Plato, Phdr. 270 b1-2

Specific Text Questions
21

Sorry, I didn’t mean that one point to carry quite that much weight. I was quoting it only to make the limited point that nominative τρόπος can serve as a referent for adverbial τρόπος (and separately, unfortunately did not correct my confusing description in the original post quickly enough, as I see it quoted by you).

In the narrative flow here, I think that the unstated part, the part that’s assumed to be mentally present to the reader, is something like:

τρόπῳ τινὶ προσφέρει τὸ πρόσφορον τῇ τέχνῃ ῥητορικῆς.

With that sort of thing mentally present to the reader (maybe), and taking what is said as an answer to a question, I think we should understand copular ἐστί and translate something like:

Ὁ αὐτός που τρόπος τέχνης ἰατρικῆς ὅσπερ καὶ ῥητορικῆς.
It’s just the same (maybe) way for the art of medicine as for rhetoric.

With this understanding, we can see where the conversation is coming from and where it’s going. He’s talking about this way of providing the necessary that’s been asked about, and he’s now going to explain how it works in medicine.

However, I think that the gentle serve, return, return, return… of Platonic dialogue would get broken here by ἔστι of existence. That might be appropriate for a serve, but this is a return.

I saw your point about που meaning approximately, and while I don’t think there’s any language reason to choose the one meaning over the other (που just limits αὐτός, afaik), I think it wouldn’t be like Plato. “Approximately” would be a guarded but confident statement, like the unfortunate habit of modern Academize, but “perhaps” makes it a tentative but expansive statement, like Platonic Academize.

22

he’s now going to explain how it works in medicine

The guiding question of this part of the dialogue is how it works in rhetoric; he’s now going to explain this by comparing rhetoric to medicine.

23

He is going to explain how it works in medicine (and in fact does [1]) in order to use medicine as the example to illustrate rhetoric. This is the next little bit, which I’ve already quoted from.

The focus of these ὅσπερ sentences is the first branch, not the second. Ex. Republic 334a. Ἀλλὰ μὴν στρατοπέδου γε ὁ αὐτὸς φύλαξ ἀγαθὸς ὅσπερ καὶ τὰ τῶν πολεμίων κλέψαι καὶ βουλεύματα καὶ τὰς ἄλλας πράξεις;

[1] τῷ [σώματι] φάρμακα καὶ τροφὴν προσφέρων ὑγίειαν καὶ ῥώμην ἐμποιήσειν

24

He continues right away with "Ἐν ἀμφοτέραις… "

25

The point of comparing, I take it, is to explain the unknown which they are looking for (i.e., rhetoric) by means of that which is known (i.e., medicine).

26

He illustrates the less obvious by means of the more obvious. He first explains exactly how someone προσφέρει τὸ πρόσφορον in medicine. He says that you bring drugs and nutrition to the body in order to implant health and strength. And in rhetoric, you bring arguments and studied tropes to the soul, in order to impart persuasion and virtue.

27

He explains both in a μεν/δε sentence. I find it difficult to take the μεν part as a separate point of reference.

28

Why would you want to take them separately?

29

Perhaps I misunderstood your suggestion:

The focus of these ὅσπερ sentences is the first branch, not the second.

30

The focus of one sentence being medicine does not make the topic of the larger argument medicine. It is brought up to be used as an illustration.

31

Sorry, I’m probably still getting you wrong. If you could write out the implied parts of the sentence in question (on your reading of it), so as to to make it syntactically complete, this might help.

32

That’s existential not copular, which is really all I was trying to say this whole time. All finite verbs form part of the predicate, but there is a subset we call copulas or linking-verbs which can link the subject to other predicative words. In this linking function they are copular, but in the absence of other predicative words, when the verbs function as the entire predicate, they are called existential. This is just the more fundamental use of a copula, when it works like all other finite verbs without its special linking function. Since αὐτός is in the attributive position here, there are no other predicative words.

We don’t really use this existential function of “to be” in English but it’s natural in Greek and very common in dialogue. For example, “John is good” would be copular, but “John is” would be existential. That’s awkward in English and to make that point we say “John exists” instead. But it’s important to understand how Greek works and not get too hung up on English translations. I thought using the word “exist” in my original translation would be helpful, but maybe it wasn’t. I think your translation works well to explain the original question about the attributive position of αὐτός.


To be clear I agree that “perhaps” is the safest choice here. The basic function of που is to inject uncertainty and it usually functions at the sentence level rather than attaching itself to words. It’s very well suited to Socrates both when he is sincere about his uncertainty and when he wants to be ironic.

