Natural and Neutral States in Plato's Philebus - Arenson

Natural and Neutral States in Plato’s Philebus *
KELLY E. ARENSON
Department of Philosophy
The University of Memphis
327 Clement Hall
Memphis TN 38152
arenson.k@gmail.com
Abstract
In the Philebus, Plato claims that there exists a natural state of organic harmony in
which a living organism is neither restored nor depleted. In contrast to many scho-
lars, I argue that this natural state of organic stability differs from a neutral state
between pleasure and pain that Plato also discusses in the dialogue: the natural is
without any changes to the organism, the neutral is merely without the perception
of these changes. I contend that Plato considers the natural state to be unobtainable
by human beings, who can only achieve its closest approximation, namely, the neu-
tral state.
Keywords: Philebus, Plato, pleasure
When most of us use the term ‘natural’, we mean to designate what is

usually or customarily the case. For example, we say that a living organ-
ism’s progression from birth to maturation is natural because we see such
a progression regularly. This way of thinking about what is natural is
shared by at least one major ancient thinker – notably, Aristotle – who, at
least in the Physics, looks to what normally happens as a good indicator of
what is natural.1 In Plato’s Philebus, however, we find a different concep-
* All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. All Greek text is from Burnet’s
editions.
1
Aristotle comments in the Physics that what is natural comes to pass always or for
the most part in the same way (196b10–11). In his view, we would not say that
something is ‘natural’ if it is only potentially so. For just as it would be inappropriate
to say that something is artistic if it is only potentially a work of art – ‘if it is a bed
only potentially, not yet having the form of a bed’ – it would be wrong to say that
what doesn’t actually exist is properly natural (193a34–5, trans. R. P. Hardie and
R. K. Gaye). Only when some potential matter is combined with some form to be-
apeiron, vol. 44, pp. 191–210

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)
© Walter de Gruyter 2011 DOI.1515/apeiron/2011.013
Authenticated | 172.16.1.226
Download Date | 6/28/12 11:12 PM
192 Kelly E. Arenson
tion of what it means for something to be natural – specifically, what the

natural state of a living organism looks like. In Plato’s view, an organism’s
natural state – which he explains as a condition of harmony and balance
– cannot ever be achieved; a completely balanced and harmonious condi-
tion of a living thing is an impossibility, and thus, what is ‘natural’ about
this natural state has nothing to do with what normally occurs. Conse-
quently, since the natural state never obtains in living organisms, the hu-
man condition is always less than fully natural.
In this paper, I would like to look at how Plato develops his notion of
the natural state of the organism in the Philebus and the impact this idea
has both on what it means to call something ‘natural’ in the dialogue and
on Plato’s metaphysics generally. I want to argue that the natural state
emerges as an unachievable condition as a result of Plato’s distinction be-
tween the natural state of a living organism and a neutral state between
pleasure and pain. As I will discuss later, many scholars have tended to
conflate the natural state and the neutral state, which has obscured the
fact that their difference clarifies Plato’s counterintuitive ideas on the
meaning of ‘natural’ in the dialogue and the status of the human condi-
tion. I argue that in the Philebus the natural state is a condition of rest,
void of physical processes of replenishment and depletion, in which hu-
mans can focus on reason as much as possible. Since humans can never be
without such processes, according to Plato, the natural state is beyond
their reach. In contrast, the neutral state is a state of flux – the physical
organism is being affected one way or another at all times. What makes
this state ‘neutral’ in Plato’s view is the fact that it does not involve the
perception of physical restorations and depletions in the organism; such
processes are going on nonetheless, but they are too insignificant to be
perceived. The neutral state, then, can closely approximate the natural
state, since the former can seem like a condition in which no physical
processes are occurring, but the two states can never be identical; humans
will have to settle for the neutral state, which necessarily falls short of the
ideal natural condition.
Although Plato’s practice here of defining what is natural indepen-
dently of actual experience and putting the natural state beyond the reach
of living organisms may seem rather counterintuitive to us, it is not all
come an actual thing is it natural. Furthermore, Aristotle claims that if something

exists in actuality only sometimes, it is not natural, for ‘if anything is of a certain
character naturally, it either is so invariably and is not sometimes of this and some-
times of another character (e.g., fire, which travels upwards naturally, does not some-
times do so and sometimes not) or there is a ratio in the variation’ (252a16–19). In
response to Plato’s natural state, the Aristotle of the Physics most likely would have
responded that the term ‘natural’ does not apply since the state is never actualized, let
alone sometimes.

Natural and Neutral States in Plato’s Philebus 193
that unusual for Plato. He formulates his theory of forms according to the
same principle, namely, that sensible phenomena can never completely be-
come the perfect, intelligible forms of which they are images. But what is
interesting about the relationship between the natural state and the neu-
tral state in the Philebus is not simply that here we have another case of
Plato distinguishing an ultimate reality from an inferior one, but that the
relationship can serve as a biological account of what it means, according
to Plato, for humans to emulate an intelligible ideal. I argue that Plato is
formulating a description of the kind of physical condition that best ap-
proximates the unattainable, idealized natural state – the life of a god –
and his formulation is more concrete than that in the Timaeus, another
dialogue where he describes what it means for humans to approximate a
divine state.2
Lastly, I will discuss how Plato’s description of the natural, godlike
state of humans as void of physical disturbances and centered on reason
may also be a commentary on the role of the body in the ideal human
condition. If our coming to resemble a natural state involves limiting dis-
turbances to the body as much as humanly possible so as to focus on
thought, this suggests that Plato considers the body to be something that
must be subdued so as to be ignored. The body may end up amounting to
a volatile mass that keeps us from our ideal state, nothing more than an
obstacle to becoming natural. This discussion will recall some of the anti-
body rhetoric of the Socrates of the Phaedo.
I
I would like to look first at the passages in the Philebus that feature crucial
discussions of the natural and neutral states. The first such discussion fol-
lows on Plato’s early description of pleasure in the dialogue, where So-
2
Although perhaps one might object that since the gods are not subject to physical
flux (either because they do not have bodies or because their bodies are not depleted
and restored like human bodies are), any attempt to draw parallels between divine
and human bodily states is misguided. However, I think it is reasonable to argue, as I
claim Plato does, that as humans experience fewer physical changes and focus on such
changes less and less and on thought more and more, they move closer to the state of
existence possessed by the gods: the gods, for whatever reason, are not concerned with
bodily disturbances, leaving them free to fully engage in thought. The question I
believe Plato is trying to answer is, if being removed from bodily disturbances is ne-
cessary in order to pursue the life of pure thought, what bodily state will best approx-
imate that in which we are immune to physical changes, enabling us to turn our
attention to thought? The neutral state is the closest that humans can come to shar-
ing in divine undisturbedness.

