Plato Republic 5.480

ed. John Burnet

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

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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).) — 5.480 focus

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.’