A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Here you can discuss all things Ancient Greek. Use this board to ask questions about grammar, discuss learning strategies, get help with a difficult passage of Greek, and more.
Post Reply
whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

Please can someone help me with this sentance:

It comes from the Parmendies 132a:

τί δ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ μέγα καὶ τἆλλα τὰ μεγάλα, ἐὰν ὡσαύτως τῇ ψυχῇ ἐπὶ πάντα ἴδῃς, οὐχὶ ἕν τι αὖ μέγα φανεῖται, ᾧ ταῦτα πάντα μεγάλα φαίνεσθαι;

The given translation is:

The great itself and the other great things, looking likewise at them with your soul, will there not appear again one great thing, by which all these appear great?

The part I am really interested in is: ἐὰν ὡσαύτως τῇ ψυχῇ ἐπὶ πάντα ἴδῃς

Does the word ψυχῇ have to be traslated as the noun soul?
Here is the dictionary entry: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/mor ... &prior=th=|
Could it not be a verb from ψύχω?
It would give the sentance a dramatic new meaning that would make more sense to me that way.

Many Many Thanks,

William

User avatar
jeidsath
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 5332
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:42 pm
Location: Γαλεήπολις, Οὐισκόνσιν

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by jeidsath »

No, it's impossible. You can't have a finite verb connected to an article like that in Greek (is there any language where you can?). The Perseus suggestions don't take syntax into account, just the form of the individual word.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

Thanks very much for that. Do you agree with the translation "looking at them with your soul" then, it could not be "looking at them as soul"? That would make more sense to me as a philosopher, I think he is trying to say they are great in a way and small in a way.

MarkAntony198337
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:27 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by MarkAntony198337 »

ἀπόλλυται
Last edited by MarkAntony198337 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hylander
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2504
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:16 pm

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by Hylander »

I'm far from expert on Platonic philosophy, but if I'm not mistaken, this passage is typical of Socrates' attempts to elicit from an interlocutor the general "form" or "idea" that underlies a particular instance of that idea--the property that all particular instances have in common. Here it seems to be the idea of "bigness". According to Plato--again, I'm no expert--an idea can only be apprehended by an innate faculty which Plato calls the ψυχη. The nebulous English word "soul," which carries the baggage of two and a half millenia of religion and philosophy since Plato, is an inadequate and downright misleading translation of this term. To understand what Plato means by "ψυχη," you'd have to do an extensive study of his writings, and in the end you might find that his use of the term isn't wholly consistent.
Bill Walderman

MarkAntony198337
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:27 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by MarkAntony198337 »

ἀπόλλυται
Last edited by MarkAntony198337 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 2:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

The Budé Platon lexique says"

"âme" (humaine ou cosmique; les deux à la fois dans Phédre, Timée, Lois)

It then list citations under the headings:

a) principe de vie et de pensée" ; a)"vie" b) "naturel, tempérament" d) "périphrastique"

It seems to me that in this passage the means (ψυχη) by which bigness is apprehended is not central to the argument. If you are interested in the philosophy being expounded this looks to be a good starting point http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato ... iManArg132.

As Hylander notes Soul has too much baggage. All of this of course adds weight to the arguments that meaning is created in the act of reception and that authors have no control over how their works are to be (mis)read (or not). Or as MarkAnthony put it "Whatever philosophical reflections may occur to your mind on reading any passage still retain, of course, all their worth and value, independently of what the actual meaning of it is: if you believe that you have come into contact with a valuable thought here, then be all the gladder that it is your own original one and not simply Plato's!" Although I would say that "...what the actual meaning of it is" is not as straightforward proposition as he may think.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by mwh »

"Whatever philosophical reflections may occur to your mind on reading any passage still retain, of course, all their worth and value, independently of what the actual meaning of it is: if you believe that you have come into contact with a valuable thought here, then be all the gladder that it is your own original one and not simply Plato's!"

Their “worth and value” may, of course, be nil. The OP suggested that (τῇ) ψυχῇ might be “a verb from ψύχω”, and said the sentence “would make more sense to me that way.”

It may be true that Plato could exercise no control over such a gross misconstrual. His control ended with the words he wrote. But those words themselves can act as a pretty powerful form of control. And it may be true, or at least arguable, that “meaning is created in the act of reception”—indeed, the OP’s uniquely bizarre reception of Plato’s sentence well illustrates the principle! Against that Plato is powerless to say “That is not what I meant at all; that is not it, at all.” But we are not.

