uppose that he lost hold of further points of view which he
had once attained.

It is more easy to find traces of the Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Megarians,
Cynics, Cyrenaics and of the ideas of Anaxagoras, in the Philebus, than
to say how much is due to each of them. Had we fuller records of those
old philosophers, we should probably find Plato in the midst of the fray
attempting to combine Eleatic and Pythagorean doctrines, and seeking to
find a truth beyond either Being or number; setting up his own concrete
conception of good against the abstract practical good of the Cynics,
or the abstract intellectual good of the Megarians, and his own idea of
classification against the denial of plurality in unity which is also
attributed to them; warring against the Eristics as destructive of
truth, as he had formerly fought against the Sophists; taking up a
middle position between the Cynics and Cyrenaics in his doctrine of
pleasure; asserting with more consistency than Anaxagoras the existence
of an intelligent mind and cause. Of the Heracliteans, whom he is said
by Aristotle to have cultivated in his youth, he speaks in the Philebus,
as in the Theaetetus and Cratylus, with irony and contempt. But we have
not the knowledge which would enable us to pursue further the line of
reflection here indicated; nor can we expect to find perfect clearness
or order in the first efforts of mankind to understand the working of
their own minds. The ideas which they are attempting to analyse, they
are also in process of creating; the abstract universals of which they
are seeking to adjust the relations have been already excluded by them
from the category of relation.

...

The Philebus, like the Cratylus, is supposed to be the continuation of
a previous discussion. An argument respecting the comparative claims of
pleasure and wisdom to rank as the chief good has been already carried
on between Philebus and Socrates. The argument is now transferred to
Protarchus, the son of Callias, a noble Athenian youth, sprung from
a family which had spent 'a world of money' on the Sophists (compare
Apol.; Crat.; Protag.). Philebus, who appears to be the teacher, or
elder friend, and perhaps the lover, of Protarchus, takes no further
part in the discussion beyond asserting in the strongest manner his
adherence, under all circumstances, to the cause of pleasure.

Socrates suggests that they shall have a first and second palm of
victory. For there may be a go