Is the One Universal?
Table of Contents
The Pythagoreans are more credible in this.
They place “One” among the goods in their double list of goods and bads:
- Speusippus has followed this.
But there is a loophole in the Pythagorean theory.
They only apply the One to those goods that are under one ἰδέα.
- These goods are pursued as the ultimate end, for their own sakes.
- They do not apply the One to all good.
Whereas the good in general is applied to things which:
- produce or preserve the ultimate goods
- hinder their contraries
And so good is good in 2 senses:
- The ultimate good [this is independent]
- The good that leads to the ultimate good [this is dependent or instrumental]
Let us separate the independent goods from the instrumental.
What kind of goods are ‘independent’? Are these pursued even when separated from other goods?
Are these dependent or independent: being wise, seeing, and certain pleasures and honours?
Or does ‘independent’ only apply to the ἰδέα, so that the concrete of it is not independent?
If, on the other hand, these are independent goods then how can goodness be the same [and dependent] in all?
The Chief Good then is not something common, and after one ἰδέα.
But then, how does the name come to be common (for it is not seemingly a case of fortuitous equivocation)?
Are different individual things called good by virtue of being from one source, or all conducing to one end, or rather by way of analogy, for that intellect is to the soul as sight to the body, and so on?
Even if there is some one good predicated in common of all things that are good, or separable and capable of existing independently, manifestly it cannot be the object of human action or attainable by Man; but we are in search now of something that is so.[14]
It would be better to attain a knowledge of it with a view to such concrete goods as are attainable and practical, because, with this as a kind of model in our hands, we shall the better know what things are good for us individually, and when we know them, we shall attain them.
This argument possesses some plausibility.
But it is contradicted by the facts of the Arts and Sciences; for all these, though aiming at some good, and seeking that which is deficient, yet pretermit the knowledge of it:
now it is not exactly probable that all artisans without exception should be ignorant of so great a help as this would be, and not even look after it;
neither is it easy to see wherein a weaver or a carpenter will be profited in respect of his craft by knowing the very-good, or how a man will be the more apt to effect cures or to command an army for having seen the ἰδέα itself.
For manifestly it is not health after this general and abstract fashion which is the subject of the physician’s investigation, but the health of Man, or rather perhaps of this or that man; for he has to heal individuals.—Thus much on these points.