So seneca don't you think it would be better to explain to the OP that his suggestion is untenable, both as grammar and as sense, than to endorse vapidity and to continually rehearse these stale theoretical points? I, like you, am interested in literary theory, but it can quickly become tiresome if not applied to good purpose.

What Plato means (if I’m allowed to say that) by ψυχή is a very big question. How best to translate it in any given instance is a different and smaller one.

MarkAntony198337
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:27 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by MarkAntony198337 »

ἀπόλλυται
Last edited by MarkAntony198337 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

Alas my gentle irony has missed its mark.

The OP's misunderstanding of the grammar had already been dealt with. I couldn't help myself from teasing MarkAnthony, who as a good natured fellow, will I am sure, take it in good part.

I was not of course endorsing the OP's position. I am sorry you find the posts I make so monothematic and stale. Most of the posts I read here are based on what (as you know) Martindale calls "the reified text-in-itself". Forgive me if I feel motivated to advance the idea that meaning is contingent, but I feel some balance is necessary.

I joined this forum to learn a lot and to share a little. I am sorry that my posts vex you so much.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by mwh »

seneca, I meant(?!) you to take my post as a gentle teasing of yourself, which I reckoned you’d take in good part. Admittedly I was making serious points too, as a kind of supplement to yours, but all in a good-natured way, believe me. I’m not really contesting what you say, in fact I think of us as allies in recognizing contingency. The only difference between us may be that I am prepared to say that some things are wrong.:)

Enough with the “I am sorry”s and the “Forgive me”s I beg you. I most certainly do not find your posts “monothematic and stale” as you seem to think (and while the theoretical points you raise may be stale to me I’m sure they’re not to everyone), and I can assure you they don’t vex me anything like as much as some others.:) The vapidity I referenced was not the OP’s. Like you, I think, I’m here to help where I can, and to share, and sometimes to engage, and to learn.

Michael

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

Michael thanks for your reply.

It is an English trait to apologise which must be a source of bewilderment to others. I know well that you didnt mean any offense and none was taken. Every time I mention literary theory I am unconsciously responding also to all those myriad usually fruitless exchanges I have had in the past with people who dont wish to examine the assumptions which they bring to the texts they read. Often the (perhaps over) enthusiastic Seneca of the epistolae takes over where it would be better to feel the influence of the more stoic and relaxed aspect of his self-representation.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

Many thanks for all the replies, I especially enjoyed this one by mwh:
The OP suggested that (τῇ) ψυχῇ might be “a verb from ψύχω”, and said the sentence “would make more sense to me that way.” It is true that “meaning is created in the act of reception—indeed, the OP’s uniquely bizarre reception of Plato’s sentence well illustrates the principle! Against that Plato is powerless to say “That is not what I meant at all you fool!” But we are not.
The reason I asked such a stuipd question is that I don't really read Ancient Greek, i rely on English translations, but they are often poor and conflicting, and in this case I was hoping someone might be able to suggest an alternative translation, so I threw something out there, because this whole third man is a nightmare in a few cryptic sentances (do not take the Vlastos explanation seriously). Anyhow if you are all right there is no getting away from the "looking at them with your soul" type idea even though I had really hoped there would be.

Perhaps you think it is silly to ask people to suggest creative new translations? But look Plato plays with words in subtle ways that give lots of scope for translation discussion. Indeed it makes Plato a nightmare even for experts to read, which is why people like me give up on learning Ancient Greek and rely on others, thinking it a waste of time to even begin.

Here is an example of Plato's bizzare word-craft you might enjoy from my own writing:

...But what precisely does Plato mean by “advantageous” in the passage above?

The word is συμφέρω, and Plato also uses it in a much discussed passage of the Clitophon at 409c.

But first, why is the Clitophon 409c passage much discussed? Because the Clitophon would be a terrible indictment of Plato’s writing were it not some sort of joke. Clearly what Plato must be doing in the Clitophon is showing that Socrates did give some sort of instruction, but it somehow went over Clitophon’s head. Since the dialogue is extremely short, there are only a few sentences in which Plato could be demonstrating the sorts of things Socrates taught, and this is one of them. Thus this short passage must be extremely instructive.

