Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 4.438

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

[438] 438a
μήτοι τις, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ἀσκέπτους ἡμᾶς ὄντας θορυβήσῃ, ὡς οὐδεὶς ποτοῦ ἐπιθυμεῖ ἀλλὰ χρηστοῦ ποτοῦ, καὶ οὐ σίτου ἀλλὰ χρηστοῦ σίτου. πάντες γὰρ ἄρα τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἐπιθυμοῦσιν· εἰ οὖν ἡ δίψα ἐπιθυμία ἐστί, χρηστοῦ ἂν εἴη εἴτε πώματος εἴτε ἄλλου ὅτου ἐστὶν ἐπιθυμία, καὶ αἱ ἄλλαι οὕτω.
ἴσως γὰρ ἄν, ἔφη, δοκοῖ τι λέγειν ὁ ταῦτα λέγων.
ἀλλὰ μέντοι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅσα γʼ ἐστὶ τοιαῦτα οἷα εἶναί 438b του, τὰ μὲν ποιὰ ἄττα ποιοῦ τινός ἐστιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, τὰ δʼ αὐτὰ ἕκαστα αὐτοῦ ἑκάστου μόνον.
οὐκ ἔμαθον, ἔφη.
οὐκ ἔμαθες, ἔφην, ὅτι τὸ μεῖζον τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν οἷον τινὸς εἶναι μεῖζον;
πάνυ γε.
οὐκοῦν τοῦ ἐλάττονος;
ναί.
τὸ δέ γε πολὺ μεῖζον πολὺ ἐλάττονος. ἦ γάρ;
ναί.
ἆρʼ οὖν καὶ τὸ ποτὲ μεῖζον ποτὲ ἐλάττονος, καὶ τὸ ἐσόμενον μεῖζον ἐσομένου ἐλάττονος;
ἀλλὰ τί μήν; ἦ δʼ ὅς. 438c
καὶ τὰ πλείω δὴ πρὸς τὰ ἐλάττω καὶ τὰ διπλάσια πρὸς τὰ ἡμίσεα καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα, καὶ αὖ βαρύτερα πρὸς κουφότερα καὶ θάττω πρὸς τὰ βραδύτερα, καὶ ἔτι γε τὰ θερμὰ πρὸς τὰ ψυχρὰ καὶ πάντα τὰ τούτοις ὅμοια ἆρʼ οὐχ οὕτως ἔχει;
πάνυ μὲν οὖν.
τί δὲ τὰ περὶ τὰς ἐπιστήμας; οὐχ ὁ αὐτὸς τρόπος; ἐπιστήμη μὲν αὐτὴ μαθήματος αὐτοῦ ἐπιστήμη ἐστὶν ἢ ὅτου δὴ δεῖ θεῖναι τὴν ἐπιστήμην, ἐπιστήμη δέ τις καὶ ποιά τις 438d ποιοῦ τινος καὶ τινός. λέγω δὲ τὸ τοιόνδε· οὐκ ἐπειδὴ οἰκίας ἐργασίας ἐπιστήμη ἐγένετο, διήνεγκε τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιστημῶν, ὥστε οἰκοδομικὴ κληθῆναι;
τί μήν;
ἆρʼ οὐ τῷ ποιά τις εἶναι, οἵα ἑτέρα οὐδεμία τῶν ἄλλων;
ναί.
οὐκοῦν ἐπειδὴ ποιοῦ τινος, καὶ αὐτὴ ποιά τις ἐγένετο; καὶ αἱ ἄλλαι οὕτω τέχναι τε καὶ ἐπιστῆμαι;
ἔστιν οὕτω.
τοῦτο τοίνυν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, φάθι με τότε βούλεσθαι λέγειν, εἰ ἄρα νῦν ἔμαθες, ὅτι ὅσα ἐστὶν οἷα εἶναί του, αὐτὰ μὲν μόνα αὐτῶν μόνων ἐστίν, τῶν δὲ ποιῶν τινων ποιὰ ἄττα. 438e καὶ οὔ τι λέγω, ὡς, οἵων ἂν ᾖ, τοιαῦτα καὶ ἔστιν, ὡς ἄρα καὶ τῶν ὑγιεινῶν καὶ νοσωδῶν ἡ ἐπιστήμη ὑγιεινὴ καὶ νοσώδης καὶ τῶν κακῶν καὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν κακὴ καὶ ἀγαθή· ἀλλʼ ἐπειδὴ οὐκ αὐτοῦ οὗπερ ἐπιστήμη ἐστὶν ἐγένετο ἐπιστήμη, ἀλλὰ ποιοῦ τινος, τοῦτο δʼ ἦν ὑγιεινὸν καὶ νοσῶδες, ποιὰ δή τις συνέβη καὶ αὐτὴ γενέσθαι, καὶ τοῦτο αὐτὴν ἐποίησεν μηκέτι ἐπιστήμην ἁπλῶς καλεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ποιοῦ τινος προσγενομένου ἰατρικήν.
ἔμαθον, ἔφη, καί μοι δοκεῖ οὕτως ἔχειν.

