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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: must have the advantage over pleasure and all other things; and then you
said that pleasure often got the advantage even over a man who has
knowledge; and we refused to allow this, and you rejoined: O Protagoras
and Socrates, what is the meaning of being overcome by pleasure if not
this?--tell us what you call such a state:--if we had immediately and at
the time answered 'Ignorance,' you would have laughed at us. But now, in
laughing at us, you will be laughing at yourselves: for you also admitted
that men err in their choice of pleasures and pains; that is, in their
choice of good and evil, from defect of knowledge; and you admitted
further, that they err, not only from defect of knowledge in general, but
of that particular knowledge which is called measuring. And you are also
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