Hunting skill and magnificence

Use in the book

Hunting closes the immediately productive part of the catalogue before prophecy and interpretation (975c). Its treatment is brief but distinctive. The Athenian explicitly allows that the whole hunting art has become extensive and skillful, yet denies that it yields magnificence together with wisdom. The scale and technical sophistication of an activity therefore do not by themselves secure the highest intellectual standing.

The sentence adds something not supplied by the earlier building example. Equipment was serviceable to the people but not credited with virtue; hunting is considered under the paired ideals of wisdom and magnificence. The speech's standard includes the worthiness or elevation of an occupation as well as its efficacy. This helps explain why the catalogue is not simply an investigation of whether particular trades can predict their results with certainty.

Nothing in this short clause specifies prey, hunting methods, legal restrictions, or the hunter's ethical character. Nor does it supply a general theory of acquisition. Those topics should not be manufactured out of a general headword. Its precise role is to block an inference from a large and developed skill to the wisdom under inquiry.

Magnificence later returns in a positive setting: the stars perform the finest and most magnificent dance (982e). That later adjective does not provide a missing proof against hunting. It does, however, reveal the type of scale and order toward which the Athenian's attention moves after rejecting human accomplishments as final answers.

Places to read

1. 975cἡ σύμπασα θηρευτική — The whole hunting art is included
2. 975cπολλή περ καὶ τεχνικὴ γεγονυῖα — Extent and technical accomplishment are conceded
3. 975cτό γε μεγαλοπρεπὲς σὺν τῷ σοφῷ οὐκ ἀποδίδωσιν — These achievements do not yield magnificence with wisdom
4. 982eμεγαλοπρεπεστάτην — The superlative later praises the celestial dance

Translation in this edition

“The whole art of hunting” makes the substantival adjective clear. “Full of craft” translates technikē without suppressing the concession that hunting is technically developed. The brief example is not expanded by the edition into an account of named hunters or kinds of prey.

Technical accomplishment conceded — τεχνικός (technikos)

τεχνικός (technikos)

Technical accomplishment conceded. Hunting has become extensive and skillful; that concession makes its failure to confer the desired wisdom distinct from simple incompetence. Attested: τεχνικὴ (975c). Hunting skill and magnificence.

Skilled pursuit without the required wisdom — θηρευτική (thēreutikē)

θηρευτική (thēreutikē)

Skilled pursuit without the required wisdom. The whole hunting art is granted extent and technical accomplishment, but not the magnificence joined with wisdom demanded here. Attested: θηρευτική (975c). Hunting skill and magnificence.

Dignity paired with wisdom — μεγαλοπρεπής (megaloprepēs)

μεγαλοπρεπής (megaloprepēs)

Dignity paired with wisdom. The substantivized neuter names the magnificence hunting fails to render together with what is wise. Attested: μεγαλοπρεπὲς (975c). Hunting skill and magnificence.

Great skill without magnificence and wisdom (contextual phrase)

πολλή περ καὶ τεχνικὴ γεγονυῖα (975c)

The concessive περ grants hunting extent and technical development before the denial that it renders magnificence together with wisdom. The argument is therefore not an accusation that hunting lacks all skill. Scale and expertise themselves fail to answer the work’s stronger evaluative question. Hunting skill and magnificence.