[534b]
“Well,” he said, “I agree with you about the
rest of it, so far as I am able to follow.” “And do you not
also give the name dialectician to the man who is able to exact an account1 of the
essence of each thing? And will you not say that the one who is unable to do
this, in so far as he is incapable of rendering an account to himself and
others, does not possess full reason and intelligence2 about the
matter?” “How could I say that he does?” he
replied. “And is not this true of the good likewise3—that the man who is unable to define in his discourse and
distinguish and abstract from all other things the aspect or idea of the good,
1 Cf. on 531 E, p. 195, note f.
2 Cf. on 511 D, p. 117, note a.
3 This would be superfluous on the interpretation that the ἱκανόν must always be the idea of good. What follows distinguishes the dialectician from the the eristic sophist. For the short cut,καὶ . . . ὡσαύτως, cf. 523 E, 580 D, 585 D, 346 A, etc.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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