I’m just musing about this and don’t want anyone to take it too seriously, but Socrates doesn’t seem very uncertain here: note that he continues his explanation with δεῖ. Its position in the noun phrase also seemed odd to me for some reason, although it could just be the desire to keep ὁ αὐτός together combined with its tendency to come early in the sentence. But nearly the same thing occurs at Laws 840a with ὁ αὐτός που λόγος. There doesn’t seem to be any uncertainty there either and the clause opens καὶ δὴ καί and που comes at the very end of the sentence. I sometimes wonder if που functions with individual words more than we think and it reminded me of the way Herodotus uses it to approximate numbers. But I definitely wouldn’t press this point and I’ll assume it’s misguided until I think about it a lot more.

33

τί ἐστι τοῦτο;
ἔστι λίθος.

That second ἔστι, absent the leading question can be existential. But in answer to a question, it’s copular. We translate that copular “it is a stone.” (“it is” in English always implies a predicate of some sort, even if it has to be provided). [EDIT: I suppose not in phrases like “it is right to…” with an infinitive. Maybe there are other exceptions.]

τί ἐστι τοῦτο; (Or maybe ποῖον)
ὁ αὐτὸς λίθος ὅσπερ ἐν Λακωνίᾳ εὑρισκόμενος.
The same stone as is found in Laconia.

This is what I was trying to get at with establishing whether there was a question in the air that expected τρόπος as an answer.

που does attach to αὐτός here, not the sentence level, but for the reasons I gave, I think it’s “maybe the same”, not “approximately the same”. Socrates is not all uncertain, of course, but he never presses any argument.

As an aside, not meant to bear on this, the Greek in Laws is far removed from the Greek normally found in Plato. Many many expressions that only occur there, and that are often somewhat reminiscent of Aristotle. Someone could make a big list.

34

I understand what you mean much better now, but I still think to answer a πῶς question τρόπος would have to be adverbial. I think we should just understand πῶς τοῦτο λέγεις; in the normal idiomatic sense. But I’m always happy to be wrong because it means I learn something new. In case it wasn’t clear, I enjoy talking grammar and I never mean to be combative. Cheers!

35

This seems to be quite a lengthy thread and I hesitate to add to it.

However, Yunis (Harvey Yunis, Plato: Phaedrus. Cambridge Greek and Latin classics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011) described as “a wonderful commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus, now the best available” here https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012.07.55 says of this line: "lit. “there is, I suppose, the same situation of medical art which is also [the situation] of rhetorical [art]”: i.e. “the situation of medical art is the same, I suppose, as that of rhetorical [art] too”.

Seems straightforward enough to me.

36

seneca2008, yes, this is a great commentary. There is, also, an excellent commentary by Ryan. I always first consult extant commentaries before I post a question here. I.e., I do it only when I have questions left after reading the commentaries.

37

Perhaps everyone has already gotten tired of this topic, yet I’d give it one more try.
Can the genitives here possibly be taken predicatively (Smyth, 1303-1305)?
The meaning, then, would be something like:
The very same path, perhaps, [is characteristic] of medical art as of oratorical [art].
Any objections?

38

That’s a great point! I think you’re right. I’m not sure it’s any different at a fundamental level because ἐστί is not linking any other nominative items, but maybe it is better to think of these genitives as complements of that existential predicate than part of the subject phrase.

I think strictly speaking τέχνης is still possessive though, because it seems to me that it is the method that is a characteristic of the medical art and not the other way around. Compare the first example in Smyth from Plato’s Protagoras: Ἱπποκράτης ἐστὶ οἰκίας μεγάλης, “Hippocrates belongs to a great house.” So ὁ αὐτὸς τρόπος ἐστὶ τέχνης ἰατρικῆς, “the same method belongs to medical art.” But that’s just splitting grammatical hairs, and I think it really means the same thing as τέχνη ἰατρική ἐστι τοῦ αὐτοῦ τρόπου, “medical art is of the same method,” i.e. “characterized by the same method.”

39

Thank you! I agree with your correction. In fact, the “genitive of characteristic” (as Latin textbooks call it) is found for the most part with the subject expressed by an infinitive, which is not the case in hand. My major concern was to get rid or existential verb, which I found in Yunis, as it makes little sense in this context.

40

For the record I think it’s pretty much the same thing. Whether we consider the genitives more closely attached to the subject phrase or the predicate might just be a matter of description. I think the important thing is to know that existential ἐστί is very common, and even though it will often sound strange in your English translation, it doesn’t in Greek.