Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 2 · II.2.heading–II.2.2

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Book II Chapter 2 · II.2.heading–II.2.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 40

Κεφάλαιον Βʹ · Μέρος πρῶτον

II.2.heading

⟨Περὶ διαλεκτικῆς⟩

Πλάτωνος περὶ Πολιτείας

II.2.1

Οὐκοῦν ἡ διαλεκτικὴ μέθοδος μόνη ταύτῃ πορεύεται, τὰς ὑποθέσεις ἀναιροῦσα ἐπ’ αὐτὴν τὴν ἀρχήν, ἵνα βεβαιώσηται, τῷ ὄντι ἐν βορβόρῳ βαρβαρικῷ τινι τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ὄμμα κατορωρυγμένον ἠρέμα ἕλκει καὶ ἀνάγει ἄνω, ξυνερίθοις καὶ συμπεριαγωγοῖς χρωμένη αἷς διήλθομεν τέχναις· ἃς ἐπιστήμας μὲν πολλάκις προσείπομεν διὰ τὸ ἔθος, δέονται δὲ ὀνόματος ἄλλου, ἐνεργεστέρου μὲν ἢ δόξης, ἀμυδροτέρου δ’ ἢ ἐπιστήμης. Διάνοιαν δὲ αὐτὴν ἔν γε τῷ πρόσθεν που ὡρισάμεθα.

Ἐν ταὐτῷ

II.2.2

Ἆρ’ οὖν δοκεῖ σοι, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὥσπερ θριγκὸς τοῖς μαθήμασιν ἡ διαλεκτικὴ ἡμῖν ἐπάνω κεῖσθαι, καὶ οὐκέτι ἄλλο τούτου ἀνωτέρω μάθημα ὀρθῶς ἂν ἐπιτίθεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἔχειν ἤδη τέλος τὰ τῶν μαθημάτων;

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 2

p. 41

Chapter 2 · First part

II.2.heading

⟨On Dialectic⟩⁵¹

Plato from the Republic

II.2.1

Does not the dialectical method alone proceed in this way, doing away with hypotheses as it advances toward the first principle itself, to establish itself securely? It gently draws the eye of the soul, truly buried in a kind of barbarous mud, and leads it upward, using the arts we have discussed as fellow workers and helpers in turning it around.⁵² We have often called these arts sciences out of habit, but they need another name, for something more effective than opinion and less clear than knowledge. Earlier, at any rate, we defined it somewhere as “discursive thought.”⁵³

In the same work

II.2.2

“Then does it seem to you,” I said, “that dialectic lies above our studies like a coping stone, that no further study could rightly be placed above it, and that our course of studies has now reached its completion?”⁵⁴

51.Wachsmuth supplies the Greek title from Photius’s account of the anthology. The chapter and part labels render his Latin Caput II and Pars prior. This first sequence commends dialectic; the contrasting sequence begins with “On the contrary” before II.2.8.

52.Republic 533. Hypotheses are provisional starting points; dialectic is presented as moving beyond them toward a secure principle. The eye’s upward movement and turning express the soul’s education. “Arts” renders τέχναι, the organized disciplines previously discussed in the dialogue.

53.Wachsmuth prints ἐνεργεστέρου, “more effective” or “more active,” while his apparatus records Plato’s ἐναργεστέρου, “clearer.” The translation follows the printed anthology. Διάνοια, here “discursive thought,” names an intermediate cognitive condition, distinguished from both opinion and knowledge.

54.Republic 534E; Socrates speaks. A θριγκός is the coping or crowning course of a wall. The architectural image places dialectic at the completion of the educational sequence. The excerpt ends with the question, without the interlocutor’s reply.

About This Reading Edition

The complete surviving text of Stobaeus’s second book, through II.46.22, in Ancient Greek and English, with an introduction and 1,541 explanatory notes. All forty-six chapter headings remain, including the notices for chapters whose texts are missing.

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Curt Wachsmuth, Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo priores, volumen II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), printed p. 1 and pp. 3–264. The supplied edition preserves consequential editorial signs, reconstructed joins, qualified attributions, and missing-text notices. English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes: Diotimos Editions, 2026.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 edition are in the public domain. The supplied English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are published with the site owner’s authorization.