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[488e] with or without the consent of others, or any possibility of mastering this alleged art1 and the practice of it at the same time with the science of navigation. With such goings-on aboard ship do you not think that the real pilot would in very deed2 be called a star-gazer, an idle babbler,

1 The translation gives the right meaning. Cf. 518 D, and the examples collected in my emendation of Gorgias 503 D in Class. Phil. x. (1915) 325-326. The contrast between subjects which do and those which do not admit of constitution as an art and science is ever present to Plato's mind, as appears from the Sophist, Politicus, Gorgias, and Phaedrus. And he would normally express the idea by a genitive with τέχνη. Cf. Protag. 357 A, Phaedrus 260 E, also Class. Rev. xx. (1906) p. 247. See too Cic.De or.I. 4 “neque aliquod praeceptum artis esse arbitrarentur,” and 518 D.

2 τῷ ὄντι verifies the allusion to the charge that Socrates was a babbler and a star-gazer or weather-prophet. Cf. Soph. 225 D, Polit. 299 B, and What Plato Said, p. 527 on Phaedo 70 C; Blaydes on Aristoph.Clouds 1480.

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