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[290c] for these also are hunters in their way, since they are not in each case diagram-makers, but discover the realities of things1—and so, not knowing how to use their prey, but only how to hunt, I take it they hand over their discoveries to the dialecticians to use properly, those of them, at least, who are not utter blockheads.

Very good, I said, most handsome and ingenious Cleinias; and is this really so?

To be sure it is; and so, in the same way, with the generals. When they have hunted either a city or


1 i.e. geometers etc. are not to be regarded as mere makers of diagrams, these being only the necessary and common machinery for their real business, the discovery of mathematical and other abstract truths.

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  • Commentary references to this page (2):
    • R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 208B
    • James Adam, The Republic of Plato, 10.601D
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