crates assumes that there exists a certain harmony (ἁρμονία) or natural

balance in the functioning of a living organism, a natural state of health
(ὑγίεια) and bodily integrity.3 When this harmony is disrupted, the organ-
ism begins to disintegrate and pain arises (31d4–6). Conversely, when har-
mony is in the process of being reinstated, pleasure arises (31d8–9). A
little later, Socrates reinforces the definition, noting, ‘it has now been said
many times’ that pain arises as a result of various processes disruptive to
the natural functioning of the organism, be they combinations (σύγκρι-
σεις), separations (διάκρισεις), processes of emptying, decay, or growth
(42c9–d3). He goes on to reiterate the definition of pleasure: ‘But when
things are restored (καθιστῆται) to their own nature again, this restoration
(κατάστασιν) is pleasure, as we acknowledged among ourselves’ (42d5–7).
Socrates rattles off a whole host of examples: hunger is a case of disintegra-
tion (λύσις) and pain (λύπη) (31e6), eating is the corresponding refilling
(πλήρωσις) and thus pleasure (31e8); thirst is a destruction and pain
(φθορά καὶ λύπη), while filling with liquid what is dried out is pleasure
(31e10–2a1); separation and dissolution (διάκρισις δέ γ᾽αὖ καὶ διάλυσις ἡ
παρὰ φύσιν), the affection caused by heat, is pain, while cooling down, the
natural restoration (κατὰ φύσιν δὲ πάλιν ἀπόδοσις), is pleasure (32a1–4).
In this definition of pleasure, the natural state is said to involve har-
mony and balance. More specifically, it is, according to Socrates, the prop-
er mixture of two metaphysical entities – the limited (τὸ πέρας) and the
unlimited (τὸ ἄπειρον) – that he mentions in the protracted, intricate dis-
cussions of metaphysics at the beginning of the dialogue. These discussions
are bound up with Socrates and his interlocutor Protarchus’ attempt to
decide which is the good: reason or pleasure. They decide that the best
life is a combination of both. In attempting to decide second prize, So-
crates claims that whatever it is that makes the combined life good and
choiceworthy is more akin to reason than to pleasure (22d4–8). In his
eyes, pleasure would not even receive third prize, since it would follow
after the mixed life, the cause of the mixture’s goodness, and reason alone
(22d8–e3). Protarchus disagrees; he refuses to let Socrates go without a
thorough discussion of which – either pleasure or reason – is more akin
to what makes the mixed life good or is itself the cause of its goodness.
Claiming that they need ‘a different device’ to settle the issue (23b7), So-
crates proposes a method of division of everything that exists (τὰ ὄντα)
into four kinds: the unlimited (τὸ ἄπειρον), the limited (τὸ πέρας), what
3
A. E. Taylor has noted that Plato’s restoration model goes back to Alcmaeon of Cro-
ton, who held that health is a condition of ἰσονομία. See his Plato: Philebus and
Epinomis, ed. Raymond Klibansky (1956; repr. New York: Barnes & Noble Books
1972), 56.

results from their mixture (τὸ ἐξ ἀμφοῖν τούτοιν ἕν τι συμμισγόμενον), and

the mixture’s cause (αἰτία) (23c–7c).
According to Plato, the natural state consists of the combination of
πέρας and ἄπειρον, two of the four beings in the universe. But in terms of
discerning in what, precisely, the natural state consists, this metaphysical
description leaves much to be desired, for the natural state’s having the
proper combination of πέρας and ἄπειρον does not tell us much, concretely,
about its make-up.4 We are better off with the biological description that
Plato gives, namely, that the natural state involves harmony and balance
that is achieved once a living body has been restored to a condition in
which it suffers no deficiencies at all. Such a description follows on Socrates
and Protarchus’ earlier discussion, as the former remarks to the latter:
If what we said is true – that being destroyed is pain, but being restored is
pleasure – let us reflect on the condition of being neither destroyed nor
restored. What state must any animal be in when it is like this? Think hard,
and tell me: is it not entirely necessary that an animal at that time will
experience neither pain nor pleasure, large or small? (32d9–e7)5
Protarchus responds that it is indeed necessary (32e8). Here Socrates de-
scribes the state of an organism that has filled all its physical lacks and is
not moved toward either deficiency or restoration; such an organism is
balanced and harmonious, free of physical disturbances of any size. And
because this state involves neither restorations nor deficiencies, it involves
neither pleasure nor pain, given Plato’s description of those so far.
So, at this stage in the dialogue, there appears to be no difference be-
tween the organism’s natural state and a neutral state between pleasure and
pain, since both consist in an organism being free from physical deficiencies
and from physical restorations, and, consequently, from pleasure and pain.
A condition with this description, Socrates claims, is ‘a third one, besides
the state of being pleased (χαίροντος) and the state of being in pain (λυπου-
μένου)’ (32e9–3a1). And, according to Socrates, this state is obtainable, at
least by a select few. He tells Protarchus, ‘There is nothing to prevent the
person who has chosen the life of thought from living this way,’ and goes
on to remind him that in their earlier discussion of the lives of pleasure and
reason they had agreed that the person who pursues the life of reason enjoys
4
For a helpful discussion of the difficulties with the combination of πέρας and ἄπειρον
in 23b–7c, see Dorothea Frede, Plato: Philebus (Indianapolis: Hackett 1993), xxxiii–
xxxix.
5
Πρῶτον μὲν τοίνυν τόδε συνίδωμεν· [ὡς] εἴπερ ὄντως ἔστι τὸ λεγόμενον, διαφθειρομένων
μὲν αὐτῶν ἀλγηδών, ἀνασῳζομένων δὲ ἡδονή, τῶν μήτε διαφθειρομένων μήτε ἀνασῳζομέ-
νων ἐννοήσωμεν πέρι, τίνα ποτὲ ἕξιν δεῖ τότε ἐν ἑκάστοις εἶναι τοῖς ζῴοις, ὅταν οὕτως ἴσχῃ.
σφόδρα δὲ προσέχων τὸν νοῦν εἰπέ· ἆρα οὐ πᾶσα ἀνάγκη πᾶν ἐν τῷ τότε χρόνῳ ζῷον μήτε
τι λυπεῖσθαι μήτε ἥδεσθαι μήτε μέγα μήτε σμικρόν;

no pleasure whatsoever (33a8–9).6 They agree that such a life is ‘the most
divine’ (θειότατος, 33b7) and that ‘it isn’t likely that the gods experience
either pleasure or the opposite’ (33b8–9). Protarchus points out that plea-
sure and pain would be inappropriate in the case of the gods, presumably
because they do not undergo restorations and depletions, processes that are
required in order to experience pleasure and pain.
As Plato modifies the definition of pleasure in the course of the dialo-
gue and subsequently pulls the natural and neutral states apart, the natural
state of harmony and balance becomes beyond the reach of living organ-
isms. Plato’s modification of the simple restoration model happens concur-
rently with his revision of the description of the neutral state. When So-
crates revisits this state, it is one of several false pleasures discussed in the
dialogue. In his view, people often confuse the painlessness of the neutral
state with pleasure, when, in fact, pleasure and freedom from pain could
not be more different. He sets up this second discussion of the neutral
state much as he did the first: he asks Protarchus what would happen if
living bodies were neither restored nor destroyed (42d9–10). Instead of
repeating his answer from before, that such a state would be neither plea-
sure nor pain, Protarchus, this time less compliant, queries back, ‘When
might that ever happen, Socrates?’ (42d11).7 After Socrates concedes that
such a state of total stagnation could never occur – agreeing with ‘the wise
men’ (οἱ σοφοί) that ‘everything is always in flux, upwards and downwards’
(ἀεὶ γὰρ ἅπαντα ἄνω τε καὶ κάτω ῥεῖ, 43a2–3)8 – he revises his description
6
‘It was agreed in our comparison of lives that one must not enjoy either large plea-
sures or small pleasures in choosing the life of thought and wisdom (τὸν τοῦ νοεῖν καὶ
φρονεῖν)’ (33b2–4).
7
It is unclear why Protarchus does not bring up this objection in the first discussion
of the neutral state, especially since Socrates approaches the issue in the same way
there.
8
Gabriela Carone has argued that Socrates does not take the flux theory seriously, and
thus his description of the neutral state as a state of nonperception of disturbances
rather than a state of inertia is not in earnest. She thinks Socrates concedes the flux
theory ‘only for the sake of argument.’ See her ‘Hedonism and the Pleasureless Life
in Plato’s Philebus’, Phronesis 45 (2000) 269 n. 22. She affirms this as part of her
larger claim that some pure pleasures belong to the domain of οὐσία rather than γέν-
εσις, and thus some of them are not restorations. On her view, if some pure pleasures
belong to οὐσία, then they must not be in flux, and thus the flux theory is not meant
seriously. I think her claim regarding the flux theory is undermined by the fact that
Socrates adheres to it in other dialogues. In the Republic, for instance, one of the
ideas expressed in the divided line passage (509d–11e) is that the whole visible world
is changeable, in contrast to the intelligible realm, which is always the same. This idea
is expressed also in the Timaeus, where the created world is differentiated from the
intelligible realm based on (among other factors) the former’s changeability: what is
intelligible is ‘stable and fixed’ (29b), ‘unchanging’ (28a), ‘neither receives into itself

of the neutral state: it is no longer a state in which nothing disturbs the

body, but a state that lacks perception of disturbances, the point being that
although restorations and disturbances never cease to move the body, we
are not always aware of being affected by them. The example given is
growth, a process that can occur in the body without our knowledge
(43b2–4). It is no longer simply ‘changes upwards and downwards’, that
is, restorations and destructions, that constitute pleasure and pain, respec-
tively, but perceived changes – perceived restorations and destructions. The
neutral state, then, because it does not involve the perception of either
restorations or disturbances in the body, is indeed painless, as Socrates
admits, but it is also ‘without charm’ (ἄνευ χαρμονῶν, 43c11), meaning,
pleasureless; it is a third kind of life, between the life of pleasure and the
life of pain (43c13–d2).9 To emphasize the point, Plato provides a meta-
phor involving three substances: if we have gold, silver, and another mate-
rial that is neither, it would be impossible for the third to turn out to be
either of the other two (43e1–6). Similarly, we have pleasure, pain, and a
third state, freedom from pain, which neither is nor can ever be either of
the others; ‘Being free from pain and experiencing pleasure – each has a
separate nature’ (χωρὶς τοῦ μὴ λυπεῖσθαι καὶ τοῦ χαίρειν ἡ φύσις ἑκατέρου,
44a9–10).
Along with these modified descriptions of the neutral state and the
nature of pleasure, Plato provides a physiology to explain how it is possible
for affections to go unperceived. He claims that the determining factor is
size: great changes cause pleasures and pains, while smaller ones go unno-
ticed (43c4–6). This explanation is supported by Plato’s theory of percep-
tion that he presents earlier in the dialogue: perception consists in a mo-
tion of both the body and soul instigated by one and the same
disturbance (34a3–5).10 Changes that are large enough to be perceived are
anything else from anywhere else, nor itself enters into anything else anywhere’ (52a),
while what is perceived with the senses, i.e., the created world, ‘comes to be and
passes away but never really is’ (28a) and ‘is constantly borne along, now coming to
be in a certain place and then perishing out of it’ (52a; all trans. of Tim. Donald
Zeyl). Furthermore, one could argue that the Theory of Forms is a consequence of
the flux theory. See Cratylus 440a–d, where the changes in the sensible world neces-
sitate the existence of stable forms; the discussion at the end of Republic book 5,
where the objects of knowledge are said to be what really are, while the objects of
opinion come to be; and the Theaetetus (although the status of the flux theory there
is more controversial). Thus, as I see it, Carone’s dismissal of the flux argument in
the Philebus seems unwarranted.
9
’Ἐκ δὴ τούτων τιθῶμεν τριττοὺς ἡμῖν βίους, ἕνα μὲν ἡδύν, τὸν δ᾽ αὖ λυπηρόν, τὸν δ᾽ ἕνα
μηδέτερα (43c13–d1).
10
Socrates claims that perception occurs when affections penetrate both body and soul
‘and cause an agitation that is particular to each but also shared in common’ (33d5–
6).

