41e1 / where do I find Heindorf's suggestion?

Specific Text Questions Philebus
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Context: In his 1901 edition, Burnet renders 41e1 πῇ δὴ καὶ πῶς; Thus Burnet rejects Heindorf’s suggestion to read ποία instead of πῇ. Heindorf’s suggestion is widely rejected nowadays but was followed, among others, by Bekker. I am assuming that Heindorf is Ludwig Friedrich Heindorf who edited some but not all of Plato’s dialogues.

Since Heindorf did not edit the Philebus, I am wondering where Heindorf has proposed his suggestion; I am curious for his reasoning. I presume that he might have given it in his notes on the texts of other dialogues, but I was unable to trace it.

Question: Does anyone know where Heindorf has suggested his reading? Any hints are welcome, as I am starting to lose my mind trying to find some of the authors mentioned in Burnet’s apparatus criticus.

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  • I usually use Hathi Trust for this sort of search
  • Sometimes Burnet gets his source indirectly. Try looking in one of the editions with actual notes, like Stallbaum or Valpy.
  • It could be from Specimen coniecturarum in Platonem by Heindorf ? But I don’t see it.

Here is Valpy and Stallbaum

I do see it in Bekker.

Schleiermacher was a translator, so I guess that Stallbaum is going by his German for this passage? Maybe it all actually comes from Bekker. Bekker does not credit Heindorf, for what it’s worth.

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Maybe Bury can help a bit:

https://archive.org/details/philebus00plat_0/page/89/mode/1up

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I think that Bury is mostly just repeating Stallbaum, above, for the source of the conjecture.

Schleiermacher, who is supposedly a pre-Bekker source for the conjecture, translates as, “Was nur und wie?” (in my 1925 Die großen Dialoge ed.). But I’m not 100% convinced that his ‘Was nur’ translates “ποῖα δή”. Maybe it’s just rhetorical. What text did Schleiermacher have for his translation? Stephanus, I think?

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I found Schleiermachers Translation including the Note (p. 494) here:

Schleiermacher

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10237332?page=494

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10237332?page=7


He mentions Heindorf as his source.
But as usual in scholarly texts before ca 1850: the name of the quoted author was enough, no further information (the readers must have known or were supposed to know where to look for the quote).

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Good find.

They were professors together a year later in 1810 in Berlin. I wonder if it was a private communication?

The first quoted “ποῖα δὴ καὶ πῶς” in Google Books shows up in Beck’s 1816 edition, and the source is given as Heindorf and Schleiermacher, as are a number of these early cites, as if everyone is looking at this same Schleiermacher note, and have no other source.

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Almost all the work needed to answer this question has been done by previous posters. To establish descent it’s important to use Schleiermacher’s first edition (vol. 3.2, 1809, p. 486); the p. no. cited earlier (494) is in his second/1826 ed. Therefore Sch.'s reference to the proposal precedes Bekker, Beck and Stallbaum (Bekker has a habit of not citing his source – he worked very fast). It’s also important to look at Sch.'s note at the beginning of his annotations on Phlb., on p. 474: “Mehr Hülfe hat der Uebersezer von Heindorf und Buttmann erhalten, und wünscht selbst auch seinerseits einiges Brauchbare dem künftigen Bearbeiter beigetragen zu haben.” Buttmann here = Philipp Karl Buttmann. Sch., H. and B. were contemporaries (Heindorf a younger contemporary) and knew each other well; they had all been students of F.A. Wolf; Buttmann put some of Heindorf’s Plato volumes into a second edition; and Schleiermacher hoped that Heindorf would assist in his Plato project (after Schlegel showed himself to be uninterested, despite early enthusiasm). Therefore the suggestion that the proposal in Phlb. 41e was a “private communication” from Heindorf to Schleiermacher is almost certainly right. Sch.'s ed. is also the source of Heindorf’s conjecture at 45d2 δείξει, but not, as far as I can see, of any others attributed to him in Burnet’s app. crit.

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Thank you very much, – all of this has been helpful! I had read Schleiermacher’s note but I wasn’t aware about their shared background which makes ‘private communication’ likely.

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To summarise your help and some of my findings:

Although Heindorf may have proposed his three suggestions in one of his editions of several other Platonic dialogues, it more probably arose in private communication with Schleiermacher, who is the first to cite Heindorf (1809: 486). This is indicated by citations such as Beck (1816: 383), Bonghi (1847: 235), Müller (1854: 768) and Bury (1897: 89) who attribute the point to both Heindorf and Schleiermacher. This is plausible given their close scholarly relationship. According to Schleiermacher’s own calendar, he began working on the Philebus in late December 1808, continuing until mid-August 1809, writing his critical notes between 5th and 12th August, having met with Heindorf on 3rd, 5th, and 11th August.

For Schleiermacher’s daily calendar, see: https://schleiermacher-digital.de/S0005937

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Additional information on this issue is provided by Stallbaum in his 1820 preface. There, Stallbaum tells us that Heindorf made numerous emendations in marginal notes to his copy of the Bipontine edition of Plato which was given to him by August Jacobs. Heindorf had recorded in the margins not only notable variant readings but also all the corrections he had previously proposed—published in a collection of conjectures on Plato or shared with Schleiermacher. Later, apparently upon rereading Philebus, Heindorf added new conjectures in the same volume.

Source:

Stallbaum (1820: vi–vii): Tanto gratius mihi accidit, quod virorum summorum, Schützii, Heusdii, Heindorfii, Schleiermacheri, Baumgarten-Crusii, Beckii, Astii, Bekkeri, aliorum, opera in tollendis libri vitiis ante me erat versata. Quorum acumini ac diligentiae quantum Philebus meus debeat, lectores ipsi facile iudicabunt e commentariis textui subiectis.

His auxiliis accesserunt aliquot praeclarae Heindorfii emendationes, quas acceptas refero benevolentiae erga me singulari Augusti Iacobsii, Professoris Halensis celeberrimi, Regii Paedagogii Inspectoris meritissimi. Qui, quum exemplar Platonis Bipontini, quo olim usus fuerat Heindorfius, possideret, a me rogatus insigni liberalitate, si quid ex Heindorfii notis mihi prodesse posset, id lubenter mihi utendum concessit.

Notaverat autem Heindorfius in margine praeter lectionis discrepantiam insigniorem emendationes omnes, quas olim vel in specimine coniecturarum in Platonem proposuerat vel Schleiermachero communicaverat. His serius, ut videtur, novas addiderat coniecturas, repetita Philebi lectione enatas. Quarum nonnullas, utpote Heindorfio indignas, silentio pressi; alias, suo quamque loco, addito auctoris nomine memoravi.

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By now, a fellow PhD student of mine has reconstructed Burnet’s bibliography for his 1901 text edition. (I told him about this forum and he found some of the suggestions here helpful.) So for all who are struggling with Burnet’s citations practice or similarly opaque reference in other earlier text editions, this might be a helpful starting point.