Opposition, nature of, Phaedo 104, 105 ; Rep. 5.475 E ;—OPPOSITION of ideas and things, Parm. 129; of ‘ like ‘ and ‘ unlike,’ ‘ many ‘ and ‘ one,’ ibid. ; Soph. 251 ; Phil. 14-16 (see One) :—OPPOSITION and negation, Soph. 257 ; OPPOSITION and essence, ib. 258;—OPPOSITIONs in the sou), Rep. 10.603 D ; Soph. 228 ; Laws 10. 896 E ;—OPPOSITIONs of character, Theaet. 144 B ; Statesm. 307, 308; Rep. 1. 329 D ; 6. 503.
Demodocus : In view of this, Socrates, say no more in OPPOSITION to the lad ; for Theages is right in what he says. THEAGES
When Alcibiades had done speaking, some one — Critias, I believe — went on to say : O Prodicus and Hippias, Callias appears to me to be a partisan of Protagoras : and this led Alcibiades, who loves OPPOSITION, to take the other side. But we should not be partisans either of Socrates or of Protagoras ; let us rather unite in entreating both of them not to break up the discussion. PROTAGORAS
Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then awhile, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges — for you I may truly call judges — I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything ; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of OPPOSITION, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say ; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech ; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this ? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good. APOLOGY
(103a) Socrates : Son of Cleinias, I think it must surprise you that I, the first of all your lovers, am the only one of them who has not given up his suit and thrown you over, and whereas they have all pestered you with their conversation I have not spoken one word to you for so many years. The cause of this has been nothing human, but a certain spiritual OPPOSITION, of whose power you shall be informed at some later time. However, it now opposes me no longer, (103b) so I have accordingly come to you ; and I am in good hopes that it will not oppose me again in the future. Now I have been observing you all this time, and have formed a pretty good notion of your behavior to your lovers : for although they were many and high-spirited, everyone of them has found your spirit too strong for him and has run away. (104a) Let me explain the reason of your spirit being too much for them. You say you have no need of any man in any matter ; for your resources are so great, beginning with the body and ending with the soul, that you lack nothing. You think, in the first place, that you are foremost in beauty and stature — and you are not mistaken in this, as is plain for all to see — and in the second place, that you are of the most gallant family in your city, the greatest city in Greece, and (104b) that there you have, through your father, very many of the best people as your friends and kinsmen, who would assist you in case of need, and other connections also, through your mother, who are not a whit inferior to these, nor fewer. And you reckon upon a stronger power than all those that I have mentioned, in Pericles, son of Xanthippus, whom your father left as guardian of you and your brother when he died, and who is able to do whatever he likes not only in this city but all over Greece and among many great nations of the barbarians. (104c) And I will add besides the wealth of your house : but on this, I observe, you presume least of all. Well, you puff yourself up on all these advantages, and have overcome your lovers, while they in their inferiority have yielded to your might, and all this has not escaped you ; so I am very sure that you wonder what on earth I mean by not getting rid of my passion, and what can be my hope in remaining when the rest have fled. ALCIBIADES I
And in this universal OPPOSITION of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other, and back again ; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane ? PHAEDO
And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body ? or is she at variance with them ? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul incline us against drinking ? and when the body is hungry, against eating ? And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the OPPOSITION of the soul to the things of the body. PHAEDO
Soc. But their essence and what they are, and their OPPOSITION to one another, and the essential nature of this OPPOSITION, the soul herself endeavours to decide for us by the review and comparison of them ? THEAETETUS
Str. Would you not say that rest and motion are in the most entire OPPOSITION to one another ? SOPHIST
Str. The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words, do not imply OPPOSITION, but only difference from the words, or more correctly from the things represented by the words, which follow them. SOPHIST
Str. Then the not-beautiful turns out to be the OPPOSITION of being to being ? SOPHIST
Str. Then, as would appear, the OPPOSITION of a part of the other, and of a part of being, to one another, is, if I may venture to say so, as truly essence as being itself, and implies not the opposite of being, but only what is other than being. SOPHIST
