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εἰς ἓν κεφάλαιον κτλ. Plato recognised three varieties in τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν, corresponding respectively to the oligarchical, democratical, and tyrannical man (VIII 558 D note). In the present chapter these varieties again recede into the background. This apparent ‘Inconsequenz,’ together with other reasons, led Krohn to suppose that the whole of this proof, as well as the next, was written at a different time from the rest of Books VIII and IX (Pl. St. pp. 221 ff. Cf. Pfleiderer Zur Lösung etc. p. 75. Krohn has since retracted his view: see his Pl. Fr. p. 104). But the unity of the ἐπιθυμητικόν as such has never been sacrificed, since each of its varieties are also expressions of desire; and Plato is therefore fully justified in setting it over against φιλόσοφον and θυμοειδές. To have compared each of its varieties separately with the two higher principles would have greatly lengthened and complicated Plato's proof; and he reserves this point for another mode of treatment at a later opportunity (587 C note). Why does he select the word φιλοχρήματον (s. φιλοκερδές) to denote the ἐπιθυμητικόν here? He wishes to find a single word to contrast with φιλόσοφον and φιλόνικον (s. φιλότιμον). The word ἐπιθυμητικόν itself is excluded, because we have agreed that the φιλόσοφον and φιλόνικον have also ἐπιθυμίαι of their own (580 D), and, as φιλοχρήματον made its appearance in each of the three forms of ἐπιθυμία (VIII 551 A, 553 C, 555 A, 558 D, 561 A, 568 D, IX 572 C, 573 D), it is the best summary description available. Plato himself claims no more for it, and that is why he says μάλιστα ἂν εἰς ἓν κεφάλαιον ἀπερειδοίμεθα. Cf. Grimmelt de reip. Pl. comp. et unit. pp. 73 ff.

οὐ -- μέντοι. See on I 339 B.

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