[349e]
but do you recognize
that one man is a musician1 and
another unmusical?” “I do.” “Which
is the intelligent and which the unintelligent?” “The
musician, I presume, is the intelligent and the unmusical the
unintelligent.” “And is he not good in the things in
which he is intelligent2 and bad in the things in which
he is unintelligent?” “Yes.” “And
the same of the physician?” “The same.”
“Do you think then, my friend, that any musician in the tuning of
a lyre would want to overreach3 another musician in the
tightening and relaxing of the strings or would claim and think fit to
exceed or outdo him?” “I do not.”
“But would the the unmusical man?” “Of
necessity,” he said. “And how about the medical man?
1 Cf. 608 E, Gorgias 463 E, Protagoras 332 A, 358 D, Phaedo 103 C, Soph. 226 B, Philebus 34 E, Meno 75 D, 88 A, Alc. I. 128 B, Cratylus 385 B. The formula, which is merely used to obtain formal recognition of a term or idea required in the argument, readily lends itself to modern parody. Socrates seems to have gone far afield. Thrasymachus answers quite confidently,ἔγωγε, but in δήπου there is a hint of bewilderment as to the object of it all.
2 Familiar Socratic doctrine. Cf. Laches 194 D, Lysis 210 D, Gorgias 504 D.
3 πλεονεκτεῖν is here a virtual synonym of πλέον ἔχειν. The two terms help the double meaning. Cf. Laws 691 Aπλεονεκτεῖν τῶν νόμων.
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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