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 4.438 focus

[438] 438a Let no one then,¹ said I, disconcert us when off our guard with the objection that everybody desires not drink but good drink and not food but good food, because (the argument will run²) all men desire good, and so, if thirst is desire, it would be of good drink or of good whatsoever it is; and so similarly of other desires. Why, he said, there perhaps would seem to be something in that objection. But I need hardly remind you, said I, 438b that of relative terms those that are somehow qualified are related to a qualified correlate, those that are severally just themselves to a correlate that is just itself.³ I don’t understand, he said. Don’t you understand, said I, that the greater⁴ is such as to be greater than something? Certainly. Is it not than the less? Yes. But the much greater than the much less. Is that not so? Yes. And may we add the one time greater than the one time less and that which will be greater than that which will be less? Surely. 438c And similarly of the more towards the fewer, and the double towards the half and of all like cases, and again of the heavier towards the lighter, the swifter towards the slower, and yet again of the hot towards the cold and all cases of that kind,⁵ does not the same hold? By all means. But what of the sciences? Is not the way of it the same? Science which is just that, is of knowledge which is just that, or is of whatsoever⁶ we must assume the correlate of science to be. But a particular science of a particular kind is of some particular thing of a particular kind. 438d I mean something like this: As there was a science of making a house it differed from other sciences so as to be named architecture. Certainly. Was not this by reason of its being of a certain kind⁷ such as no other of all the rest? Yes. And was it not because it was of something of a certain kind that it itself became a certain kind of science? And similarly of the other arts and sciences? That is so.
This then, said I, if haply you now understand, is what you must say I then meant, by the statement that of all things that are such as to be of something those that are just themselves only are of things just themselves only, 438e but things of a certain kind are of things of a kind. And I don’t at all mean⁸ that they are of the same kind as the things of which they are, so that we are to suppose that the science of health and disease is a healthy and diseased science and that of evil and good, evil and good. I only mean that as science became the science not of just the thing⁹ of which science is but of some particular kind of thing, namely, of health and disease, the result¹⁰ was that it itself became some kind of science and this caused it to be no longer called simply science but with the addition of the particular kind, medical science. I understand, he said, and agree that it is so.

Commentary

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

μήτοι has been doubted, and is not, apparently, elsewhere so used in Plato (Kugler de part. τοί etc. p. 11), though often in Tragedy. Here too it strikes, I think, a lofty note ‘Wherefore let not any’ etc. θορυβήσῃ is also highly dramatic. All this parade is affected because it is a deduction from one of his own favourite commonplaces which Socrates is about to parry: see next note.

