So That We Not Be Deceived
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Socrates — τε τοιούτους καὶ ἔχοντας ταῦτα τούτων ἅπερ ἔχουσι καὶ ἐπιθυμεῖν, ἵνʼ οὖν μὴ ἐξαπατηθῶμεν, τούτου ἕνεκα λέγω— τούτοις γάρ, ὦ Ἀγάθων, εἰ ἐννοεῖς, ἔχειν μὲν ἕκαστα τούτων ἐν τῷ παρόντι ἀνάγκη ἃ ἔχουσιν, ἐάντε βούλωνται ἐάντε μή, καὶ τούτου γε δήπου τίς ἂν ἐπιθυμήσειεν; ἀλλʼ ὅταν τις λέγῃ ὅτι ἐγὼ ὑγιαίνων βούλομαι καὶ ὑγιαίνειν, καὶ πλουτῶν βούλομαι καὶ πλουτεῖν, καὶ ἐπιθυμῶ αὐτῶν τούτων ἃ ἔχω, εἴποιμεν ἂν αὐτῷ ὅτι σύ, ὦ ἄνθρωπε,
such men, and those who have these things, desire the very things they already have — so that we not be deceived, for this reason I say it — for these men, Agathon, if you consider, must have each of these things at present, whatever they have, whether they wish or not; and who would desire that? But whenever someone says that I, being healthy, wish also to be healthy, and being rich, wish to be rich, and I desire these very things I have, we would say to him: you, my good man,
Socrates heads off an objection before Agathon can raise it. Someone might say: but people do desire what they already have — the healthy man wants health, the rich man wants riches. Socrates explains why that is not a real counter-example, and starts to spell out what such a person actually means. He is careful — 'so that we not be deceived' — and the reply lands in 200d.
The care matters because the conclusion is so consequential. If the principle "desire is of what one lacks" survived only by ignoring obvious cases, it could not carry the weight Socrates is about to put on it — the redefinition of Eros as need. So he honours the objection and, in 200d, resolves it: the healthy man who "wants to be healthy" really wants to go on being healthy, to have health in time to come — which he does not yet possess. The lack is smuggled into the future, and the principle holds. Plato is showing his reader how a careful argument protects itself.
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