Plutarch, De recta ratione audiendi, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 11

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[11] It is quite necessary that in formulating questions the questioner should accommodate himself to the proficiency or natural capacity of the speaker, to those matters in which he is at his best¹; not forcibly to divert one who is more concerned with the ethical side of philosophy, by plying him with questions in natural science or mathematics, or to drag the man who poses as an authority on natural science into passing judgement on the hypothetical propositions ² of logic or solutions of quibbles like the Liar Problem.³ For just as one who should go about to split wood with a key, or to open his door with an axe, would not be thought to offer an indignity to those instruments but to deprive himself of the proper use and function of each, so those persons who ask of a speaker something for which he is not apt by nature or by practice, and do not gather and take what he has to offer, not only suffer harm thereby, but also incur the name and blame of malice and hostility as well.

De recta ratione audiendi. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1927.

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Current edition Perseus

On Listening to Lectures (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. I. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1927 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ ἀκούειν. Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 11 focus

[11] εὖ μάλα δὲ χρὴ καὶ πρὸς τὴν τοῦ λέγοντος 25 ἐμπειρίαν ἢ φυσικὴν δύναμιν ἡρμοσμένον, ἐν οἷς αὐτὸς¹ ἑαυτοῦ κράτιστός ἐστι, ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ἐρωτήσεις 43c , καὶ μὴ παραβιάζεσθαι τὸν μὲν ἠθικώτερον φιλοσοφοῦντα φυσικὰς ἐπάγοντα καὶ μαθηματικὰς ἀπορίας, τὸν δὲ τοῖς φυσικοῖς σεμνυνόμενον εἰς συνημμένων ἐπικρίσεις ἕλκοντα καὶ ψευδομένων λύσεις. ὡς γὰρ ὁ τῇ κλειδὶ τὰ ξύλα σχίζειν τῇ δʼ ἀξίνῃ τὴν θύραν ἀνοίγειν πειρώμενος οὐκ ἐκεῖνα 5 δόξειεν ἂν ἐπηρεάζειν, ἀλλʼ αὑτὸν ἀποστερεῖν τῆς ἑκατέρου χρείας καὶ δυνάμεως, οὕτως οἱ παρὰ τοῦ λέγοντος ὃ μὴ πέφυκε μηδʼ ἤσκηκεν αἰτοῦντες, ὃ δʼ ἔχει καὶ δίδωσι μὴ δρεπόμενοι μηδὲ λαμβάνοντες, 43d οὐ τοῦτο βλάπτονται μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ κακοήθειαν 10 καὶ δυσμένειαν προσοφλισκάνουσι.

Translations (1)

Of Hearing Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. I. Goodwin, William W., editor; Hoy, Thomas, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 11 focus

[11] Great regard is to be had also to the genius and talent of a speaker, that we may enquire about such things as are in his way, and not take him out of his knowledge; as if one should propose physical or mathematical queries to a moral philosophy reader, or apply himself to one who prides himself on his knowledge of physics to give his opinion on conditional propositions or to resolve a fallacy in logic. For, as he that goes about to cleave wood with a key or to unlock a door with an axe does not so much misemploy those instruments as deprive himself of the proper use of them, so such as are not content with what a speaker offers them, but call for such things as he is a stranger to, not only are disappointed, but incur the suspicion of malice and ill-nature.

Notes on the current edition

On Listening to Lectures

1. An adaptation of a line from the Antiope of Euripides. (Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Eurip., No. 183).

2. Such as: If Plato walks, Plato moves. If it is daytime, the sun is in the sky.

3. If I say that I lie when I am lying, do I lie or tell the truth?

Plutarch De recta ratione audiendi 11

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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