Re: charmidesjessicahallockJanuary 28 2008, 05:01:19 UTC
Yes, I said, some one who knows the past and present as well as the future, and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such a person, and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing of all living men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds of knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
Not all equally, he replied.
...of health?
That is nearer the truth, he said.
And that knowledge which is nearest of all, I said, is the knowledge of what?
The knowledge with which he discerns good and evil.
Monster! I said; you have been carrying me round in a circle, and all this time hiding from me the fact that the life according to knowledge is not that which makes men act rightly and be happy, not even if knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this, medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes?-whether the art of the pilot will not equally save our lives at sea, and the art of the general in war?
Quite so.
And yet, my dear Critias, none of these things will be well or beneficially done, if the science of the good be wanting.
future, and is ignorant of nothing. Let us suppose that there is such
a person, and if there is, you will allow that he is the most knowing
of all living men.
Certainly he is.
Yet I should like to know one thing more: which of the different kinds
of knowledge makes him happy? or do all equally make him happy?
Not all equally, he replied.
...of health?
That is nearer the truth, he said.
And that knowledge which is nearest of all, I said, is the knowledge of what?
The knowledge with which he discerns good and evil.
Monster! I said; you have been carrying me round in a circle, and all
this time hiding from me the fact that the life according to knowledge
is not that which makes men act rightly and be happy, not even if
knowledge include all the sciences, but one science only, that of good
and evil. For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away
this, medicine will not equally give health, and shoemaking equally
produce shoes, and the art of the weaver clothes?-whether the art of
the pilot will not equally save our lives at sea, and the art of the
general in war?
Quite so.
And yet, my dear Critias, none of these things will be well or
beneficially done, if the science of the good be wanting.
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