Republic, Book 10
Chapt 1: 595a1 4-8-2-10-rep10-595a1-595-c3-begin-rep-bk-10-col-b-250r Chapt 2: 597a1 4-8-2-10-rep10-595c3-596e10-598a7-250v Chapt 3: 598d8 In the two parts of Venetus ms. "T" the phrase or words 'pa=s sopho\s' are treated differently. Manuscript evidence is available here at the 'Euthydemus' page, specifically for 287 c10. The case in Euthydemus Chapt 16, 287c10, differs from this one in Republic, Book X, Chapt3, 598d3. Burnet did not take pains to do a note in the Euthydemus manifest. Slings makes no note here in the second case. But Burnet had noted a wide variety, accenting varying in the various mss., in the other case. Naturally it involves a point of fundamental importance on the side of historical figures, men of 'blood and bone'. The 'all-knowing' Hippias of Elis was in Plato's period either still alive or a recent memory. A rejuvenated Hippias seems to be close to Plato within the Academy, even an intimate companion of the Master, and the final segment of his birthname rhymes with 'hippias'. The man from Opus, Phil-ippus by name, on which name both Aristotle and Plato had written. If one of Philip's petnames was'Aster' and another 'Socrates Alternate', then this same passage on the 'True Astronomer', (527e), Plato will be an only slightly veiled naming of a pair of personal intimates, each expert in astronomy in his own right. It is precisely here, in the sentence following the pointer to Philip, that Plato is recognized to be alluding to Philip's mathematical colleague Eudoxus (527e4). Certainly the line in Rep. VII, Chapt 10, about astronomers, their reception by the contemporary public, and about the 'myriad eyes' of Heaven Herself strongly suggests this same blood and bone man. Before the end of this segment on the quadrivium, he famously deprecates 'ocular' astronomy as well as 'auditory' work in harmonics. Just as well known, he deprecates empirical work -- We must not put eyes or ears above intellect (nous) is Plato's warning. Philip can have been a lover to Plato somewhat earlier in his life, in addition to doing his amanuensis work alongside him very late in his life. Like the aging and fatigued lover of the Ibycus lyric fragment referred to at Plato's Parmenides 136e. It will be remembered that Eudoxus's chief contribution to knownledge of planetary motions was named the 'hippo-pede' and that it was not the charioteer in the Ibycus. Plato refers to Ibycus's horse.
As to the content behind this word, meaning as it does meaning roughly all-knowing or omniscient, I know of no example, except perhaps Plato himself at his Early Academy, superior to this deeply witty remark, which I wish I had written myself:
I may hereafter, perhaps, write a budget of collected results of the a priori philosophy, the nibbling at the small end of omniscience, and the effect it has had on common life, from the family parlor to the jury-box, from the girls’-school to the vestry-meeting.
Its author, Augustus DeMorgan, would have made much of the work of Abraham Robinson, to include the Delta/Epsilon method the latter deploys, sometimes setting the value of Epsilon to an infinitesimal quantity.
Why does Plato's chapter on astronomy begin with the rare phrase 'ti/ dai\'? Why does the text of Parm 137c7, not 20 lines below the mention of Ibycus's horse -- have precisely this same rarity ? The editor's work, possibly -- Philip's in particular ? Or Plato's own ? Stallbaum stood firmly behind the diphthongal variant 'statim post dai\', he wrote, and added that Schneider's printing 'de\' ad loc. was 'ridicule'. text-crucial words (Burnet ad Rep X 598d3) for pan-sofos man 4-8-2-10-rep10-598a7-599b6-600c3-251r Chapt 4: 600e1 Chapt 5: 602c1 4-8-2-10-rep10-600c3-601c7-602d4-251v Chapt 6: 604a9 4-8-2-10-rep10-602d4-603e5-605a2-252r Chapt 7: 605c5 Chapt 8: 607b2 4-8-2-10-rep10-605a2-606a6-607b6-252v Chapt 9: 608c2 4-8-2-10-rep10-607b6-608d1-609e6-253r Chapt 10: 610a5 Chapt 11: 611a4 Chapt 12: 612a8 4-8-2-10-rep10-609e6-611a3-612a9-253v Chapt 13: 613e5 4-8-2-10-rep10-612a9-613b10-614c8-254r Chapt 14: 615d3 (sic) 4-8-2-10-rep10-614c8-615e1-617a4-254v Chapt 15: 617d2 Chapt 16: 619b2 4-8-2-10-rep10-617a4-618b3-619c6-255r 4-8-2-10-rep10-619c6-620d3-621d3-end-of-rep-nr-bot-col-b-255v
Are you able to make an educated guess as to the author of this remark, and his century ? Hint: his century was the 19th A.D., entirely. Second hint: like Philip of Opus he was a mathematician and astronomer, closely linked to the university system in England, and who also queried publically whether the English initials F.R.S. following one’s name might not signify ‘Fellow who is Really Scientific’:
Sir,—I have reason to think that many persons have a very inaccurate notion of the Editorial System. What I call by this name has grown up in the last centenary—a word I may use to signify the hundred years now ending, and to avoid the ambiguity of century. It cannot conveniently be explained by editors themselves, and edited journals generally do not like to say much about it. [think how troublesome E.R. Dodds’s phrase ‘the early 80s’ as a dating for Republic would have been to Plato’s editor Philip of Opus in the mid 50s !] In your paper perhaps, in which editorial duties differ somewhat from those of ordinary journals, the common system may be freely spoken of.
Younger Socrates 