So now let’s take a look:

[Overview of the Clitophon dialogue]
Socrates makes such marvellous speeches in praise of virtue. But is he only capable of persuading people to pursue virtue, or is he capable of teaching it too? After persuading a person to pursue virtue, you must next teach them about it, or they will suffer extreme pain and gradually go wild. My problem is that I was persuaded by him, but then I never got from him what comes next. That is why I say if Socrates can’t teach what comes next, or won’t teach it, then I will have to go to Thrasymachus and to anyone else I can, even if these sophists are the very people he attacks! Now I will tell you now why I gave up on him:

[Prelude to the passage]
I asked the followers of Socrates what is this art that makes us more virtuous? One replied this art is precisely that which you hear Socrates describing—nothing else than justice. I said do not just give me the name, tell me like this: the art of house building builds houses, likewise what is the operation which the just man is capable of performing for us?

[The 409c passage]
From Perseus: ἡμῖν ἔργον ὁ δίκαιος, τί τοῦτό φαμεν; εἰπέ.’ οὗτος μέν, ὡς οἶμαι, τὸ συμφέρον ἀπεκρίνατο, ἄλλος δὲ τὸ δέον, ἕτερος δὲ τὸ ὠφέλιμον, ὁ δὲ τὸ λυσιτελοῦν.
The reply of your exponent was, I think, “the advantageous”; while another said “the beneficial”; a third “the useful”; and yet another “the appropriate”.

Now here are the critical concepts:

Greek Word, Above Translation, Dictionary descriptions
1 συμφέρον - the advantageous
bring together, gather, collect; confer a benefit, be useful or profitable
2 δέον - the beneficial
that which is binding, needful, right
3 ὠφέλιμος - the useful
helping, aiding, useful, serviceable, beneficial
4 λυσιτελέω - the appropriate
indemnify for expenses incurred, or pay what is due; gainful, profitable

In summary: Clitophon asked the followers of Socrates to describe the good the art of virtue produces, and they answered in four different ways that seem to the uninitiated to all mean the basically the same thing.

Comment: Four Causes

So scholars ask themselves the question: why does Plato use four very similar appearing words to describe the “good” of the art of virtue?

Shakespeare, for example, uses a variety of words for the sake of rhyme. But Plato is not rhyming here. What then do you think he is doing?

In the Physics Aristotle talks about the four causes, the formal, material, efficient, and final, and it seems clear to me that the four above follow the same pattern (and Aristole's four causes were taken from Plato's Academy and are central to Plato's doctrine as well).

The advantageous and beneficial are somehow more advanced than the useful and appropriate, and the useful like the advantageous are somehow more intrinsic and the beneficial and appropriate more extrinsic.....

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

Shakespeare, for example, uses a variety of words for the sake of rhyme. But Plato is not rhyming here. What then do you think he is doing?
As a quick reply I would simply make the point that Plato is well versed in rhetoric and often his choice of words may simply reflect stylistic preferences rather than actual technical differences. There is as much art in correct Greek Prosody as there is in Greek Poetry. Also I dont think you will get very far in simply looking words up in a dictionary, although obviously its a first step. If you are interested in the literary interpretation of Plato Rutherford's "the Art of Plato" might be helpful.

Translation is about deciding what a text might mean. Trying to approach it as you do seems to me to be more like a puzzle to be decoded. To bang my literary drum Plato 's dialogues, like other pieces of Ancient Greek, have to be (can only be) read as intertexts.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

As a quick reply I would simply make the point that Plato is well versed in rhetoric and often his choice of words may simply reflect stylistic preferences rather than actual technical differences.
You are wrong, look:
Aristotle explained that Socrates was the student of Prodicus,
and Prodicus was an expert in linguistics who became famous for dividing words such as pleasure and profit into numerical subtypes (a famous example given is the Prodicus division of pleasure into a high low and middle giving the three words joy delight and fun or something like that),
and Socrates took this linguistic division forward and became the developer of the science of dialectic,
which is why Aristotle calls him the first dialetician,
hence the Aristophanes jokes about Socrates cutting up melons in the Clouds,
and Plato's academy was obsessed by this stuff,
and Plato applied it to Pythogrean stuff creating the strage sequences in the Sophist & Statesman etc.
Hence the secret to Plato, many say, is anaylsis of vocabulary trying to recover the stuff Prodicus did that started it all.
And so can you now see how the division of profit into four above is a perfect and fascinating example of this?
Last edited by whooper on Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:52 am, edited 3 times in total.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by mwh »

