This text is part of:
οὐκ ἂν οὖν κτλ. See cr. n. Some may think that we should read οὐκοῦν (with the majority of MSS) and cancel εἴη after σπουδαῖον (so also Vind. D), understanding ἐστι. The accidental omission of ἄν is however not uncommon in Plato's MSS: see on IV 437 B. οὗτος καὶ φυλάξασθαι. Because knowledge of anything implies knowledge also of its opposite, according to the usual Socratic view. See Phaed. 97 D οὐδὲν ἄλλο σκοπεῖν προσήκειν ἄνθρωπον—ἀλλ᾽ ἢ τὸ ἄριστον καὶ τὸ βέλτιστον: ἀναγκαῖον δὲ εἶναι τὸν αὐτὸν τοῦτον καὶ τὸ χεῖρον εἰδέναι, Charm. 166 E, Hipp. Min. 367 A ff. See also Stewart's Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics Vol. I p. 378. φυλάξασθαι κτλ. See cr. n. With the emendation in the text, the argument is as follows: (1) he who can πατάξαι, can φυλάξασθαι: (2) he who can φυλάξασθαι (νόσον), can λαθεῖν ἐμποιήσας (νόσον): (3) he who can κλέψαι (τὰ τῶν πολεμίων), is a good φύλαξ of an army. Thus the predicate of each step in the argument corresponds to the subject of the step next following: for λαθεῖν ἐμποιήσας (νόσον) is to be taken as parallel to κλέψαι (τὰ τῶν πολεμίων). The argument is unsound, and not intended to be serious: it is enough that it suffices to bewilder Polemarchus. For a further discussion on this passage see App. II.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.