Section 3: Solution to the relationship of knowledge and lack of self-control

We must consider first, then, whether people who lack self-control act knowingly or not, and in what sense knowingly. Then we must consider with what sorts of things the person who lacks self-control and the self-controlled person may be said to be concerned–that is, whether such a person is concerned with every kind _[10] of pleasure and pain or only with certain determinate kinds. We must also consider whether the self-controlled person and the person of endurance are the same or different. Similarly, we must consider the other matters pertinent to this inquiry.

The starting-point of our investigation is the question whether the self-controlled person and the person who lacks self-control are differentiated by their objects or _[15] by their attitude–that is, whether the person who lacks self-control lacks self-control simply by being concerned with such and such things, or instead by his attitude, or by both these things.

The second question is whether self-control and the lack of self-control are concerned with any and every object or not. The person who lacks self-control in the unqualified sense is not concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those with which the self-indulgent person is concerned. Nor is someone who lacks self-control characterized by being simply related _[20] to these pleasures and pains, since then his state would be the same as intemperance. But someone who lacks self-control is related to these pleasures and pains in a certain way. For the intemperate person is led on in accordance with his own choice, thinking that he should always pursue the present pleasure, while someone who lacks self-control does not think he should, but nevertheless pursues the pleasure anyway.

As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge against which we act when we lose self-control, that makes no difference to the argument. _[25] For some people when they have an opinion do not hesitate, but think they know the truth exactly. Thus, if the notion is that owing to their weak conviction those who have opinion are more likely to act against their judgement than those who know, we answer that there is not necessarily a difference between knowledge and opinion in this respect. For some people are no less convinced of what they merely believe than others are of what they know, as is shown by the of Heraclitus. _[30]

But since we use the word “know” in two senses–since both someone who has knowledge but is not using it and also someone who is using it are said to know–it will make a difference whether, when someone does what he should not, he has the knowledge but is not exercising it, or is exercising it. _[35] For the latter seems strange, but not the former.

Moreover, given that there are two kinds of premises, [namely, universal and particular,] there is nothing to prevent _[1147a1] someone from having both premises and acting against his knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premise and not the particular. For it is particular actions that have to be done. And there are also two kinds of universal terms: one is predicable of the agent, the other of the object; for example, “dry foods _[5] are good for all humans,” and “I am a human”; or “such and such food is dry,” but whether “this food is such and such,” of this the person who lacks self-control either has not or is not exercising the knowledge. There will be, firstly, then, an enormous difference between these manners of knowing, so that to know without exercising the knowledge when we act without self-control would not seem anything strange, while to know when exercising the knowledge would be extraordinary.

And further, the possession of knowledge in another sense than those just described is something that _[10] happens to people. For within the case of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state, admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet not having it, as in the case of someone sleeping, mad, or drunk. But now this is just the condition of people under the influence of strong emotions or desires. After all, it is evident that outbursts of anger, sexual desires, _[15] and other passions of this sort actually alter our bodily condition, and in some people even produce fits of madness. It is clear, then, that people who lack self-control must be said to be in a similar condition those who are sleeping, mad, or drunk.

The fact that such people might talk in a way that flows from knowledge proves nothing. For even those under the influence of these passions utter scientific proofs and verses of Empedocles. _[20] And those who have just begun to learn a discipline can string together its phrases, but do not yet know it. For to know something it must become part of oneself, and that takes time. Hence, we must suppose that people lacking self-control are speaking like actors on the stage.

Again, we may also view the cause as follows, with reference to the facts of human nature. When someone acts, one belief on the basis of which they act is universal, while another is concerned with _[25] the particular facts of the situation. And with particular facts we come to something within the sphere of perception. When a single belief results from these two, [the belief about the universal and that about the particulars,] the soul must in one type of case affirm the conclusion, while in the case of beliefs concerned with production it must immediately act. For instance, if “everything sweet ought to be tasted” [is a universal belief someone holds] and “this is sweet” [is a belief about a particular,] in that “this” is one of the particular sweet things, this person, if he is to act and is not _[30] prevented, must at the same time actually act according to these beliefs, [assuming he holds them]. When, however, there is a universal belief present in us forbidding us to taste something sweet, and there is also the universal belief that “everything sweet is pleasant,” and the belief that “this is sweet” (and this is the belief that is active), and when an appetite for sweet things happens to be present in us, the one belief bids us avoid the object, but the appetite leads us towards it (since an appetite can move each of our bodily parts). The result is that _[35] a person who lacks self-control is in a sense under the influence of reason and belief. And the belief not contrary in itself, _[1147b1] but only incidentally, since it is the appetite that is contrary to right reason, not the belief. It also follows that this is why the lower animals do not lack self-control, namely, because they have no universal belief but only imagination and memory of particulars. _[5]

The explanation of how the ignorance is resolved and the person who lacks self-control regains his knowledge, this is the same as in the case of someone drunk or asleep and is not peculiar to the condition of lacking self-control. We must go to the students of natural science for it.

Now, the last premise both being a belief about something perceptible, and being what determines our actions, the person who lacks self-control either does not have this last premise _[10] when he is under the influence of strong emotion or desire passion, or he has it in the sense in which having knowledge does not mean knowing but only talking like someone who knows, as in the case of someone who’s drunk and can utter the verses of Empedocles. And because the last term is not universal nor an object of systematic knowledge with the universal term, the position that Socrates sought to establish actually seems to result. For it is not in the presence of what is thought to be systematic knowledge properly speaking, _[15] but rather in the presence of perceptual knowledge, that the lack of self-control arises. Nor is knowledge proper–systematic knowledge–“dragged about” as a result of the state of emotion or desire.

This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with and without knowledge, and how it is possible to act with knowledge but without self-control.