Plato Republic 5.480

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 5.480 focus

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Plato coins a word which means lovers of opinion.
2. Isocrates xv. 271 is conceivably an answer to this.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

ἔφαμεν . 476 B.

ἆρα ‐‐ λέγωμεν ; See Isocrates de Soph. 8 πλείω κατορθοῦντας τοὺς ταῖς δόξαις χρωμένους ἢ τοὺς τὴν ἐπιστήμην ἔχειν ἐπαγγελλομένους. To this (according to Teichmüller Lit. Fehd. I p. 103) Plato here replies, and the retort is supposed to be the more telling, because Isocrates, in spite of the sentence just quoted, aspired to the name φιλόσοφος: see Spengel Isokrates u. Platon pp. 13, 22 ff. Dümmler, on the other hand, supposes that Antisthenes is meant, as before (see on 476 D). I can see no sufficient reason for holding that Plato is here thinking specially of either, although the cap fits both.

φιλοσόφους . The connotation of φιλόσοφος has greatly altered or developed since Book II: see II 376 B note, and cf. Krohn Pl. St. pp. 9, 20, 102. Krohn is fully justified when he calls the concluding part of Book V “the turning-point” of the Republic (ib. p. 107). Plato's hitherto ‘Hellenic city’ is now well on the road to become an ‘ensample in the Heavens.’