James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ἄνευ λογισμοῦ τε καὶ νοῦ is emphatic, and prepares us for θαρροῦντες λέγωμεν κτλ., where Plato concedes after all a certain measure of reality and truth to the pleasures of the two lower parts of soul, provided they act in obedience to reason. That the φιλοκερδές should in any degree whatsoever participate in true pleasure, has been judged inconsistent with the previous argument (Krohn Pl. St. pp. 227 ff.), but is not so, if we fully appreciate the restrictions which Plato makes (cf. Grimmelt de reip. comp. et unit. p. 76), and also remember that in the perfect city, which is the counterpart of the perfect soul, the lower orders found their truest pleasure in working for the common welfare under reason as embodied in the Guardians. The gist of the present passage is well expressed by Nettleship, who in his Lectures and Remains II p. 331 remarks “that in the most trivial satisfaction there may be a sense of serving something wider and higher than animal appetite: that this gives to the satisfaction of appetite a permanence and a satisfactoriness which by itself it cannot have.” Appetite, in short, behaves like a loyal citizen of the πολιτεία ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ. Cf. IV 443 D, E.

αἳ μὲν κτλ. The antithesis is supplied in a different form by ὅταν δὲ κτλ. 587 A. Instead of ἑπομένων in line 29 Stephanus read ἑπόμεναι, without MS authority: but cf. (with Schneider) ὡς ἄμεινον ὂν παντὶ ὑπὸ θείου καὶ φρονίμου ἄρχεσθαι, μάλιστα μὲν οἰκεῖον ἔχοντος ἐν αὑτῷ κτλ. 590 D. See note ad loc.