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οὐ πάνυ πόρρω: sc. οἰώμεθα νομίζειν; as before. ἀναγκαίας: necessarias, quippe ceteris nihil indigentem nisi necessitas cogeret (after Stallbaum). Hence τῷ ὄντι: see on VI 511 B. δεῖ εἰδέναι: we should not suppose (οἴεσθαι), but be sure of it. Badham's conjecture διείλου (ad Euthyd. p. 98) is wholly needless and inept. ἀμφισβητοῦνται: ‘are in dispute’ (Jowett). For this somewhat irregular use of the passive cf. Cope's Rhetoric of Aristotle I p. 299. It is tempting to make the verb middle (‘dispute with one another’), as in Laws 957 D, and suppose that the pleasures are personified, as the two lives are in Prodicus' apologue of Heracles at the cross-roads (Xen. Mem. II 1. 21 ff.). αὐτῶν in τίς αὐτῶν will then mean τῶν ηδονῶν, and not τῶν ἀνδρῶν. But on such a theory, instead of αὐτὸς ὁ βίος, we should rather have had αὐτοὶ οἱ βίοι: and on the whole it is doubtless better to acquiesce in the ordinary interpretation, which is also more in harmony with τριῶν ὄντων τῶν ἀνδρῶν κτλ. below.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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