From the book
Hipparchus
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAxioun means to think fit, judge worthy or claim as appropriate.
- In HipparchusThe companion begins with a claim about what lovers of gain regard as acceptable.
- In this editionNote 4 matters to the lexical analysis.
- A place to readκερδαίνειν ἀξιῶσιν — Thinking gain fitting is the companion’s first criterion.
Meaning
Axioun means to think fit, judge worthy or claim as appropriate. It is a denominative verb related to axios, worth or deserving. Dein is the impersonal infinitive “to be necessary” or “one ought”; in the phrase oiēsthai dein it gives “to think that one ought”. These are practical judgements, not merely predictions that a profit will occur.
The opening play joins axiōsin, “think fit”, to axiōn, “worth”, in the description of gaining from things worth nothing. The repetition makes a questionable valuation sound self-exposing: the person judges gaining appropriate where the source lacks worth. It does not by itself show whether the impropriety is moral, economic or technical.
Use in the book
The companion begins with a claim about what lovers of gain regard as acceptable. He soon amplifies it into thinking one ought to gain from everything. Socrates asks him to attend to the worth of the source and, at 225d, expressly checks the meaning of “thinking fit to gain”: does it mean anything other than thinking one ought to gain? The companion says that it does not. The clarification is a substantive conversational commitment, rather than an unannounced translation choice.
In the next question the formulation shifts toward thinking that one gains from a known worthless plant. The horseman and pilot are likewise denied an expectation of gain from defective materials. The general’s example brings the two formulations together: does he think he gains, and think fit to gain? There is an intelligible connection, since practical commitment often depends on expected advantage. Yet saying “I ought to gain from every transaction” differs from expecting this particular defective instrument to yield a benefit. The latter can refute an expectation without exhausting the former’s moral or commercial intention.
The companion’s third definition at 227d returns to axioun. His lover of gain is earnestly committed to sources decent people do not dare exploit. Here the practical and normative force is unmistakable. Socrates answers through the goodness of gain, effectively making fitness depend on genuine benefit. The debate thus turns on what warrants the judgement, not simply whether the agent wants an increase.
The same practical idiom reappears in the historical encomium when Hipparchus is said not to think he ought to begrudge wisdom to anyone. It places an assessment of proper conduct beside the ruler’s desire to educate. The recurrence is useful, but does not prove that every use of dein states one ethical principle: the verb can mark the necessity internal to an argument as well as someone’s judgement about conduct.
Places to read
- 225aκερδαίνειν ἀξιῶσιν — Thinking gain fitting is the companion’s first criterion.
- 225dοἴεσθαι δεῖν κερδαίνειν — Socrates’ explicit paraphrase supplies a practical “ought”.
- 226cοἴεται ἀπὸ τούτων κερδαίνειν — The general’s expectation is examined before the question adds thinking fit.
- 227dἀξιοῖ κερδαίνειν ἀπ’ αὐτῶν — The third definition restores the issue of which sources are acceptable.
Translation in this edition
Note 4 matters to the lexical analysis. Burnet prints Etwall’s correction to axioun, “thinking fit”; the apparatus reports ton axion in B and T. The present article follows the edition’s constituted text and its interpretation of the correction. It does not claim that the manuscripts themselves unambiguously transmit the nominalised infinitive on which the printed clarification turns. The English deliberately differentiates “think fit”, “think” and “ought”.