those that penetrate all the way through the body to the soul; those that
are weak penetrate only the body, leaving the soul untouched. The neutral
state is thus a case of disturbances being too weak to penetrate further
than the body.
I do not wish to go into the intricacies and difficulties of Plato’s theo-
ry of perception as it has to do here with his theory of pleasure.11 Rather,
I am interested in showing that by modifying his bare restoration model,
Plato subsequently modifies his description of the neutral state and splits
it apart from the natural state of physical equilibrium and pure thought
that he described earlier in the dialogue as the most godlike condition for
humans. According to Plato, there is no such thing as a mortal being who
is completely immune to physical restorations and disturbances; but there
is such a thing as a mortal being who simply does not perceive such pro-
cesses because they are too insignificant to have an impact on the soul.
Thus, while the natural state remains a condition of physically not being
affected one way or another, the neutral state has changed in light of Pla-
to’s revised description of pleasure.
In a later passage, Plato continues to sketch out his idea of the natural
state as a goal of processes of physical restoration, but not a process itself,
further distancing the natural state from the real-life, flux-ridden function-
ing of living organisms. He does this by means of an ontological argument
that he attributes to a certain person or group of people, referred to as
κομψοί, or clever, who disqualify pleasure from membership in the class of
things good in themselves. Socrates begins his retelling of the argument by
posing the rhetorical question to Protarchus, ‘Have we not heard about
pleasure, that it is always a coming into being, and that there is no being
at all of pleasure?’ (ἀεὶ γένεσίς ἐστιν, οὐσία δὲ οὐκ ἔστι τὸ παράπαν ἡδονῆς,
53c4–5). There are two kinds of things, Socrates explains, ‘one kind is
itself by itself, but the other is always longing for something else’ (τὸ μὲν
αὐτὸκαθ᾽ αὑτό, τὸ δ᾽ἀεὶ ἐφιέμενον ἄλλου, 53d3–4); and further, one kind is
‘the holiest’ (τὸ σεμνότατον, 53d6) while the other is inferior. He sum-
marizes these remarks: all things are either for the sake of something else,
or are that for which others come to be (53e5–7). Stated differently, if we
have two things, the generation (γένεσις) of all things and being (οὐσία),
the former exists for the sake of the latter (54a5–c4). Shipbuilding is gi-
ven as an example: the craft of building is for the sake of ships, not the
other way around. As Socrates elaborates on his remarks, he loses the
phrasing that would suggest any tentativeness about the views he has ex-
pressed, which is important given the fact that initially he puts the argu-
ment in the mouths of others – those enigmatic κομψοί. He claims, ‘I hold
11
On which see Matthew Evans, ‘Plato and the Meaning of Pain’, Apeiron 40 (2007)
71–93.

that every process of generation (γένεσιν) comes to be for the sake of some
particular being (οὐσίας), and that generations as a whole come to be for
the sake of being in general’ (54c2–4).12 Not only are all things either
generations or being, but all the former are for the sake of some one of
the latter.
This distinction between means and ends neatly sets Socrates up to
introduce the good into the discussion: that for the sake of which some-
thing comes to be (for example, being or ships) should be put into the
class of things ‘good in themselves’, while those that come to be for the
sake of others ‘must be counted as another class (ἄλλην μοῖραν)’
(54c10–11). The argument is clinched by the statement that pleasure, as a
process of generation, comes to be for some being (54c6–7). As something
that comes to be for the sake of another, pleasure is disqualified from
membership in the class of the good, as Socrates goes on to remark: ‘So if
pleasure really is a generation (γένεσις), will we be placing it correctly if we
assign it to a different class (μοῖραν) than that of the good?’ (54d1–2).
Protarchus responds affirmatively.
This ‘process argument’ that Plato uses to debase pleasure is of interest
not only as evidence of his anti-hedonistic tendencies in the dialogue, but
also, and more germane to the project at hand, as a further elucidation of
his conception of the natural state. The lesson from the process argument
is that the culmination of processes of restoration, namely, the state of
harmony in which no deficiency is left to be filled, is not itself a process;
that is, the natural state is ontologically different from the processes that
bring it about, precisely because it does not consist in continual movement
toward an end different from itself. And because living organisms are al-
ways undergoing these goal-oriented processes, strictly speaking they can-
not ever achieve a condition in which restorations are fully realized and
deficiencies are absent, which is to say that the natural state is beyond
their reach.
II
Plato’s conception of the natural state and his disjoining it from the neu-
tral state in the Philebus are significant, on the one hand, because they
bear on the status of the human condition in the dialogue. A consequence
of putting the natural state beyond the reach of living beings is that the
human condition is always less than fully natural and harmonious. Since
humans can never completely restore their physical harmony and balance,
12
Plato uses φημί at the beginning of the sentence of which the one quoted is the
second clause.