Str. Let not any one say, then, that while affirming the OPPOSITION of not-being to being, we still assert the being of not-being ; for as to whether there is an opposite of being, to that enquiry we have long said good-bye — it may or may not be, and may or may not be capable of definition. But as touching our present account of not-being, let a man either convince us of error, or, so long as he cannot, he too must say, as we are saying, that there is a communion of classes, and that being, and difference or other, traverse all things and mutually interpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being, and by reason of this participation is, and yet is not that of which it partakes, but other, and being other than being, it is clearly a necessity that not-being should be. again, being, through partaking of the other, becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and being other than all of them, is not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so that undoubtedly there are thousands upon thousands of cases in which being is not, and all other things, whether regarded individually or collectively, in many respects are, and in many respects are not. SOPHIST
Str. And returning to the enquiry with which we began, have we not found that considerable portions of virtue are at variance with one another, and give rise to a similar OPPOSITION in the characters who are endowed with them ? STATESMAN
Thus far and until the birth of time the created universe was made in the likeness of the original, but inasmuch as all animals were not yet comprehended therein, it was still unlike. What remained, the creator then proceeded to fashion after the nature of the pattern. Now as in the ideal animal the mind perceives ideas or species of a certain nature and number, he thought that this created animal ought to have species of a like nature and number. There are four such ; one of them is the heavenly race of the gods ; another, the race of birds whose way is in the air ; the third, the watery species ; and the fourth, the pedestrian and land creatures. Of the heavenly and divine, he created the greater part out of fire, that they might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and he fashioned them after the likeness of the universe in the figure of a circle, and made them follow the intelligent motion of the supreme, distributing them over the whole circumference of heaven, which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world spangled with them all over. And he gave to each of them two movements : the first, a movement on the same spot after the same manner, whereby they ever continue to think consistently the same thoughts about the same things ; the second, a forward movement, in which they are controlled by the revolution of the same and the like ; but by the other five motions they were unaffected, in order that each of them might attain the highest perfection. And for this reason the fixed stars were created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever-abiding and revolving after the same manner and on the same spot ; and the other stars which reverse their motion and are subject to deviations of this kind, were created in the manner already described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole which is extended through the universe, he framed to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the attempt to tell all the figures of them circling as in dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their approximations, and to say which of these deities in their conjunctions meet, and which of them are in OPPOSITION, and in what order they get behind and before one another, and when they are severally eclipsed to our sight and again reappear, sending terrors and intimations of the future to those who cannot calculate their movements — to attempt to tell of all this without a visible representation of the heavenly system would be labour in vain. Enough on this head ; and now let what we have said about the nature of the created and visible gods have an end. TIMAEUS
First, let us enquire what we mean by saying that fire is hot ; and about this we may reason from the dividing or cutting power which it exercises on our bodies. We all of us feel that fire is sharp ; and we may further consider the fineness of the sides, and the sharpness of the angles, and the smallness of the particles, and the swiftness of the motion — all this makes the action of fire violent and sharp, so that it cuts whatever it meets. And we must not forget that the original figure of fire (i.e. the pyramid), more than any other form, has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces (Kepmatizei), and thus naturally produces that affection which we call heat ; and hence the origin of the name (thepmos, Kepma). Now, the opposite of this is sufficiently manifest ; nevertheless we will not fail to describe it. For the larger particles of moisture which surround the body, entering in and driving out the lesser, but not being able to take their places, compress the moist principle in us ; and this from being unequal and disturbed, is forced by them into a state of rest, which is due to equability and compression. But things which are contracted contrary to nature are by nature at war, and force themselves apart ; and to this war and convulsion the name of shivering and trembling is given ; and the whole affection and the cause of the affection are both termed cold. That is called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh ; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. That which yields has a small base ; but that which rests on quadrangular bases is firmly posed