[602e]
“Certainly.” “But this surely would be the
function1 of the part of the soul that reasons and
calculates.2”
“Why, yes, of that.” “And often when this has
measured3
and declares that certain things are larger or that some are smaller than
the others or equal, there is at the same time an appearance of the
contrary.” “Yes.” “And did we not
say4 that
it is impossible for the same thing at one time to hold contradictory
opinions about the same thing?”
1 Cf. Vol. I. p. 36, note a. Of course some of the modern connotations of “function” are unknown to Plato.
2 For λογιστικοῦ cf. on 439 D.
3 See p. 448, note c, and my Platonism and the History of Science, p. 176.
4 436 B, Vol. I. p. 383.
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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