[336c]
“What balderdash is this that you have been talking, and why do
you Simple Simons truckle and give way to one another? 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,1 but do you yourself answer and tell
1 Cf. Gorgias 483 A, Aristotle Soph. El. 183 b 7. “Socrates asked questions but did not answer, for he admitted that he did not know.” For similar complaints cf. Xenophon Memorabilia i. 2. 36, iv. 4. 9, Theaetetus 150 C, Clitophon passim.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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