[376b]
trait of his
nature and one that shows a true love of wisdom.1” “In what respect,
pray?” “In respect,” said I, “that
he distinguishes a friendly from a hostile aspect by nothing save his
apprehension of the one and his failure to recognize the other. How, I ask
you,2 can the love of learning be
denied to a creature whose criterion of the friendly and the alien is
intelligence and ignorance?” “It certainly
cannot,” he said. “But you will admit,” said
I, “that the love of learning and the love of wisdom are the
same?” “The same,” he said. “Then
may we not confidently lay it down in the case of man too, that if he is to
be
1 φιλόσοφον: etymologically here, as ὡς ἀληθῶς indicates. “Your dog now is your only philosopher,” says Plato, not more seriously than Rabelais (Prologue): “Mais vistes vous oncques chien rencontrant quelque os medullaire: c'est comme dit Platon, lib. ii. de Rep., la beste du monde plus philosophe.” Cf. Huxley, Hume , p. 104: “The dog who barks furiously at a beggar will let a well-dressed man pass him without opposition. Has he not a 'general idea' of rags and dirt associated with the idea of aversion?” Dummler and others assume that Plato is satirizing the Cynics, but who were the Cynics in 380-370 B.C.?
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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