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[155d]

Socrates
Theodorus seems to be a pretty good guesser about your nature. For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy, and he who said that Iris was the child of Thaumas1 made a good genealogy. But do you begin to understand why these things are so, according to the doctrine we attribute to Protagoras, or do you not as yet?

Theaetetus
Not yet, I think.

Socrates
And will you be grateful to me if I help you


1 Hes. Theog. 750 Iris is the messenger of heaven, and Plato interprets the name of her father as “Wonder” (θαῦμα).

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • J. Adam, A. M. Adam, Commentary on Plato, Protagoras, CHAPTER VI
  • Cross-references in notes from this page (1):
    • Hesiod, Theogony, 750
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (2):
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