ALKIBIADES II.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Grote, George
The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.
But what are we to understand by the Good, about which there are so many disputes, according to the acknowledgment of Plato as well as of Sokrates? And what are we to understand by the Profitable? In what relation does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful?
These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere. We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning.
Source notes
77 Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B. Compare Xenophon, Œkonomicus, i. 8, 13.
78 Leges, iii. 689 A-D, 691 A.
79 Xenoph. Memor. i. 2. 17; iv. 3. 1.
80 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 6, 8; iv. 7, 7.