Just a word on quotation. When quoting someone you should paste the bit you want to quote exactly. You shouldn’t make unsignalled cuts, you shouldn’t change the wording, and you shouldn’t add stuff within what purports to be the quote. Leave that sort of thing to politicians. I know it was well-meant, but in what you present as a quote by me you variously tamper with what I actually wrote, and misrepresent it. For one thing (among others), I did not say “you fool!”, any more than T.S. Eliot did. I would never say that. Or not on this site. :wink:

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

whooper

I am sorry to say I didnt read the supposed quotation of mwh in your post very closely. I think you should edit your post and apologise.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

MarkAntony198337
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:27 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by MarkAntony198337 »

ἀπόλλυται
Last edited by MarkAntony198337 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

Dear friends, please don't fret. Quoting precisely is a modern convention, when you read aristole proclus etc they always quote "with improvements". Likewise, I improved what you were saying about me in my quote, i confidently simplified some wavering, i also humbly added the expression "you fool", because the implication and tone was very clear, you just felt it inappropriate to speak the words out loud. But i think its important to speak those words out loud, because only what is openly and clearly spoken can be responded to.

When it comes to traslating ancient greek i am certainly incompetent, but what i explained above is that does not really make me a "fool", a fool is an incompetent person with confidence! the mark of the fool, for example, is his inability to notice what is going on over the course of an argument, because he clings hold of what he wants to believe instead of noticing how he has been refuted or left behind. Whereas the merely incompetent is capable of learning, the fool is trapped by his inability to change, so as they say in the legends, he can only be saved by love, by an Orpheus. So you see i am proud to be merely "incompetent" rather than a "fool", and i need no love and prefer to wrestle, though of course you were right, "fool" is precisely what i looked like, because it appeared to you that i was someone not unskilled who had bent the meaning to suit my desire in an egregious way demonstrating extreme cognative dissonance.

PS English is my first language. Only my Ancient Greek is incompetent. I am amazed Mark Anthony thinks even my English not just my Greek is incompetent. Is it spelling he is objecting to? Spelling, like typos, is not a good sign of a non-english speaker, the problem with english is its impossible grammar which is extremely difficult for non-natives. So gramatical simplicity and brutality is the sign of the English incompetent not typos or spelling.
Last edited by whooper on Fri Jun 03, 2016 7:41 pm, edited 4 times in total.

anphph
Textkit Enthusiast
Posts: 593
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:35 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by anphph »

whooper wrote:Quoting precisely is a modern convention, when you read aristole proclus etc they always quote "with improvements". Likewise, I improved you quote, i simplified some wavering, i also added the expression "you fool" because the implication and tone was very clear, you just felt it inappropriate to speak the words out loud.
Philology means the love of words. There is no love without respect, I would say, for one's words or for others. To weight what we say with the same scale as we weight the words that others have said would seem to me to be a mark of responsibility. If that responsibility is a convention, so much the better for the Modern age and so much the worse for the ancients. That we do philology is also to renew anew the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns at every step, and to reflect on what is it that they, and we, do better than they, while adducing convincing arguments for one or the other case. I don't think you should have doubled down on this insistence that we are entitled to alter what someone else said because we knew what they were implying better than they themselves did.

MarkAntony198337
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 95
Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2016 2:27 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by MarkAntony198337 »

ἀπόλλυται
Last edited by MarkAntony198337 on Sat Jun 11, 2016 1:53 am, edited 6 times in total.

Hylander
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2504
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:16 pm

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by Hylander »

whooper: I take it you're aware that the Clitophron is a highly problematic dialogue that some scholars think is not genuine Plato--maybe a parody of Plato; others that it is a draft that was never completed; and in general everyone who thinks it's genuine seems to have difficulty fitting this dialogue within the framework of Platonic thought.

