1 Cf. Apology 25 C.
2 ἅ γε δὴ καὶ ἄξια θέας: for καί Cf. Sophist 223 A, 229 D, Timaeus 83 C, Politicus 285 B, and 544 A, C-D. By the strict theory of ideas any distinction may mark a class, and so constitute an idea. (Cf. De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 22-25.) But Plato's logical practice recognizes that only typical or relevant “Ideas” are worth naming or considering. The Republic does not raise the metaphysical question how a true idea is to be distinguished from a part or from a partial or casual concept. Cf. Unity of Plato's Thought, pp. 52-53, n. 381, Politicus 263 A-B.
3 Cf. 588 B, Emerson, Nominalist and Realist, ii. p. 256: “We like to come to a height of land and see the landscape, just as we value a general remark in a conversation.” Cf. Lowell, Democracy, Prose Works, vi. 8: “He who has mounted the tower of Plato to look abroad from it will never hope to climb another with so lofty a vantage of speculation.” From this and 517 A-B, the ἀνάβασις became a technical or cant term in Neoplatonism.
4 ἓν μέν, etc.: perhaps a faint remembrance of the line ἐσθλοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἁπλῶς, παντοδαπῶς δὲ κακοί, quoted by Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1106 b 35. It suggests Plato's principle of the unity of virtue, as ἄπειρα below suggests the logical doctrine of the Philebus 16 and Parmenides 145 A, 158 B-C that the other of the definite idea is the indefinite and infinite.
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