From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe childbirth metaphor describes bringing thoughts to light and examining them. A thought’s emergence does not establish its truth or oblige another person to accept it.
- In StobaeusIamblichus places midwifery after recollection and connects its authority with dialectic, which tests opposed opinions and distinguishes true intellectual offspring from false ones.
- In this editionIntellectual midwifery makes the metaphor’s application clear. The attested word is the noun in its genitive form, not an occurrence of a different adjectival headword.
- A place to readChapter 2 · Excerpt 7 Read the sequence of recollection, midwifery and testing exercises, attending to the shared need for dialectic in properly giving and receiving an account.
- English renderings
- midwifery; bringing thoughts to birth
Meaning
Maieia is midwifery. Iamblichus transfers childbirth language to philosophical discussion, treating emerging thoughts as offspring that require examination after they have been brought into the light.
Use in the book
The letter to Sopater puts exercises undertaken for midwifery after those directed toward recollection. Their task includes distinguishing true offspring from false. The subsequent explanation connects their authority with dialectic and describes purifications of thought through refutations: opposed opinions are placed alongside one another and brought into collision. The metaphor therefore gives two responsibilities to inquiry, eliciting a thought and testing it. A thought’s emergence is not already a certificate of truth, nor does helping another person articulate an opinion require accepting it without criticism.
The letter distinguishes the work of eliciting a thought from the work of assessing it. Bringing intellectual offspring into the light is followed by separating the true from the false. The explanation then identifies purifications through refutation, where the interlocutors’ opposed opinions are compared and brought into conflict. Midwifery therefore includes critical responsibility rather than merely helping someone say what he already believes. The wider list of exercises places it among several practices with different immediate purposes, all dependent on an ability to handle accounts.
Places to read
- Chapter 2 · Excerpt 72Thoughts are brought to light and their truth or falsehood distinguished.
Translation in this edition
Midwifery retains the concrete metaphor; intellectual midwifery identifies its application. The Greek witness is the genitive maieias, not the different adjective commonly translated maieutic.
μαιείας
Attested. Chapter 2 · Excerpt 7; Wachsmuth II, printed pp. 20-21.
αἱ μαιείας ἕνεκα προσαγόμεναι καὶ τὰ γεννηθέντα εἰς φῶς προάγουσαι
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 20–21. This article describes the exercise as Iamblichus presents it in the excerpt. It does not add an account of an original dialogue beyond the source’s own reference to Socratic questioning.