[438a]
“Let no one
then,”1 said
I, “disconcert us when off our guard with the objection that
everybody desires not drink but good drink and not food but good food,
because (the argument will run2) all men desire good, and so, if
thirst is desire, it would be of good drink or of good whatsoever it is; and
so similarly of other desires.” “Why,” he
said, “there perhaps would seem to be something in that
objection.” “But I need hardly remind you,”
said I,
1 μήτοι τις=look you to it that no one, etc.
2 ἄρα marks the rejection of this reasoning. Cf 358 C, 364 E, 381 E, 499 C. Plato of course is not repudiating his doctrine that all men really will the good, but the logic of this passage requires us to treat the desire of good as a distinct qualification of the mere drink.
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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