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Plato, Sophist 231 a, Etc

N. B. Booth

The Classical Quarterly / Volume 6 / Issue 1-2 / May 1956, pp 89 - 90DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800015032, Published online: 11 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009838800015032

How to cite this article:N. B. Booth (1956). Plato, Sophist 231 a, Etc. The Classical Quarterly, 6, pp89-90 doi:10.1017/S0009838800015032

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PLATO, SOPHIST 231 a, ETC.

M R . G. B. KERFERD, in C.Q. xlviii (1954), 84 ff. writes of 'Plato's Noble Art ofSophistry'. He suggests that Plato thought there was a 'Noble Art' of sophistry,other than philosophy itself; and he seeks to find this Art in the better andworse arguments of Protagoras. This suggestion is, unfortunately, based on amistranslation of Plato, Sophist 231 a : ov yap Trepl afiuepoiv opwv TTJV aiJufrioprjTriaivoiojxat. yevrjcreadai TOT€ oworav iKavios <f>v\a.TT(uoiv. Mr . Kerferd supposes thatthis can mean: 'For I do not think there will be dispute about distinctions whichare of little importance when men are sufficiently on guard in the case ofresemblances.' He takes the ov with TTJV dfjufrio-firjTrjcnv otofiai yevtfaeoOai, andnot with afUKpcov.

This is a curious translation in view of the word order (ov yap nepl afiiKpwvopcov) and in view of the article used with ap^io-firfrrjo-uv. On grounds of languagealone, ov must go with apuKpoiv. But further, what are these distinctions which,if we accept Mr. Kerferd's view, are 'of little importance' ? They are distinc-tions on the one hand between tame and fierce, and on the other hand betweenthe cathartic process of dialectic and sophistry. The 'tame' and 'fierce' dis-tinction is not between tame and fierce merely; it is a distinction between thevery tamest and the very fiercest of animals (Plato uses superlatives at thebeginning of 231 a). How Plato could have in the same paragraph stressedthe vastness of the difference by means of superlatives and then spoken of'small distinctions', is more than I can see. I also fail to see how Plato could everhave thought the distinction between sophistry and healing dialectic to be a smallone; that would be saying that there was little to choose between Socrates andThrasymachus. No: Plato is saying here that there is a certain superficialresemblance between healing dialectic and sophistry, but we must beware ofthat resemblance; in fact the one is a tame watch-dog, the other a raveningwolf, and 'we shall find in the course of our discussion, once we take adequateprecautions, that there is no small distinction between the two'.

I think Plato rejected utterly and uncompromisingly all doctrines that werenot founded on conceptions of absolute Truth and absolute Knowledge; hesimply cannot have approved of Protagoras' arguments. It would be moreinteresting to discuss Plato's attitude towards the Eleatics. Zeno was said tohave invented dialectic; and Parmenides, Zeno, and the Eleatic Stranger,figure prominently in some of Plato's later dialogues. No doubt Plato intro-duced them because he wished to quarrel with their rejection of 'Not-Being',and to show how Being and Not-Being may be interwoven; no doubt, also,Plato made them better in his dialogues than they really were: but it is stillpossible that Plato had considerable respect for their methods.

Mr. Kerferd in the same article suggests that the division of 'evil in the soul'into two classes, in Sophist 226 ff., has no significance for the development ofPlato's ethical thinking. He seems not to realize that the analysis of virtues inthe Republic necessitated a division of evil in the soul. In the Republic (and stillmore in the Laws), the main virtue is Wisdom; but it has three handmaids,Justice, Temperance, and Courage, which look to Wisdom as their leader.Wisdom is concerned with the right functioning of the reason; the other threevirtues are more concerned with the harmony of the soul, which must be such

go N. B. BOOTH

that Reason rules over Spirit and Passion. The corresponding faults are boundto be Ignorance and Faction.1 These faults may both arise from some kind ofdisharmony or disproportion within the soul, but that does not invalidate thedistinction between them. It seems to me that the whole irony of Plato'sRepublic and Laws, and indeed of his whole life, was the inadequacy of Reasonby itself, if it had not power and dominion.

N. B. BOOTH

1 See Hackforth, 'Moral Evil and Ignor-ance in Plato's Ethics', C.Q. xl (1946), 118-20; Dodds, 'Plato and the Irrational', J.H.S.lxv (1945), 18-19; Aristotle, Magna Moraliaii82au—30; Plato, Laws 631 d, 644 d ff.,

etc. It should not be supposed, however, thatI accept all the conclusions of the first twowriters, or that I commit myself to a view onthe authorship of the Magna Moralia.

THE PROSODY OF GREEK PROPER NAMES INEARLY LATIN COMEDY

(cf. C.Q..V [1955], ao6ff.)

I T is inherent in the nature of early Latin verse that no dactylic word, be it Phaedria oromnia or accipe, can in any single instance be shown to be dactylic rather than cretic.Mr. Martin seems to have overlooked this fact when he writes: 'But the significantthing is that in no line is the scansion -a necessary' (loc. cit., p. 208). Only indirectevidence can reveal short quantity of the final. If Phaedria behaves like Phaedriae orParmeno it is a cretic; if it behaves like Pamphile it is a dactyl.

Here is the evidence from Terence:

Total of occurrencesAt end of lineIn elisionFollowed by disyll. thesisCretic

Phaedria(nom., we.)

332 2

83o1

Pamphile

3921

1530

Phaedria(oblique cases)

1811

11

52

Parmeno(nom., voc.)

4417'4583

This is a fair sample, and Phaedria is proved to be a dactyl because, like Pamphileand unlike Phaedriae and Parmeno, it is never used as a cretic. The vocative Clinia isonce so used (Heaut. 406) but that single exception faces overwhelming odds in creticAntiphos, Ctesisphos etc., and the oblique cases oiChaerea, Clinia, and the rest.

University College London O. SKUTSCH

1 The ablative in Eun. 465 is by inadvertence listed as a nominative or vocative, loc. cit.,p. 208.

2 Eun. 354; 440; 465; Ph. 778; 886.3 Eun. 307; 351; 1034; Hec. 320; 340; 409; 416; 878.