Yes, I said, that they should begin by reproaching us with our ignorance of the good, and then presume our knowledge of it-- for the good they define to be knowledge of the good, just as if we understood them when they use the term `good'--this is of course ridiculous.
Most true, he said.
And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good.
Certainly.
And therefore to acknowledge that bad and good are the same?
True.
There can be no doubt about the numerous difficulties in which this question is involved.
There can be none.
Further, do we not see that many are willing to do or to have or to seem to be what is just and honourable without the reality; but no one is satisfied with the appearance of good--the reality is what they seek; in the case of the good, appearance is despised by every one.
Very true, he said.
Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,--of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?
Certainly not, he said.
I am sure, I said, that he who does not know now the beautiful and the just are likewise good will be but a sorry guardian of them; and I suspect that no one who is ignorant of the good will have a true knowledge of them.
That, he said, is a shrewd suspicion of yours.
And if we only have a guardian who has this knowledge our State will be perfectly ordered?
Of course, he replied; but I wish that you would tell me whether you conceive this supreme principle of the good to be knowledge or pleasure, or different from either.
Aye, I said, I knew all along that a fastidious gentleman like you would not be contented with the thoughts of other people about these matters.
True, Socrates; but I must say that one who like you has passed a lifetime in the study of philosophy should not be always repeating the opinions of others, and never telling his own.
Well, but has any one a right to say positively what he does not know?
Not, he said, with the assurance of positive certainty; he has no right to do that: but he may say what he thinks, as a matter of opinion.
And do you not know, I said, that all mere opinions are bad, and the best of them blind?
You would not deny that those who have any true notion without intelligence are only like blind men who feel their way along the road?
Very true.
And do you wish to behold what is blind and crooked and base, when others will tell you of brightness and beauty?
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The passage states that bad pleasures exist alongside good ones, implying evil is a distortion or lack rather than a positive substance.
Diotima's staged ascent from love of beautiful bodies → beautiful souls → beautiful pursuits → beautiful knowledge → Beauty itself; the canonical scala amoris that grounds Plotinus's On the Beautiful and Bruno's Eroici Furori — distinct from generic spiritual_ascent in that eros is the specific motive force.
The text describes a progression from ignorance to knowledge as the soul's pursuit of truth and beauty.