Plato, Sophist 244 CAuthor(s): J. Cook WilsonSource: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), pp. 52-53Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/636127 .

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PLATO, SOPHIST 244 C.

IN the last number of the Journal of Philology (xxxii. 63, p. 136) a change of punctuation in Sophist 244 C, together with a new interpretation, is

proposed. To this serious exception must be taken; or perhaps not too serious, because the proposal can hardly be due to anything but haste and want of revision. It is not only in disagreement with a familiar idiom, but is

easily seen to be inconsistent with the context, which can have barely received attention. The passage is as follows: SE. 7r 7re ;o vpav'ra aLPoXoeyeFv elvats

p.ev 8pevov 'rrX'v v a7aTe"Xao-rY 67rov. OEAI 7r&o, 3' o' ; E. al

7r -raparrav 7e drrowXeoOat 'roi: X yov'roq coq ~''uitv ovo~li 7'L, X67ov otc btv e'Xov.

On this Apelt, in his new edition of Stallbaum's Commentary, has written

quite rightly, Xyov obc iAv Xov respondet antecedenti illi Ka'ra7yhXao-'r6V wov ut non opus sit mutatione. . . . Ceterum ad totius loci sensum nihil interest, utrum eXov an ko& scribatur.

In reply to this it is said: 'Ka-raeXaondv -ov is to be carried forward from the former sentence, and the comma after Svopd a' should be expunged. Translate: " And, again, surely it is absurd to accept from anyone the statement that there is a name which cannot have a definition."'

A6yov gXeLv, put absolutely, was in the time of Plato and Aristotle a current phrase with the established meaning 'to admit of an account being given of it :' an account not in the sense of definition, but of 'justifying account,' and so XMyov obVc 'Xe•v

regularly meant to be unreasonable. No

mention whatever is made of this in the above, and yet it was imperative to give some instances of deflection from the normal usage to the supposed more general meaning. The new interpretation could not be defended merely on the ground that in itself XA7yov Xewv could mean 'to admit of definition.' For it is a familiar fact .that a phrase which from its composition might have had a certain signification never has it in the idiom of the spoken language, but has become entirely confined to another possible signification. This is a common source of mistake in speaking or translating a modern foreign language, and the interpreters of ancient texts should remember it.

But whether X'yov g reLV ever had the sense of admitting of definition or not, at any rate it could not have that sense in this passage.

In the preceding context a difficulty had been pointed out in the Eleatic doctrine that only the One exists. For, according to this, the One has being, and thus is established the existence of the two names One and Being. This

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PLATO, SOPHIST 244 C. 53

would be a difficulty for those who affirm that only the One exists, and accord- ingly follows the passage above quoted: 7. -6 e 8izo v6'ar•a tpoXotye•v

etvat , wj&v OE'etLvov 7r-Xqv v Ka'ra7wXaeaT7•ov 7rov. 0.

7rc^• 8' oi`; .

.Ka•, T"

7rapd'rav r ye ye roefxeaOat 7-ooi XE'yov•oo4 c6

'1?'artv vola ' 7-1,

X/Yov oI ayv XOv. . 7r^; The new interpretation involves that the last words Kal Tob \7rapdcrav ye

K.T.X. are a part of the difficulty just explained. But it should have been observed that the particles e ... . .ca naturally imply two different results, each constituting a separate difficulty. And the fact is that the words Ka\

7ob rapdarav ye do introduce a new difficulty, the nature of which is explained in two sentences, connected by re and Kat which follow-'tld 7 re -oivvopoa

K.T.X. and Kal p2v Ly arnTadv ye K.T.X. That they do not form the conclusion of the first argument ought to have been suggested at once by the interrogation which immediately follows them, which seems to have been quite overlooked.

Theaetetus asks, 'How ?' (r? ;), and this introduces the explanation of the new point. Now, if the proposed interpretation had been right, the explanation should have been as to why it could not be admitted that there might be a name without a definition to correspond. But there is not a word about any such thing. On the contrary, what is explained is exactly the meaning of the text implied by the ordinary punctuation, and endorsed by Apelt-viz., that the existence of a name at all could not be accounted for or justified on the Eleatic hypothesis. The reason given is, that there being two alternatives-(I) to assume the name different to the thing of which it was the name, and (2) to assume that the name is not different-the first would involve there being two existences, the name and the thing, which no Eleatic could admit, while the second would necessitate that either the name was the name of nothing at all or that it was the name of a name (i.e., because if the name is identified with the thing, the latter becomes a mere name also). All this is so plain that, as already said, one can only attribute the new proposal to haste and preoccupation.

J. COOK WILSON.

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