[538d]
“Yes, we
have.” “And are there not other practices going counter to
these, that have pleasures attached to them and that flatter and solicit our
souls, but do not win over men of any decency; but they continue to hold in
honor the teachings of their fathers and obey them?” “It is
so” “Well, then,” said I, “when a man of
this kind is met by the question,1‘What is the honorable?’ and on his
giving the answer which he learned from the lawgiver, the argument confutes him,
and by many and various refutations upsets2 his
faith
1 The question is here personified, as the λόγος so often is, e.g. 503 A. Cf. What Plato Said on Protag. 361 A-B.
2 A possible allusion to the καταβάλλοντες λόγοι of the sophist. Cf. Euthydem. 277 D, 288 A, Phaedo 88 C, Phileb. 15 E and What Plato Said, p. 518, on Crito 272 B.
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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