and belongs to the class which offers the greatest resistance ; so too does that which is the most compact and therefore most repellent. The nature of the light and the heavy will be best understood when examined in connexion with our notions of above and below ; for it is quite a mistake to suppose that the universe is parted into two regions, separate from and opposite to each other, the one a lower to which all things tend which have any bulk, and an upper to which things only ascend against their will. For as the universe is in the form of a sphere, all the extremities, being equidistant from the centre, are equally extremities, and the centre, which is equidistant from them, is equally to be regarded as the opposite of them all. Such being the nature of the world, when a person says that any of these points is above or below, may he not be justly charged with using an improper expression ? For the centre of the world cannot be rightly called either above or below, but is the centre and nothing else ; and the circumference is not the centre, and has in no one part of itself a different relation to the centre from what it has in any of the opposite parts. Indeed, when it is in every direction similar, how can one rightly give to it names which imply OPPOSITION ? For if there were any solid body in equipoise at the centre of the universe, there would be nothing to draw it to this extreme rather than to that, for they are all perfectly similar ; and if a person were to go round the world in a circle, he would often, when standing at the antipodes of his former position, speak of the same point as above and below ; for, as I was saying just now, to speak of the whole which is in the form of a globe as having one part above and another below is not like a sensible man. TIMAEUS
Soc. Yes, my good friend, just as colour is like colour ; — in so far as colours are colours, there is no difference between them ; and yet we all know that black is not only unlike, but even absolutely opposed to white : or again, as figure is like figure, for all figures are comprehended under one class ; and yet particular figures may be absolutely opposed to one another, and there is an infinite diversity of them. And we might find similar examples in many other things ; therefore do not rely upon this argument, which would go to prove the unity of the most extreme opposites. And I suspect that we shall find a similar OPPOSITION among pleasures. PHILEBUS
Soc. Perhaps, Philebus, you may be right in saying so of my “mind” ; but of the true, which is also the divine mind, far otherwise. However, I will not at present claim the first place for mind as against the mixed life ; but we must come to some understanding about the second place. For you might affirm pleasure and I mind to be the cause of the mixed life ; and in that case although neither of them would be the good, one of them might be imagined to be the cause of the good. And I might proceed further to argue in OPPOSITION to Phoebus, that the element which makes this mixed life eligible and good, is more akin and more similar to mind than to pleasure. And if this is true, pleasure cannot be truly said to share either in the first or second place, and does not, if I may trust my own mind, attain even to the third. PHILEBUS
Soc. The class of the equal and the double, and any class which puts an end to difference and OPPOSITION, and by introducing number creates harmony and proportion among the different elements. PHILEBUS
Now we ought by all means to consider that there can never be such a happy concurrence of circumstances as we have described ; neither can all things coincide as they are wanted. Men who will not take offence at such a mode of living together, and will endure all their life long to have their property fixed at a moderate limit, and to beget children in accordance with our ordinances, and will allow themselves to be deprived of gold and other things which the legislator, as is evident from these enactments, will certainly forbid them ; and will endure, further, the situation of the land with the city in the middle and dwellings round about ; — all this is as if the legislator were telling his dreams, or making a city and citizens of wax. There is truth in these objections, and therefore every one should take to heart what I am going to say. Once more, then, the legislator shall appear and address us : — “O my friends,” he will say to us, “do not suppose me ignorant that there is a certain degree of truth in your words ; but I am of opinion that, in matters which are not present but future, he who exhibits a pattern of that at which he aims, should in nothing fall short of the fairest and truest ; and that if he finds any part of this work impossible of execution he should avoid and not execute it, but he should contrive to carry out that which is nearest and most akin to it ; you must allow the legislator to perfect his design, and when it is perfected, you should join with him in considering what part of his legislation is expedient and what will arouse OPPOSITION ; for surely the artist who is to be deemed worthy of any regard at all, ought always to make his work self-consistent.” LAWS BOOK V
Meg. You are very right in saying that tradition, if no breath of OPPOSITION ever assails it, has a marvellous power. LAWS BOOK VIII