and since they are always affected by some disturbance, they always fall
short of being entirely natural. Even the person who lives the life of rea-
son, which Socrates called the most godlike state, is not immune to the
constant fluctuations that beset all living organisms.
This does not mean, however, that Plato considers the human condi-
tion or all organic functioning to be unnatural. In the Philebus he de-
scribes certain physical processes that humans experience on a regular basis
as ‘natural’, suggesting that he has maintained some way of talking about
naturalness in an organism that is less than fully natural. But one must
investigate what he means in these instances, given the fact that he estab-
lishes as the standard for what is natural a state that can never be realized
by mortal beings. In what sense can certain aspects of mortal life be ‘nat-
ural’, in light of the fact that the natural state is unachievable?
Let’s look at a passage where Socrates makes reference to a ‘natural’
phenomenon. In his initial description of pleasure, when the restoration
model is first explained to Protarchus, several of Socrates’ examples of
pleasure as a restoration feature the language of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’.
For instance, he claims that ‘unnatural (παρὰ φύσιν) dissolution and se-
paration, the πάθη from excessive heat, is pain, and the natural (κατὰ
φύσιν) return back and cooling is pleasure’ (32a1–4); ‘And the unnatural
(παρὰ φύσιν) freezing of an animal from the congealing of moisture is
pain, and the return back – the natural (κατὰ φύσιν) removal and dissolu-
tion – this process is pleasure’ (32a6–8). Clearly, Plato wants to be able to
say that certain organic processes are natural even though humans can
never attain a fully natural state. One way for him to do this is to relate
them as means and ends, a relationship that makes sense given that we’re
talking about processes and end-states. And this is exactly the tack he
takes: processes of restoration are natural because they contribute to the
balance and harmony that is characteristic of the unachievable natural
state. Similarly, processes of disintegration are unnatural because they are
movements away from a state in which all deficiencies are completely
filled. So, Plato might say that processes of restoration are instrumentally
natural, but not natural in themselves. Plato thus preserves a way of calling
‘natural’ something that pertains to a living organism, even though the
organism can never be fully natural.
III
We can see that the natural state according to Plato is something that is
never experienced by living organisms; it is the idealized, perfect condition
of a living thing. That Plato calls this state ‘godlike’ underscores its flaw-
lessness and exemplariness. Although this practice of characterizing what is
ideal as beyond human sensible experience may seem unintuitive to us, it

is, I think, par for the course as far as Platonic metaphysics is concerned:
in several dialogues Plato distinguishes imperfect, sensible objects from
their flawless, intelligible counterparts that are never encountered in sen-
sory experience.13
But what is most interesting about the relationship between the ideal
natural state and lived experience in the Philebus is not that here we have
another instance of Plato distancing the ideal from the tangible; rather,
the Philebus makes a unique contribution to deciphering what it means
according to Plato for a human physically to become like an ideal – like a
god even – not just to participate in forms in the way that objects and
ideas do. I want to argue that human organisms can achieve something
like the ideal natural state as Plato describes it when they reach the neutral
state between pleasure and pain. Now, earlier I discussed how Plato de-
fines the neutral state as a condition in which restorations and destruc-
tions in the body are too insignificant to be perceived by the soul. The
closest an organism can get to the impossible natural state is just this sort
of condition, where physical processes of replenishment and depletion are
so minor that they go unnoticed, leaving the organism free to contem-
plate. Presumably, living organisms can achieve the neutral state if they
adopt certain practices aimed at reducing the intensity of disturbances in
the body and focus solely on thought. Such practices might include taking
13
In the Phaedo, for instance, Socrates claims that equal sense objects, like two sticks or
stones, are different from the form of Equal itself. We never encounter perfect equal-
ity in sense objects, Socrates claims, and so there is ‘some deficiency in these things
being such as the Equal’ (ἐνδεῖ τι ἐκείνου τῷ τοιοῦτον εἶναι οἷον τὸ ἴσον, 74d6–7); his
interlocutor chimes in that indeed ‘there is a considerable deficiency’ (74d8). Here
we find Plato asserting that what is most real is not something we can ever witness in
the sensible realm; what we see in front of us – two sticks that appear to be equal to
one person, but unequal to another, for instance – strives to approximate a higher
reality but ‘is deficient and incapable of being such as the other, since it is inferior’
(ἐνδεῖ δὲ καὶ οῦ δύναται τοιοῦτον εἶναι [ἴσον] οἷον ἐκεῖνο, ἀλλ᾽ ἔστιν φαυλότερον,
74e1–2). And even though we cannot ever experience the perfectly equal Equal itself,
Plato thinks, in the Phaedo at least, that we use this intelligible ideal as a standard by
which to measure sensible, metaphysically inferior objects.
Similarly, in the discussion of the role of geometry and astronomy in leading us to-
ward the good in book 7 of the Republic, Socrates claims that it would be silly to try
to find the truth about motion or number in the visible motions of the heavens,
thinking that these mutable, imperfect movements could yield wisdom. Visible mo-
tions, he says, ‘fall considerably short of the true ones, which are really quick or really
slow with respect to true number and true shapes’ (529d1–2). As in the discussion
of the equal in the Phaedo, here in the Republic Plato establishes an ideal that never
manifests itself in the visible world; true motion and number are not tangible things.
Given this track record, there is good reason to believe that Plato means to conceive
the natural state as an ideal, unattainable condition that is beyond human experience,
something that we never see but only approximate.

