined in 3.1, and 3.2 is superfluous. whether the differentia Footnote 2Not the difference between the two, since of course they are concerned with the same objects, but the difference between both of them and other similar characters; see 1.4. of the self-restrained man and the unrestrained is constituted by their objects, or by their dispositions: I mean, whether a man is called unrestrained solely because he fails to restrain himself with reference to certain things, or rather because he has a certain disposition, or rather for both reasons combined. A second question is, can Self-restraint and Unrestraint be displayed in regard to everything, or not? When a man is said to be unrestrained
without further qualification, it does not mean that he is so in relation to everything, but to those things in regard to which a man can be profligate; and also it does not mean merely that he is concerned with these things (for in that case Unrestraint would be the same thing as Profligacy), but that he is concerned with them in a particular manner. The profligate yields to his appetites from choice, considering it right always to pursue the pleasure that offers, whereas the man of defective self-restraint does not think so, but pursues it all the same.
(i) Now the suggestion that it is not Knowledge, but True Opinion, against which unrestrained men act, is of no importance for our argument. Some men hold their opinions with absolute certainty, and take them for positive knowledge;
so that if weakness of conviction be the criterion for deciding that men who act against their conception of what is right must be said to opine rather than to know the right, there will really be no difference in this respect between Opinion and Knowledge; since some men are just as firmly convinced of what they opine as others are of what they know: witness Heracleitus. Footnote 3This seems to refer to the dogmatic tone of Heracleitus’s teaching in general.
(1) But the word know is used in two senses. A man who has knowledge but is not exercising it is said to know, and so is a man who is actually exercising his knowledge. It will make a difference whether a man does wrong having the knowledge that it is wrong but not consciously thinking of his knowledge, or with the knowledge consciously present to his mind. The latter would be felt to be surprising; but it is not surprising that a man should do what he knows to be wrong if he is not conscious of the knowledge at the time.
(2) Again, reasoning on matters of conduct employs premises of two forms. Footnote 4The major premise of a practical syllogism is universal, a general rule; the minor is particular, the application of the rule to the case in hand. The next sentence points out that this application really requires two syllogisms; in the first, the personal term of the major premise is predicated in the minor of the particular person concerned (Dry food is good for all men: I am a man: therefore dry food is good for me) ; in the second, the other universal term is predicated in the minor of a particular thing about which the person is deliberating (Dry food is good for me: this stale loaf is dry food: therefore this stale loaf is good for me). It is the minor premise of the second syllogism, viz. the application of the general rule not to himself but to the thing in question, that the unrestrained man seems not to know, or not to think of, at the time. This illustration is confused in the text by the insertion of another minor premise ἢ ὅτι ξηρὸν τὸ τοιόνδε, or that food of a certain kind [e.g. stale bread] is dry.
It would have been enough to write ἀλλ’ εἰ τόδε ξηρόν, but whether this [stale loaf] is dry.
Now it is quite possible for a man to act against knowledge when he knows both premises but is only exercising his knowledge of the universal premise and not of the particular; for action has to do with particular things. Moreover, there is a distinction as regards the universal term: one universal is predicated of the man himself, the other of the thing; for example, he may know and be conscious of the knowledge that dry food is good for every man and that he himself is a man, or even that food of a certain kind is dry, but either not possess or not be actualizing the knowledge whether the particular food before him is food of that kind. Now clearly the distinction between these two ways of knowing will make all the difference in the world. It will not seem at all strange that the unrestrained man should know
in one way, but it would be astonishing if he knew in another way.
(3) Again, it is possible for men to have knowledge
in yet another way besides those just discussed; for even in the state of having knowledge without exercising it we can observe a distinction: a man may in a sense both have it and not have it; for instance, when he is asleep, or mad, or drunk. But persons under the influence of passion are in the same condition; for it is evident that anger, sexual desire, and certain other passions, actually alter the state of the body, and in some cases even cause madness. It is clear therefore that we must pronounce the unrestrained to have knowledge
only in the same way as men who are asleep or mad or drunk.
Their using the language of knowledge Footnote 5The reference is to persons of weak will uttering sound moral maxims almost at the very moment of yielding to temptation. is no proof that they possess it. Persons in the states mentioned Footnote 6Viz., asleep or drunk. It may have been some Falstaff of Attic comedy that quoted the moral maxims of Empedocles in his cups. repeat propositions of geometry and verses of Empedocles; students who have just begun a subject reel off its formulae, though they do not yet know their meaning, for knowledge has to become part of the tissue of the mind, and this takes time. Hence we must conceive that men who fail in self-restraint talk in the same way as actors speaking a part.
(4) Again, one may also study the cause of Unrestraint scientifically, Footnote 7i.e., in this case, psychologically: lit. with reference to its nature.
Cf. 8.1.6, 9.7.2, 9.9.7. thus: In a practical syllogism, the major premise is an opinion, while the minor premise deals with particular things, which are the province of perception. Now when the two premises are combined, just as in theoretic reasoning the mind is compelled to affirm the resulting conclusion, so in the case of practical premises you are forced at once to do it. For example, given the premises All sweet things ought to be tasted
and Yonder thing is sweet
—a particular instance of the general class—, you are bound, if able and not prevented, immediately to taste the thing.
When therefore there is present in the mind on the one hand a universal judgement forbidding you to taste and on the other hand a universal judgement saying All sweet things are pleasant,
and a minor premise Yonder thing is sweet
(and it is this minor premise that is active Footnote 8i.e., determines action ( Ross). ) , and when desire is present at the same time, then, though the former universal judgement says Avoid that thing,
the desire leads you to it (since desire can put the various parts of the body in motion). Thus it comes about that when men fail in self-restraint, they act in a sense under the influence of a principle or opinion, but an opinion not in itself but only accidentally opposed to the right principle
(for it is the desire, and not the opinion, that is really opposed). Hence the lower animals cannot be called unrestrained, if only for the reason that they have no power of forming universal concepts, but only mental images and memories of particular things.
If we ask how the unrestrained man’s ignorance is dissipated and he returns to a state of knowledge, the explanation is the same as in the case of drunkenness and sleep, and is not peculiar to failure of self-restraint. We must go for it to physiology.
But inasmuch as the last premise, which originates action, is an opinion as to some object of sense, and it is this opinion which the unrestrained man when under the influence of passion either does not possess, or only possesses in a way which as we saw does not amount to knowing it but only makes him repeat it as the drunken man repeats the maxims of Empedocles, and since the ultimate term is not a universal, and is not deemed to be an object of Scientific Knowledge in the same way as a universal term is, we do seem to be led to the conclusion Footnote 9Cf. 2.1. which Socrates sought to establish.
For the knowledge which is present when failure of self-restraint Footnote 10Here τὸ πάθος means ἀκρατεύεσθαι, cf. 2.2, 3.12, 4.6; but in the following line (cf. 2.1) it probably means ἐπιθυμία or θυμός, as 3.7, 5.5, 7.8. occurs is not what is held to be Knowledge in the true sense, nor is it true Knowledge which is dragged about by passion, but knowledge derived from sense-perception.
So much for the question whether failure of self-restraint can go with knowledge or not, and with knowledge in what sense.