Metaphysics And Ethics In Philebus

Philebus is often divided into two parts, i.e., the part of metaphysics and the part of ethics: the former deal with the problems of “One and Many” and “fourfold division of all beings”, and the later discussing the problem of pleasure. For a long time, the two parts was studied separately, the relationship between of them has been ignored by scholars. Whereas, if we read this dialogue as a complete drama, and think that there is a comprehensive consideration when Plato write this dialogue, we are supposed to pay more attention on the relationship of the two parts. When it comes to this relationship, scholars usually claim that the two parts in Philebus tie closely to each other with metaphysics making a foundation and ethics providing an objective. However, we suggest that there is a split between the two parts.This dissertation will show this split firstly and then try to argue it reasonably.In the first chapter, we elaborated the scene, persons and plots(structure) of the dialogue to make some preparation for the following discussions. By which we also revealed the three questions of this dialogue:(1) the superficial question of which is the Good between pleasure and intelligence;(2) the deep question of the relationship between metaphysics and ethics,which bring about by the way of Socrates’ discussion or by the structure of the dialogue;(3)the background question of educating the youth, i.e., who is entitled to be a teacher for the youth, or who really “corrupted the youth” between Socrates and Philebus.The second chapter discuss the first metaphysical problem about “One and Many”,which is regarded by Socrates as a presupposition for answering the question about which is definitely the Good between pleasure and intelligence. We have puzzled a lot about the questions themselves, and Socrates did not answer these questions, instead, he dodged it through the “God-given-way”. Through Parmenides we know that these questions are so complicated that they are beyond human’s understanding. According the “God-given-way”,Socrates was supposed to make clear the numbers between the One and the Many, namely classify pleasure and knowledge. While this task was give up by Socrates, instead, by an argument basing some commonsense rather than any metaphysics, he prove out the core issue of this dialogue that the Good is mixture of pleasure and intelligence. If so, the argument about metaphysics laying a foundation for ethics is indefensible.The third chapter discuss the second metaphysical problem about the “fourfold division of all beings”. By Socrates, intelligence is not the true Good, but it is the “cause”(one of thefour beings) of the mixture of pleasure and intelligence as the Good. By a delicate cosmology,he argue that the universal mind is “the king of heaven and earth” and which governed all things, so it belongs to the kind of cause; accordingly, the human is like a micro cosmos and his mind governs the whole body, so it also belongs to the kind of cause. In this macrocosm-microcosm argument, Socrates implies that the universal mind is the highest Good, which can be the highest guidance for us to live a good life. In this sense, certainly we can say that metaphysics lays a foundation for ethics. But this “foundation” is apparently regulative but not of reality, because we can not totally access to this kind of Good and it cannot be the foundation for us secular ethical being in this real world.In the fourth chapter, we deal with the very complicated dialectical analysis about pleasure and knowledge. We find that these analyses reach to a conclusion that the truest pleasure is the intellectual pleasure and the truest knowledge is the knowledge about dialectics coincidental with the intelligence of our soul, both of which confirmed the supreme status of intelligence in the soul of human beings, and the unmixed intelligence was metaphysically(ontologically) argued as the highest Good through the discussion of “being and become”.Therefore, if we wanted to lay a metaphysical foundation for our ethical life, we should have lived a purely intellectual divine life, whereas, we cannot live this kind of life and can only wander between divine life and secular life.At last, we give a explanation about the conclusion of this dialogue. When we carefully and thoroughly think the metaphor of “the way home”, we find that Socrates gave a education to Protagoras rather ambiguously: on the one hand, he told Protagoras the best life was the mixture of all kinds of pleasure and knowledge; on the other hand, he told him the life of true value was the divine life full of unmixed intelligence. Whereas, we should not misunderstand this ambiguity as a mess of thought, instead, it is based on a profound understanding about the relationship between ethics and metaphysics: the life in cave combined with pleasure and knowledge needs no metaphysical foundation, what it needs is the norm, statute laws or opinions form authority; metaphysical foundation is only adapt to a life out of cave, which is our ideal but cannot come true in reality. This is also why Socrates gave an ambiguous explanation on the highest Good.