steps to ensure that one is never extremely hungry or thirsty, or very cold
or hot, so that the restorations with respect to these deficiencies will not
be violent. The point is that the description of the neutral state in the
Philebus serves as a concrete, biological account of what it means to
become like god insofar as this is possible for mortals.14 Plato is describing
the physical functioning that best approximates that found in the unachie-
vable natural state.
One might argue, however, that in the Philebus Plato never comes
right out and valorizes the neutral state as the best condition available to
humans, nor does he claim that humans ought to pursue it. Nevertheless,
I think he gives us good reason in the dialogue to believe that he supports
both. It is clear in the Philebus that Plato disapproves of people who
spend their lives constantly creating great deficiencies in the body so as to
provoke violent restorations. He claims that those who feel greater depri-
vations and greater replenishments, and thereby greater pains and plea-
sures, are the sick and diseased (45b). Socrates asks his interlocutor, ‘So is
it that pleasures are greater and become greater in the case of those who
are suffering from sickness than in the case of those who are healthy?’
(45a7–8) – a proposition that Protarchus deems ‘quite likely’ (45b2). A
few lines later, Socrates adds, ‘But is it not the case that those who have a
fever and other such illnesses are accustomed to suffering more from
thirst, cold, and however many other things having to do with the body,
experiencing greater deficiencies and greater pleasures of replenishment?’
(45b6–10) – another claim Protarchus enthusiastically accepts (45b11).
According to Plato, a constitution that is rattled by violent deficiencies
and restorations is far from healthy. But there is not only something phy-
sically unhealthy about an organism wracked by intense internal move-
ments: Plato thinks there is something morally deficient about it as well.
He claims that those who seek intense restorations are intemperate and
foolish (45e2–3); in contrast, ‘those who are temperate (τοὺς σώφρονας)
are directed at all times by the proverb that orders “nothing too much”, a
saying by which the temperate are persuaded’ (45d7–e2). Socrates and
Protarchus conclude that the most intense pleasures and pains, stemming
from intense processes of restoration and destruction, respectively, origi-
nate in ‘some wickedness of soul and body, but not in virtue’ (ἔν τινι πο-
νηρίᾳ ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ σώματος, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐν ἀρετῇ, 45e6).
14
By ‘biological’ I mean those things, either physical or mental, that pertain to the body
(which would include mental processes insofar as they pertain to the workings of the
body). I do not consider mental processes such as learning to be ‘biological’, for
although humans are biological creatures and can experience mental processes such as
learning, it is not qua biological beings that humans experience learning.

Moreover, Plato seems interested in chiding anyone who locates the

good in processes of bodily restoration, large or small. This makes sense
given the anti-hedonistic process argument that he puts forward, that all
processes are metaphysically inferior to their ends. People who seek the
good in processes of restoration rather than in the goal of such processes,
namely, to be fully restored and without deficiency, make a fundamental
mistake, for they are fixated on the realm of becoming rather than on the
ontologically superior realm of being. Thus Plato claims that one who
takes the process argument seriously will ‘laugh at those who are fulfilled
by processes of generation (ταῖς γενέσεσιν)’ (54e1–2), these people being
the ones who ‘rejoice in processes of generation (τὴν γένεσιν), seeing as
they are pleasure, and claim they wouldn’t want to live if they weren’t ever
thirsty or hungry’ (54e5–7). He adds that whoever chooses this life of
becoming ‘would choose destruction and processes of generation, but not
that third life, in which we experience neither pleasure nor pain’ (55a5–
7). Protarchus responds that such a choice would indeed be absurd (55a9),
indicating that the neutral state between pleasure and pain ought to be
preferred.
Similar sentiments appear in the Gorgias, where Socrates makes Calli-
cles squirm by claiming that if the pleasant life consists in cultivating and
satisfying large appetites, as Callicles claims,15 then such a life is doomed
to be like the activity of one constantly refilling leaky jars with water car-
ried in a leaky sieve. This poor soul is ‘continually forced, night and day,
to fill them, or he experiences extreme pain’ (493e8–4a1). The self-con-
trolled man is better off, Socrates claims, because ‘having filled his jars, he
neither carries more water to them nor does he think anything more
about them. But rather, he is calm (ἡσυχίαν) about them’ (493e4–6). As
Callicles remarks, the life proposed by Socrates is without pleasure and
pain; it is the life of a stone, in Callicles’ opinion. But to Socrates, there is
something very dubious about the claim that the happy life consists in
constantly remedying a physical deficiency – be it by eating, drinking, or
scratching an itch.
All of this suggests that Plato believes that humans should avoid mak-
ing the physical processes of the organism the central concern of their
lives, and should focus instead on achieving a life that involves as little
distraction as possible by the physical aspects of human existence. The
15
Unsurprisingly, Callicles’ position is quite extreme: ‘How might a man become happy
if he’s enslaved to anything whatsoever? But rather, this is what is noble and just by
nature, which I’m telling you now openly, that the one who lives his life correctly
ought to allow his appetites to be as big as possible and should not curtail them’
(491e5–9). The hedonism of the Philebus’ eponymous interlocutor is likewise facile.
Cf. Philebus, 11b-c.

neutral state Plato describes in the Philebus – a condition that involves

miniscule disturbances to the body – fits the bill, and closely approximates
the unattainable natural state. To become like a god is to enter into a
specific biological state with certain parameters, namely, the lack of signifi-
cant restorations and destructions.
Of course, the Philebus is not the only dialogue where we find Plato
attempting to describe what it means for humans to become like god or
to emulate the activity of a perfect, intelligible ideal: in the Timaeus Plato
describes how humans can live the most divine life possible for mortals.
Timaeus claims that when a soul, which consists of two rotating orbits
constructed from metaphysical materials, is implanted in a body at birth
and sense perceptions begin to strike it, the orbits are severely thrown out
of whack; they are so misaligned that they cause the soul to make false
judgments and the whole organism to reel in all directions. Timaeus con-
trasts the chaos of the human soul with the harmonic and smooth mo-
tions of the orbits of the divine world soul. Human souls can become like
the world soul by emulating the smooth motions of the former’s orbits,
and this process of aligning the orbits is ultimately what is responsible for
human intelligence. Once the orbits of the human soul are ‘set straight, to
conform to the configuration each of the circles takes in its natural course’
(44b), the soul is able to make correct judgments and be wise. As in the
Philebus, the Timaeus features an account of humans becoming like god.
This is not just a case of an object participating in an intelligible form, as
a bed might participate in the idea of Bed itself, but an attempt to talk
about what it actually means for humans to enter into a process of becom-
ing like something ideal and perfect.
But the Philebus account, I want to argue, is more concrete than the
treatment of becoming like god in the Timaeus. The Timaeus is a creation
myth, a ‘likely story’, as Plato often calls his allegories. In keeping with the
mythical character of the text, Plato is interested in giving a metaphorical
account of how humans can become like god. In other words, the Timaeus
does not give us a biological description of what it means for a living organ-
ism to physically approximate a divine state, and thus that dialogue’s account
does not trivialize the Philebus’. The Philebus is unique among Plato’s dialo-
gues for its contribution of a non-metaphorical account of living like god.
IV
It is interesting that although Plato’s distinction between an unreachable
natural state and an attainable neutral state bears on so many issues, it has
largely been overlooked by readers of the dialogue, both ancient and mod-
ern. Dorothea Frede does not mention any difference between the natural
state and the neutral state, not even when she discusses the dialogue’s

