Book 4
2.19
But now, consider deception practised on friends to their detriment: we mustn’t overlook that either. Which is the more unjust deception in that case, the intentional or unintentional?Nay, Socrates, I have lost all confidence in my answers; for all the opinions that I expressed before seem now to have taken an entirely different form. Still I venture to say that the intentional deception is more unjust than the unintentional.
2.20
Do you think there is a doctrine and science of the just, as there is of letters?Yes.Which, in your judgment, is the more literate, the man who intentionally blunders in writing and reading, or the man who blunders unintentionally?The one who blunders intentionally, I presume; for he can always be accurate when he chooses.May we not say, then, that the intentional blunderer is literate and the unintentional is illiterate?Indeed we must.And which knows what is just, the intentional liar and deceiver, or the unintentional?The intentional, clearly.You say, then, as I understand, that he who knows letters is more literate than he who is ignorant of them?YesAnd he who knows what is just is more just than he who does not know?Apparently; but here again I don’t feel sure of my own meaning.
2.21
Now come, what do you think of the man who wants to tell the truth, but never sticks to what he says; when he shows you the way, tells you first that the road runs east, then that it runs west; and when he casts up figures, makes the total now larger, now smaller?Why, I think he shows that he doesn’t know what he thought he knew.
