Plato 1: Participation In Duality

[koganbot]

I'm auditing a class in introductory philosophy at Metro State. So I might toss some of my notes in here, from time-to-time.

"Well, then, if one is added to one or if one is divided, you would avoid saying that the addition or the division is the cause of two? You would exclaim loudly that you know no other way by which anything can come into

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[koganbot]

Might as well type out the interchange between Socrates and Cebes that led to the passage about "two" and "duality" that I quoted up top, to remind myself of its strangeness:

"For I think this is the safest answer I can give to myself or to others, and if I were to cleave fast to this, I think I shall never be overthrown, and I believe it is safe for me or anyone else to give this answer, that beautiful things are beautiful through beauty. Do you agree?"

"I do."

"And great things are great and greater things greater by greatness, and smaller things smaller by smallness?

"Yes."

"And you would not accept the statement, if you were told that one man was greater or smaller than another by a head, but you would insist that you say only that every greater thing is greater than another by nothing else than greatness, and that it is greater by reason of greatness, and that which is smaller is smaller by nothing else than its smallness and is smaller by reason of smallness. For you would, I think, be afraid of meeting with this retort, if you said that a man was greater or smaller than another by a head, first that the greater is greater and the smaller is smaller by the same thing, and secondly, that the greater man is greater by a head, which is small, and that it is a monstrous thing that one is great by something that is small. Would you not be afraid of this?"

And Cebes laughed and said "Yes, I should."

"Then," he continued, "you would be afraid to say that ten is more than eight by two and that this is the reason it is more. You would say it is more by number and by reason of number; and a two-cubit measure is greater than a one-cubit measure not by half but by magnitude, would you not? For you would have the same fear."

"Certainly," said he.

"Well, then, if one is added to one..."