The Good Life and the Good

Plato's Philebus 20b3-23a5

Abstract

Since the good escapes our direct mental grasp (65al), Socrates investigates it indirectly, in terms of the cause of the goodness for the good mixed life (61a7-b7, 64cl-65a6). He prepared this way of investigation in 20b3-23a5, by shifting the direct objects of examination from the candidates for the good to those for the good life, and by specifying the good solely as the cause of the goodness for the good mixed life (23d6-7). A careful reading of those passages suggests that the direct object of our will is the good life rather than the good as such, and that it is the good mixed life that "seizes" (23d6) the good directly.