Plato, Sophist 231 a, etc.

Author(s): N. B. Booth
Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1956), pp. 89-90
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/636974
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PLATO,

SOPHIST

23I a, ETC.

MR. G. B. KERFERD,in C.Q. xlviii (I954), 84 ff. writes of 'Plato's Noble Art of

Sophistry'.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 and
worse arguments of Protagoras.This suggestion is, unfortunately, based on a
mistranslation
oloLat,

of Plato, Sophist 231 a: ov0 yap

yevrjaEcOaT TOTE o7roTav

tiCav)S '

7repL cf!LKpWv

vAaTTWrcoa.

Mr.

o'pav

Trrv

Kerferd

adLbL/qBtr,TravC

supposes

that

this can mean: 'For I do not think therewill be dispute about distinctionswhich
are of little importance when men are sufficiently on guard in the case of
resemblances.'
He takes the ov with T?7V Jctir7tqVwTv
o'tovat y7ev-roEOat, and
not with aOrTKpCOv.
This is a curious translation in view of the word order (ov yap r1Epi atLLKPWV

opcov)and in view of the article used with aqLoaf37TloCrv. On grounds of language

alone, ov must go with arulcpWv. But further, what are these distinctions which,

if we accept Mr. Kerferd'sview, are 'of little importance'? They are distinctions on the one hand between tame and fierce, and on the other hand between
the cathartic process of dialectic and sophistry. The 'tame' and 'fierce' distinction is not between tame and fierce merely; it is a distinction between the
very tamest and the very fiercest of animals (Plato uses superlatives at the
beginning of 231 a). How Plato could have in the same paragraph stressed
the vastness of the difference by means of superlatives and then spoken of
'smalldistinctions',is more than I can see. I also fail to see how Plato could ever
have thought the distinctionbetween sophistryand healing dialectic to be a small
one; that would be saying that there was little to choose between Socrates and
Thrasymachus. No: Plato is saying here that there is a certain superficial
resemblance between healing dialectic and sophistry, but we must beware of
that resemblance; in fact the one is a tame watch-dog, the other a ravening
wolf, and 'we shall find in the course of our discussion,once we take adequate
precautions, that there is no small distinction between the two'.
I think Plato rejected utterly and uncompromisinglyall doctrines that were
not founded on conceptions of absolute Truth and absolute Knowledge; he
simply cannot have approved of Protagoras' arguments. It would be more
interesting to discuss Plato's attitude towards the Eleatics. Zeno was said to
have invented dialectic; and Parmenides, Zeno, and the Eleatic Stranger,
figure prominently in some of Plato's later dialogues. No doubt Plato introduced 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 still
possible that Plato had considerablerespect for their methods.
Mr. Kerferd in the same article suggeststhat the division of 'evil in the soul'
into two classes, in Sophist226 ff., has no significance for the development of
Plato's ethical thinking. He seems not to realize that the analysis of virtues in
the Republicnecessitated a division of evil in the soul. In the Republic(and still
more 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 three
virtues are more concerned with the harmony of the soul, which must be such

N. B. BOOTH

90

that Reason rules over Spirit and Passion. The corresponding faults are bound
to be Ignorance and Faction.' These faults may both arise from some kind of
disharmony or disproportion within the soul, but that does not invalidate the
distinction between them. It seems to me that the whole irony of Plato's
Republicand Laws, and indeed of his whole life, was the inadequacy of Reason
by itself, if it had not power and dominion.
N. B. BOOTH
See Hackforth, 'Moral Evil and Ignorance in Plato's Ethics', C.Q. xl (I946), 1820; Dodds, 'Plato and the Irrational', J.H.S.
lxv (1945), 18-19; Aristotle, Magna Moralia
I I82aI 1-30; Plato, Laws 631 d, 644 d ff.,

THE

etc. It should not be supposed, however, that

I accept all the conclusions of the first two
writers, or that I commit myself to a view on
the authorship of the Magna Moralia.

PROSODY
OF GREEK
LATIN
EARLY

PROPER
COMEDY

NAMES

IN

(cf. C.Q. v [1955], 206 if.)

IT is inherent in the nature of early Latin verse that no dactylic word, be it Phaedriaor
omniaor 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 significant
thing is that in no line is the scansion -d necessary' (loc. cit., p. 208). Only indirect
evidence can reveal short quantity of the final. If Phaedriabehaves like Phaedriaeor
Parmenoit is a cretic; if it behaves like Pamphile it is a dactyl.

Here is the evidence from Terence:

Total of occurrences

Phaedria
(nom., voc.)

Pamphile

Phaedria
Parmeno
(obliquecases) (nom., voc.)

33

39

i8

44

22

21

.
.
.
In elision
Followed by disyll. thesis

.
.

8
3

15
3

I
I

17
4

At end of line

.
Cretic ...

.
.o

52

83

This is a fair sample, and Phaedria is proved to be a dactyl because, like Pamphile
and unlike Phaedriae and Parmeno, it is never used as a cretic. The vocative Clinia is
once so used (Heaut. 406) but that single exception faces overwhelming odds in cretic
Antiphos, Ctesisphosetc., and the oblique cases of Chaerea, Clinia, and the rest.
University College London
I

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

p. 208.

Eun. 354; 440; 465; Ph. 778; 886.

3 Eun. 307; 351; 1034; Hec. 320; 340; 409; 416; 878.

0. SKUTSCH