main passages where Plato specifically deals with them.16 When she ad-
dresses Plato’s second treatment of the neutral state in the dialogue (42d-
4b), where he explicitly defines it as a state lacking perceptions of organic
changes, she persists in calling it a ‘state of rest’.17 In his book, Pleasure
and the Good Life, Gerd Van Riel does mention, in passing, the difference
between the natural and neutral states.18 However, he does not consider
that, in the notions of an unattainable, ideal state and its realizable ver-
sion, the neutral state, we find Plato attempting to articulate a biological
account of what it means for humans to become like god, and to do so
differently than in the Timaeus.
Ancient commentators on Plato also missed the distinction. In his
chapter on the emotions in the Handbook of Platonism, Alcinous claims
that ‘the natural state [Plato] considers to be that between distress and
pleasure, being the same as neither of them, and it is the state in which
we spend most of our time.’19 Alcinous makes no distinction between an
unachievable natural state and a neutral state between pleasure and pain;
indeed, he seems to think that the natural state is achieved quite fre-
quently. And John Dillon, in his commentary on this section of Alcinous’
text, notes the relevant passages of the Philebus on which Alcinous is
drawing (namely, 31d-3a and 42c-d) but mentions neither that Plato
thinks the two states are different nor that Alcinous misses this point.20 In
addition, Damascius mentions in his Lectures on the Philebus only ‘a life
in accord with nature’, but not a distinct neutral state.21
16
See, for example, her article, ‘Disintegration and Restoration: Pleasure and Pain in
Plato’s Philebus’, Richard Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press 1992) 425–63. On her reading, Plato is claiming
that the neutral state is not a pleasure ‘because it is not the restoration of a lack’
(‘Disintegration and Restoration’, 448). She makes the same point in another work:
‘To call a state of undisturbance “pleasure” clearly violates Plato’s definition of plea-
sure as the restoration of a disturbance’ (Plato: Philebus, xlix). To call such a state
‘pleasure’ does not in fact violate Plato’s definition as Frede has reported it, i.e., plea-
sure as a restoration simpliciter, for restorations and destructions continue to take
place in the body even in a ‘neutral state’. Rather, the violation is of the perception
requirement entailed in the modified definition at 42c: the neutral state does not
involve the perception of restoration, and thus it cannot be a pleasure.
17
‘Disintegration and Restoration’, 448.
18
See Gerd Van Riel, Pleasure and the Good Life (Leiden: Brill 2000), 26–9.
19
Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism, trans. and comm. John Dillon (Oxford: Clar-
endon 1993), 32 5. It is also interesting, as Dillon points out in the commentary, that
Alcinous uses the term κατάστημα for ‘state’, although Plato uses κατάστασις. The
former term belongs more to the Epicureans.
20
See The Handbook of Platonism, 197 (Dillon’s commentary on 32 5–7).
21
Cf. Damascius, Lectures on the Philebus, Wrongly Attributed to Olympiodorus, ed. L.
G. Westerink (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company 1959), §144.

What ancient and modern commentators have missed, though, is the

extent to which the treatment of what is natural in the Philebus helps us
to discern what Plato means for a person to become like an intelligible
ideal – to approach a divine state. As I have argued, in this dialogue Plato
gives an account of what it means, biologically, for humans to become as
natural as they are able, given the conditions to which their organisms are
subject. And according to Plato, because we are never in a state of rest we
can never achieve the perfect harmony and utter quietude that is charac-
teristic of the natural state.
V
My investigation here indicates that the natural state of human organ-
isms, as it is portrayed in the Philebus, is identical to the divine state,
which, given further consideration, might strike us as odd. Would Plato
really have claimed that what is natural for a mortal organism is the
same as the state of an immortal god? Of course, it could be argued22
that in the Philebus Plato is not talking about what is natural only for
humans but for all living organisms, including gods, whom Plato some-
times asserts are living creatures too.23 The point of such an argument
would be that Plato is not identifying what is divine with what is prop-
erly human, even if what is properly human is an ideal, unrealized con-
dition; but rather, the point would be to claim that Plato is talking
about an ideal natural state that applies to all living things in general,
including gods, by virtue of their being living things, divine or not.
However, I don’t think Plato can be let off the hook so easily, for the
whole scope of the dialogue tells against the view that he is interested in
talking about living things generally, rather than about what belongs to
humans in particular. At the beginning of the dialogue, when Socrates
and Protarchus are setting the stage for the ensuing discussions of the
place of reason and pleasure in the best life, it is clear that they are
talking about the lives of humans, and not the lives of living things gen-
erally. For example, Socrates asks Protarchus to confirm that each is ‘at-
tempting to show that some habit of the soul or disposition is what is
capable of providing the happy life to all human beings (ἀνθρώποις)’
22
Carone, for instance, claims that when Plato talks about restoring the natural har-
mony of a living organism, he means the state that is shared by all living things,
including gods, and not a state that is particularly human. See ‘Hedonism and the
Pleasureless Life in Plato’s Philebus’, 262–4.
23
In the Timaeus, for instance, he claims that ‘divine providence brought our world
into being as a truly living thing, endowed with soul and intelligence’ (30c), and later
he calls this world ‘a blessed god’ (34b).