Also, there's a passage in the Republic that seems to have some relation to the passage you quoted (1.336c-d). Thrasymachus is challenging Socrates' method for figuring out what τὸ δίκαιον is:
ἀλλ᾽ εἴπερ ὡς ἀληθῶς βούλει εἰδέναι τὸ δίκαιον ὅτι ἔστι, μὴ μόνον ἐρώτα μηδὲ φιλοτιμοῦ ἐλέγχων ἐπειδάν τίς τι ἀποκρίνηται, ἐγνωκὼς τοῦτο, ὅτι ῥᾷον ἐρωτᾶν ἢ ἀποκρίνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸς ἀπόκριναι καὶ εἰπὲ τί φῂς εἶναι τὸ δίκαιον. καὶ ὅπως μοι μὴ ἐρεῖς ὅτι τὸ δέον ἐστὶν μηδ᾽ ὅτι τὸ ὠφέλιμον μηδ᾽ ὅτι τὸ λυσιτελοῦν μηδ᾽ ὅτι τὸ κερδαλέον μηδ᾽ ὅτι τὸ συμφέρον, ἀλλὰ σαφῶς μοι καὶ ἀκριβῶς λέγε ὅτι ἂν λέγῃς: ὡς ἐγὼ οὐκ ἀποδέξομαι ἐὰν ὕθλους τοιούτους λέγῃς.

Perseus translation: But if you really wish, Socrates, to know what the just is, don't merely ask questions or plume yourself upon controverting any answer that anyone gives—since your acumen has perceived that it is easier to ask questions than to answer them, but do you yourself answer and tell what you say the just is. And don't you be telling me that it is that which ought to be, or the beneficial or the profitable or the gainful or the advantageous, but express clearly and precisely whatever you say.
I have no idea exactly what the connection between this passage and the passage from Clitophron that you quoted is. But I thought it was worth pointing it out to you in case you aren't aware of it already.

τὸ δέον -- what ought to be

τὸ λυσιτελοῦν -- what is profitable
Bill Walderman

User avatar
seneca2008
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 2006
Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:48 pm
Location: Londinium

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by seneca2008 »

When it comes to traslating ancient greek i am certainly incompetent, but what i explained above is that does not really make me a "fool", a fool is an incompetent person with confidence! the mark of the fool, for example, is his inability to notice what is going on over the course of an argument, because he clings hold of what he wants to believe instead of noticing how he has been refuted or left behind.
If you think this why did you change mwh's post.

I think you are being provocative and you will find that such an approach wins no allies here and posts tend to be ignored after the initial excitement has died down.
Persuade tibi hoc sic esse, ut scribo: quaedam tempora eripiuntur nobis, quaedam subducuntur, quaedam effluunt. Turpissima tamen est iactura, quae per neglegentiam fit. Et si volueris attendere, maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

mwh
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 4790
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:34 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by mwh »

To be clear, whooper, what I wrote was in response to seneca, not to you. I thought of you more as an incompetent (in Greek) than as a fool. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, I just didn’t want anyone reading your “quote” of me to go thinking that that was what I’d written (or what I’d meant).

whooper
Textkit Neophyte
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue May 31, 2016 11:03 am

Re: A Sentance of Plato Translation Help Please

Post by whooper »

@Hylander,
whooper: I take it you're aware that the Clitophron is a highly problematic dialogue that some scholars think is not genuine Plato--maybe a parody of Plato; others that it is a draft that was never completed; and in general everyone who thinks it's genuine seems to have difficulty fitting this dialogue within the framework of Platonic thought.
Of course, but obvioisly I claim to know better, it makes perfect sense to me, did you read what i said about it? eg:
The Clitophon would be a terrible indictment of Plato’s writing were it not some sort of joke. Clearly what Plato must be doing in the Clitophon is showing that Socrates did give some sort of instruction, but it somehow went over Clitophon’s head. Since the dialogue is extremely short, there are only a few sentences in which Plato could be demonstrating the sorts of things Socrates taught, and this is one of them. Thus this short passage must be extremely instructive.
But of course you have read and understood because you have picked up the ball! The passage you quoted from the Republic is just one of many in which you see these four strange words that get so hopelessly lost in translation used in relation to virtue!

Do you understand then what I am saying, and see how compelling it is even to someone who has not studied Plato as much as someone like me? Have you read about the famous Prodicus divisions of concepts such as pleasure into linguistic "numbers"? Did you understand that earlier post of mine?

In summary my claim is that these are Platonic Key words arranged in an Aristotelian Four Causes type setup. The four causes are not understood today, Aristotle also cloaks his work using confusing examples, thinking about this example is helpful to figuring them out.

Thank you hylander for picking up on what I am saying, you are clearly a switched on reader with serious thoughts coming to mind!

Post Reply