πάντες γὰρ κτλ. γὰρ ἄρα—a rare combination—occurs also in Prot. 315 D , Symp. 205 B (according to Ven. T, but the Bodleian reads γάρ), Laws 698 D. ἄρα indicates that the objector is quoting another man's view (II 358 C note), and the doctrine that all men desire the good was in point of fact a commonplace in the Platonic school. See for example Gorg. 468 A , Men. 77 C ff., Symp. 204 E and Rep. III 413 A, VI 505 D. Here, as always, Socrates would of course concede that all men desire the good; but we need the λογιστικόν in each act of desire to specify what the good really is (437 D note). Moreover, according to our present theory, the desire of good drink is the product of two desires, viz. (1) thirst or the desire of drink, and (2) the desire of good. That (2) is in a certain sense universal, does not alter the fact that the two desires are logically distinct. See on τοῦ δὲ—προσγιγνόμενα 437 E.

αὐτὰ ἕκαστα . αὐτά is ipsa, i.e. by themselves, alone, without qualification: cf. αὐτὰ—μόνα αὐτῶν μόνων in D and αὐτοῦ πώματος etc. 437 E. Plato now proceeds to establish the universality of his rule. It is obvious that the reasons for believing the rule true of ἐπιθυμία are confirmed if we can shew that it is true universally. The phraseology of this passage— πλήθους παρουσία, αὐτὰ ἕκαστα, αὐτὴ ἐπιστήμη— is no doubt interesting for the light which it throws on the origin of the terminology adopted in the Theory of Ideas (cf. VI 507 B note): but we could make no greater mistake than to suppose that Plato is here speaking of hypostasized Ideas. Cf. Pfleiderer Zur Lösung etc. p. 19.

τὸ μεῖζον ‐‐ μεῖζον . Cf. (with Stallbaum) Charm. 168 B ff., where the nature of relative notions is similarly defined: also Gorg. 476 B ff.

τὰ βραδύτερα . Stallbaum and others read βραδύτερα without the article (on slight MS authority), but praestat lectio difficilior. Cf. εἴτε ἐγγείων εἴτε τῶν ζῴων VI 491 D. τά is certainly not wrong, and the variety of expression is pleasing: ‘and heavier also to lighter, and swifter to that which is slower—do they not stand to one another in this relation?’ i.e. such that if βαρύτερα, for example, is qualified, κουφότερα is qualified too.

ἐπιστήμη μὲν αὐτή . ‘Knowledge and nothing more,’ as opposed to knowledge plus some specification, e.g. astronomical knowledge, literary knowledge etc. It is interesting and instructive to study Parm. 134 A ff. side by side with this passage. There αὐτὴ ἐπιστήμη has for its object τῆς ὃ ἔστιν ἀλήθεια, i.e. the Ideas; here we do not soar so high, for μαθήματος αὐτοῦ is only ‘learning and nothing more’ )( e.g. physical learning, classical learning, etc.

ἐπειδὴ ‐‐ κληθῆναι . Plato's theory is very clearly conceived. οἰκοδομικὴ ἐπιστήμη is a combination of αὐτὴ ἐπιστήμη and οἰκοδομία: ἐπιστήμη correlates with μάθημα, οἰκοδομία with οἰκίας ἐργασία, so that ἐπιστήμη οἰκοδομική is ἐπιστήμη οἰκίας ἐργασίας μαθήματος: it is therefore ποίου τινός (i.e. in this case οἰκοδομικοῦ) μαθήματος. Cf. note on τοῦ δὲ—προσγιγνόμενα in 437 E.

τῶν ὑγιεινῶν καὶ νοσωδῶν . If we carry the analysis less far than Plato, we can still make the added determinants the same by saying that ἰατρικὴ ἐπιστήμη is of ἰατρικὸν μάθημα. But this will not suit with κακή, for ‘bad knowledge’ is not ‘knowledge of bad things’; nor does it—in many cases— apply to desires. Cf. 437 E note

αὐτοῦ οὗπερ ‐‐ ἐστίν : i.e. μαθήματος αὐτοῦ. αὐτοῦ is emphatic and contrasted with ποιοῦ τινός.

τὸ δὲ δὴ δίψος κτλ. Here begins the application of the argument on Relativity.

Plato Republic 4.438

ed. John Burnet

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Commentary

Stable identifiers