前面讲完五种政制对应五种灵魂，本卷最吸引我的是柏拉图关于爱智者，爱胜者和爱利者三种人对应的快乐，这三种人也是前面几种政体的统治者形象。
我们跟着柏拉图来看看快乐与快乐之间是对等的吗？
爱利者
财主们会断言，和利益比起来，受到尊敬的快乐和学习的快乐是无价值的除非它们也能变出金钱来。
爱胜者
爱敬者怎么样？他会把金钱带来的快乐视为卑鄙，把学问带来的快乐视为无聊的瞎扯（除非它也能带来敬意）
爱智者
哲学家把别的快乐和他知道真理永远献身研究真理的快乐相比较时，他会认为别的快乐远非真正的快乐，他会把它们叫做“必然性”快乐。因为，若非受到必然性束缚他是不会要它们的。
接下来怎么比较三种人谁比较快乐呢？
苏:对事情作出正确的判断，不是用经验、知识、推理作为标准吗？还有什么比它们更好的标准吗？
这三种人中哪一种人对所有这三种快乐有最多的经验？哲学家从小就少不了要体验另外两种快乐；但是爱利者不仅不一定要体验学习事物本质的那种快乐，而且，即使他想要这么做，也不容易做得到。
而尊敬是大家都可以得到的，如果他们都能达到自己目标的话。因为富人、勇敢者和智慧者都是能得到广泛尊敬的，因此大家都能体验到受尊敬的这种快乐。但是看到事物实在这种快乐，除了哲学家而外别的任何人都是不能得到的。
既然他的经验最丰富，因此他也最有资格评判三种快乐。当有知识的人说自己的生活最快乐时，他的话是最可靠的。
真实的快乐与痛苦
苏: 人们在生病的时候会说：没有什么比健康更快乐的了。人们在受到痛苦时会把免除和摆脱痛苦的平静称赞为最高的快乐。同样，当一个人停止快乐时，快乐的这种平静也会是痛苦的。
快乐和痛苦在心灵中产生都是一种运动。
和痛苦对比的快乐以及和快乐对比的痛苦都是平静，不是真实的快乐和痛苦，而只是似乎快乐或痛苦。这些快乐的影像和真正的快乐毫无关系，都只是一种欺骗。
没有经验过真实的人，他们对快乐、痛苦及这两者之中间状态的看法应该是不正确的，正如他们对许多别的事物的看法不正确那样。因此，当他们遭遇到痛苦时，他们就会认为自己处于痛苦之中，认为他们的痛苦是真实的。他们会深信，从痛苦转变到中间状态就能带来满足和快乐。而事实上，由于没有经验过真正的快乐，他们是错误地对比了痛苦和无痛苦。正如一个从未见过白色的人把灰色和黑色相比那样。
Then can you wonder that persons who are inexperienced in the truth, as they have wrong ideas about many other things, should also have wrong ideas about pleasure and pain and the intermediate state; so that when they are only drawn towards the painful they feel pain and think the pain which they experience to be real, and in like manner, when drawn away from the pain to the neutral or intermediate state, they firmly believe that they have reached the goal of satiety and pleasure; they, not knowing pleasure, err in contrasting pain with the absence of pain, which is like contrasting black with grey instead of white.
那些没有智慧和美德经验的人，只知聚在一起寻欢作乐，终身往返于我们所比喻的中下两级之间，从未再向上攀登看见和到达真正的最高一级境界，或为任何实在所满足，或体验到过任何可靠的纯粹的快乐。他们头向下眼睛看着宴席，就像牲畜俯首牧场只知吃草，雌雄交配一样。须知，他们想用这些不实在的东西满足心灵的那个不实在的无法满足的部分是完全徒劳的。由于不能满足，他们还像牲畜用犄角和蹄爪互相踢打顶撞一样地用铁的武器互相残杀。
Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughtout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look,nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.
这种人的快乐之中岂不必然地混什着痛苦，因而不过是真快乐的影子和画像而已？在两相比照下快乐表面上好像很强烈，并且在愚人们的心中引起疯狂的欲望，促使他们为之争斗，有如斯特锡霍洛斯所说，英雄们在特洛伊为海伦的幻影而厮杀一样。都是由于不知真实。
Their pleasures are mixed with pains-how can they be otherwise? For they are more shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stresichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Tory in ignorance of the true.
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