From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordEnkephalos names the brain.
- In StobaeusThe Phaedo excerpt recalls an inquiry in which the brain supplies hearing, sight, and smell, from which memory, belief, and eventually knowledge arise.
- In this editionThe first passage is not presented as Plato’s unqualified final account of cognition.
- A place to beginBrain, sense perception, memory, and knowledge form an explanatory sequence.
- English renderings
- brain
Meaning
Enkephalos names the brain. The excerpts associate it with sensory functions or locate the ruling faculty there, but these are distinct explanatory claims.
Use in the book
The Phaedo excerpt recalls an inquiry in which the brain supplies hearing, sight, and smell, from which memory, belief, and eventually knowledge arise. Its place in Socrates’ account of earlier investigation matters. The report about Alcmaeon puts the ruling faculty in the brain and explains smell through the drawing in of odors during inhalation.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The first passage is not presented as Plato’s unqualified final account of cognition. “Brain” names the proposed bodily organ, not a synonym for intellect.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 482, 492.