[584a]
“Yes.” “And did we not just now see that to
feel neither pain nor pleasure is a quietude of the soul and an intermediate
state between the two?” “Yes, we did.”
“How, then, can it be right to think the absence of pain pleasure,
or the absence of joy painful?” “In no way.”
“This is not a reality, then, but an illusion,” said I;
“in such case the quietude in juxtaposition1
with the pain appears pleasure, and in juxtaposition with the pleasure pain.
And these illusions have no real bearing2 on the truth of pleasure, but are a kind of jugglery.3” “So at
any rate our argument signifies,” he said. “Take a look,
then,”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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