Ath. We had enacted, if I am not mistaken, that the robber of temples, and he who was the enemy of law and order, might justly be put to death, and we were proceeding to make divers other enactments of a similar nature. But we stopped short, because we saw that these sufferings are infinite in number and degree, and that they are, at once, the most just and also the most dishonourable of all sufferings. And if this be true, are not the just and the honourable at one time all the same, and at another time in the most diametrical OPPOSITION ? LAWS BOOK IX
And now after this it remains for us to say how many and who these beings are : (986e) for we shall never be found to have spoken falsely. Thus far, at least, I asseverate with certainty : I say, once more, that there are eight of them, and that while three of the eight have been told, five yet remain. The fourth in motion and transit together, and the fifth, are almost equal to the sun in speed, and on the whole are neither slower nor swifter. These being three, must be so regarded by him who has sufficient mind. So let us speak of them as powers of the sun and of Lucifer, and of a third, such that we cannot express it in a name because it is not known ; and he is to blame for this who first beheld these things, since he was a foreigner : for it was an ancient custom that nurtured those who first (987a) remarked these things owing to the fairness of the summer season which Egypt and Syria amply possess, so that they constantly beheld the whole mass, one may say, of stars revealed to their sight, since they had got then, continually without obstruction of clouds and rains in the sky ; whence they have emerged in every direction and in ours likewise, after having been examined for thousands of years, nay, for an infinite time. And therefore we should not hesitate to include them in the scope of our laws ; for to have divine things lacking honor, while other things are honored, (987b) is clearly a sign of witlessness ; and as to their having got no names, the cause of it should be stated as we have done. For indeed they have received titles of gods : thus, that Lucifer, or Hesperus(which is the same), should almost belong to Aphrodite, is reasonable, and quite befitting a Syrian lawgiver ; and that that which follows the same course as the sun and this together should almost belong to Hermes. Let us also note three motions of bodies travelling to the right with the moon and the sun. One must be mentioned, the eighth, which we may especially address as the world-order, and which travels in OPPOSITION to the whole company of the others, not impelling them, as might appear to mankind in the scant knowledge that they have of these matters. But we are bound to state, (987c) and do state, so much as adequate knowledge tells us. For real wisdom shows herself in some such way as this to him who has got even a little share of right and divine meditation. And now there remain three stars, of which one is distinguished from the others by its slowness, and some speak of it under the title of Saturn ; the next after it in slowness is to be cited as Jupiter ; and the next after this, as Mars, which has the ruddiest hue of all. Nothing in all this is hard to understand (987d) when someone expresses it ; but it is through learning, as we declare, that one must believe it. EPINOMIS BOOK XII
Well, I said, would you not allow that assent and dissent, desire and aversion, attraction and repulsion, are all of them opposites, whether they are regarded as active or passive (for that makes no difference in the fact of their OPPOSITION) ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IV
Because I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking ; and he will pursue a merely verbal OPPOSITION in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V
A great deal ; for there is certainly a danger of our getting unintentionally into a verbal OPPOSITION. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V
I said : Suppose that by way of illustration we were to ask the question whether there is not an OPPOSITION in nature between bald men and hairy men ; and if this is admitted by us, then, if bald men are cobblers, we should forbid the hairy men to be cobblers, and conversely ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK V
Yes, I said, a jest ; and why ? because we never meant when we constructed the State, that the OPPOSITION of natures should extend to every difference, but only to those differences which affected the pursuit in which the individual is engaged ; we should have argued, for example, that a physician and one who is in mind a physician may be said to have the same nature. THE REPUBLIC BOOK V
How truly in earnest you are, Socrates ! he said ; I am sure of that ; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their OPPOSITION to you, and will never be convinced ; Thrasymachus least of all. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI
But in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself — or, rather, as in the instance of sight there were confusion and OPPOSITION in his opinions about the same things, so here also are there not strife and inconsistency in his life ? though I need hardly raise the question again, for I remember that all this has been already admitted ; and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and ten thousand similar OPPOSITIONs occurring at the same moment ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK X