Kitap 7
7
Again (a, b) if Self-restraint makes a man steadfast in all his opinions, it may be bad, namely, if it makes him persist even in a false opinion. And if Unrestraint makes him liable to abandon any opinion, in some cases Unrestraint will be good. Take the instance of Neoptolemus in the PhiloctetesSoph. Phil. 895-916. See further, 9.4. of Sophocles. Neoptolemus abandons a resolution that he has been persuaded by Odysseus to adopt, because of the pain that it gives him to tell a lie: in this case inconstancy is praiseworthy.
8
Again (a, c) there is the difficulty raised by the argument of the sophists. The sophists wish to show their cleverness by entrapping their adversary into a paradox, and when they are successful, the resultant chain of reasoning ends in a deadlock: the mind is fettered, being unwilling to stand still because it cannot approve the conclusion reached, yet unable to go forward because it cannot untie the knot of the argument.
9
Now one of their arguments proves that Folly combined with Unrestraint is a virtue. It runs as follows: if a man is foolish and also unrestrained, owing to his unrestraint he does the opposite of what he believes that he ought to do; but he believesSc., because he is foolish. that good things are bad, and that he ought not to do them; therefore he will do good things and not bad ones.