(11d4–6). Later Protarchus claims that they are searching for ‘the best
of all human possessions (τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων)’ (19c6). And at the end of
the dialogue, they wonder which ingredient in the mixed life of pleasure
and knowledge ‘makes it loved by all of us (ἡμῖν)’ (64c6). Given these
statements, it seems likely that Plato’s natural state in the Philebus be-
longs to mortals, and thus he really does mean to identify the divine
state with a properly human one. It makes sense, then, that Plato would
put the natural state beyond the reach of humans: by doing so, he is
not forced to admit that humans can actually be gods; they can only be
like gods, if they attain the conditions of the neutral state between plea-
sure and pain.
The neutral state, then, the condition in which restorations and dis-
turbances are too insignificant to be perceived, is the closest that humans
can come to becoming like god and to being fully natural. In this state
of quasi-undisturbedness, humans are not pestered by the physical work-
ings and demands of the body. There is not some deficiency that is de-
manding attention, like hunger or thirst, nagging at us to be filled. In
the neutral state we are not reminded that we have bodies; we can al-
most forget that we are chained to an organic mass that is subject to
physical forces beyond our control. Furthermore, we can focus almost ex-
clusively on contemplation, and so intellectual, rather than physical, mat-
ters, can become our main concern. In the neutral state, humans become
like god by mimicking god’s inattention to the body. Plato’s notion of
the most desirable organic state for humans, then, includes an implicit
commentary on the value of the body in the best human life. Now, this
is not to say that in the Philebus Plato believes the body has no place in
humans’ attempts to approach the divine life, for, after all, a state in
which the body suffers minimal disturbances is a condition of physical
health. Plato’s point is not that we should abandon the body in favor of
higher concerns; but rather, we should take care of the body so that we
can attend to those higher concerns. In other words, the balanced, har-
monious body is in some sense a prerequisite for the life of reason. Pla-
to’s point may be that we cannot very well devote ourselves wholeheart-
edly to contemplation if we are spending all our time tending to the
needs of an unhealthy body.
But even as a prerequisite, the body still seems like an obstacle to the
divine life of reason and the fully natural state in the Philebus, something
that must be dealt with in order to achieve greater things. The relative
harmony and balance of the body is not an end-in-itself; rather, we are
striving for our chance to be like a divine organism that is immune to the
needs and fluctuations of a mortal body. Incidentally, we have seen this
view before in the Platonic corpus: in the Phaedo, Socrates claims that the
philosopher, more than any other person, will be able to free his soul from
the body as much as possible, and the philosopher does this, Socrates con-

tinues, because the body is an obstacle to the soul in the search for
knowledge (65b). With a remark that would have been right at home in
the Philebus, the Socrates of the Phaedo tells his interlocutor, ‘To be sure,
the soul reasons best whenever none of these troubles it: neither hearing
nor sight, nor pain nor some pleasure, but when it is most by itself, re-
nouncing the body, and, as far as it can, having no contact or anything to
do with the body, as it reaches out for what is real’ (65c4–5). As I men-
tioned, I think Plato’s attitude toward the body in the Philebus is more
complex than the mere rejection of it that he seems to advocate in the
Phaedo, but there is an undeniably striking resemblance between the two
texts. In both dialogues, he seems to leave room for the possibility that
the soul may achieve a natural state all its own when it detaches itself as
far as it can from the body – either when it is as disinterested as possible
in its physical functioning or when it roams the intelligible realm, free
and clear of the body. Unlike the natural state of the compound of body
and soul, the natural state of the soul alone would not receive a biological
account. Of course, Plato does not mention a natural state belonging
properly to the soul in the Philebus, but it is an intriguing notion, one
that becomes more plausible when, as I mentioned, Plato’s thoughts on
the body, soul, and pleasure in the Philebus are juxtaposed with those of
the Phaedo.
Plato’s claim that what is natural is an unattainable ideal may have
formed part of a trajectory in ancient thought of distancing what is natur-
al from what is seen regularly. In Stoicism, for instance, to live virtuously
is to live in accordance with reason, which comes naturally to rational
beings.24 Yet, some Stoics, evidently, thought that virtuous people were
few and far between.25 Here we notice the same tendency to idealize what
is natural, to isolate the conception of natural behavior from what is
known empirically. And as Julia Annas has noted, the Stoics have no satis-
fying explanation for why rational beings are so unnatural, that is, lacking
virtue, when virtue is supposed to be natural.26 Plato, at any rate, has an
explanation for his kind of non-naturalness: living organisms, subject as
they are to biological flux, are not capable of completely filling their defi-
ciencies. Our inability to be natural is a consequence of our status as cre-
ated beings, who are always subject to biological changes. Yet, the question
of why humans are surrounded by what is unnatural or less than fully
natural seems secondary to a further, more fundamental issue: we can ea-
24
See Diogenes Laertius (VII 86), who quotes Chrysippus’ Περὶ τελῶν.
25
See Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De Fato, 199.14–22. A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, eds.,
The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987), 61 N 2.
26
For her discussion of this issue see chapter 5 of The Morality of Happiness (Oxford:
Oxford University Press 1995).

sily grasp that certain unobtainable or nearly unobtainable conditions are

‘godlike’ or ‘ideal’, but the rub lies in calling ‘natural’ something that never
manifests itself in the sensible world in the first place. As to that, Plato
leaves us rather unsatisfied.27
27
Many thanks to the participants of the 32nd Annual Ancient Philosophy Workshop,
held at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, for their
comments on this paper. Also thanks to the members of the philosophy departments
at The University of Memphis, The University of North Florida, and St. Vincent
College for their input on the paper’s earliest version.


Natural and Neutral States in Plato&#39;s Philebus - Arenson

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Natural and Neutral States in Plato&#39;s Philebus - Arenson

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Natural and Neutral States in Plato’s Philebus *

When most of us use the term ‘natural’, we mean to designate what is

apeiron, vol. 44, pp. 191–210

tion of what it means for something to be natural – specifically, what the

come an actual thing is it natural. Furthermore, Aristotle claims that if something

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

crates assumes that there exists a certain harmony (ἁρμονία) or natural

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

results from their mixture (τὸ ἐξ ἀμφοῖν τούτοιν ἕν τι συμμισγόμενον), and

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

of the neutral state: it is no longer a state in which nothing disturbs the

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Moreover, Plato seems interested in chiding anyone who locates the

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

neutral state Plato describes in the Philebus – a condition that involves

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

What ancient and modern commentators have missed, though, is the

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

sily grasp that certain unobtainable or nearly unobtainable conditions are

Brought to you by | Pontificia Universidad (Pontificia Universidad)

You might also like

Natural and Neutral States in Plato's Philebus - Arenson

Natural and Neutral States in Plato's Philebus - Arenson