Plato, Republic

[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,” [584b] said I, “at pleasures which do not follow on pain, so that you may not haply suppose for the present that it is the nature of pleasure to be a cessation from pain and pain from pleasure.” “Where shall I look,” he said, “and what pleasures do you mean?” “There are many others,” I said, “and especially, if you please to note them, the pleasures connected with smell.⁴ For these with no antecedent pain⁵ suddenly attain an indescribable intensity, and their cessation leaves no pain after them.” “Most true,” he said. “Let us not believe, then, [584c] that the riddance of pain is pure pleasure or that of pleasure pain.” “No, we must not.” “Yet, surely,” said I, “the affections that find their way through the body⁶ to the soul⁷ and are called pleasures are, we may say, the most and the greatest of them, of this type, in some sort releases from pain.⁸?” “Yes, they are.” “And is not this also the character of the anticipatory pleasures and pains that precede them and arise from the expectation of them?” “It is.” [584d]

“Do you know, then, what their quality is and what they most resemble?” “What?” he said. “Do you think that there is such a thing in nature⁹ as up and down and in the middle?” “I do.” “Do you suppose, then, that anyone who is transported from below to the center would have any other opinion than that he was moving upward¹⁰? And if he took his stand at the center and looked in the direction from which he had been transported, do you think he would suppose himself to be anywhere but above, never having seen that which is really above?” “No, by Zeus,” he said, “I do not think that such a person would have any other notion.” [584e] “And if he were borne back,” I said, “he would both think himself to be moving downward and would think truly.” “Of course.” “And would not all this happen to him because of his non-acquaintance with the true and real up and down and middle?” “Obviously.” “Would it surprise you, then,” said I, “if similarly men without experience of truth and reality hold unsound opinions about many other matters, and are so disposed towards pleasure and pain and the intermediate neutral condition that, when they are moved in the direction of the painful,