Quickness and slowness

Use in the book

Socrates introduces quick writing and reading as finer than quiet or slow performance, then adds nimble wrestling and other bodily actions (159c–d). The formulation gradually puts quickness and acuteness on one side, quietness, difficulty and slowness on the other. It is a comparison of successful performances in specific activities, not an unrestricted recommendation to hurry.

Mental examples repeat the pattern: learning easily is taken as learning quickly, recollection is praised when vigorous and swift, and quick-wittedness is called an acuteness of soul (159e–160a). Deliberation that reaches its result easily and quickly receives praise (160a–b). The possibility that good deliberation sometimes requires time is not investigated here; the examples function as accepted counterinstances to identifying temperance with a uniformly quiet pace.

The negative conclusion is explicitly weaker than “quickness is temperance.” Even if fine quiet actions were as numerous as fine quick ones, the proposed identification would still lack its distinguishing basis (160c–d). At 169e speed returns in a different argument: a possessor of speed is fast, just as a possessor of beauty is beautiful. Critias uses such cognate predicates to support his claim about possessing self-knowing knowledge. The argument now concerns attribution from a quality to its possessor, not the ethical merits of speed.

Places to read

1. 159c–160d23Bodily and mental performances test the moral significance of their pace
2. 169eHaving speed and being fast exemplify Critias’ attribution principle

Translation in this edition

The edition differentiates “quickly,” “slowly,” “nimbly,” “sharpness” and “vigorously,” allowing the cluster's changing emphasis to be seen. At 159d Burnet brackets βραδέα, “slow”; its absence from the translation does not remove the unbracketed occurrences of slowness elsewhere in the argument.

βραδέως

Attested: βραδέως (bradeōs). Slowly; Socrates pairs this adverb with quietness in comparing learning, teaching and remembering with quick, vigorous performance. References: 159e. Lexical identification: lemma: βραδέως. See Quickness and slowness.

βραδύς

Attested: βραδέα (bradea). Slow performances; the neuter plural describes bodily actions done laboriously and quietly. Burnet brackets βραδέα as deleted at 159d: its local meaning is recorded here without treating it as an accepted reading. References: 159d. Lexical identification: lemma: βραδύς. βραδέα at 159d is bracketed for deletion in the supplied Burnet text. See Quickness and slowness.

βραδυτής

Attested: βραδυτῆτός (bradytētos). Slowness; the quality whose bodily and mental performances have appeared less fine than those of speed and sharpness. References: 160b. Lexical identification: lemma: βραδυτής. See Quickness and slowness.

ἰσχυρός

Attested: ἰσχυραί (ischyrai). Vigorous or forceful; qualifies actions in the comparison with quiet conduct. References: 160c. Lexical identification: lemma: ἰσχυρός. See Quickness and slowness.

ὀξύς

Attested: ὀξέως / ὀξύτατον (oxeōs / oxytaton). Sharp, keen or nimble; in context it commends prompt bodily or mental performance. References: 159d. Lexical identification: lemma: ὀξύς. See Quickness and slowness.

ὀξύτης

Attested: ὀξύτης / ὀξύτητος (oxytēs / oxytētos). Sharpness or acuteness; explicitly used to explain quick-wittedness of soul. References: 160a, 160b. Lexical identification: lemma: ὀξύτης. See Quickness and slowness.

σφοδρός

Attested: σφόδρα / σφοδρῶν (sphodra / sphodrōn). Vigorously or intensely; the adjective’s adverb is used for forceful teaching and recollection, and the adjective for vigorous actions. References: 159e, 160c. Lexical identification: lemma: σφοδρός. See Quickness and slowness.

τάχος

Attested: τάχος / τάχους (tachos / tachous). Speed or quickness; a bodily or mental quality whose possession makes its possessor quick. References: 169e, 160b. Lexical identification: lemma: τάχος. See Quickness and slowness.

ταχύς

Attested: ταχὺ (tachy). Quick or swiftly performed; an evaluative example whose merit depends on the activity. References: 159d. Lexical identification: lemma: ταχύς. See Quickness and slowness.

ταχυτής

Attested: ταχυτὴς (tachytēs). Quickness, contrasted with slow or quiet performance when testing the first definition of temperance. References: 159d. Lexical identification: lemma: ταχυτής. See Quickness and slowness.