Key Arguments

• People abstain from some pleasures only because they are more strongly attached to other pleasures, so what looks like self‑control is actually being ‘conquered by pleasure.’
• He notes the paradox that, for such people, ‘the conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure,’ so their ‘temperance’ is grounded in the very intemperance it pretends to master.
• He criticizes the practice of ‘exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins,’ arguing that this kind of external swap is not real virtue.
• He claims there is ‘one true coin’—wisdom—‘for which all things ought to be exchanged,’ and that only when courage, temperance, or justice are acquired ‘in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold.’
• Virtues that are merely composites of fears, pleasures, and similar ‘goods or evils’ when ‘severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another’ are ‘a shadow of virtue only,’ lacking ‘freedom or health or truth.’
• By contrast, ‘in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things,’ so that ‘temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them,’ redefining genuine virtue as a cleansing of the soul from attachment to bodily motives.

Source Quotes

be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep them, they abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome by others; and although to be conquered by pleasure is called by men intemperance, to them the conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that, in a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance. Such appears to be the case.

Such appears to be the case. Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins, is not the exchange of virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice.

Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins, is not the exchange of virtue. O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her?

And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them. The founders of the mysteries would appear to have had a real meaning, and were not talking nonsense when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will lie in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods.

Key Concepts

• there are pleasures which they are afraid of losing; and in their desire to keep them, they abstain from some pleasures, because they are overcome by others; and although to be conquered by pleasure is called by men intemperance, to them the conquest of pleasure consists in being conquered by pleasure. And that is what I mean by saying that, in a sense, they are made temperate through intemperance.
• Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, and of the greater for the less, as if they were coins, is not the exchange of virtue.
• is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice.
• the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her;
• in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are the purgation of them.

Context

Immediately after criticizing common views of courage and temperance as based on fear and desire, Socrates deepens the critique by arguing that non‑philosophical virtue is just a rebalancing of pleasures and pains, and contrasts this with genuine, wisdom‑based virtue.