White

Use in the book

The feminine plural λευκαί agrees with τρίχες, hairs. Fair hair coated with white lead appears white, while aged hair is said to have become white through the presence of white.

The apparently simple colour adjective therefore serves a precise contrast between seeming and being. The example also mentions ξανθός, fair or blond, and μέλας, black. Calling the coated hair neither white nor black does not erase its original fair colour; the point concerns what the coating has and has not made it become.

Places to read

1. 217dοὔτε τι λευκαὶ οὔτε μέλαιναί εἰσιν — They are neither white at all nor black.
2. 217d–e

Use in the book

Socrates says whiteness would be present to hair smeared with white lead, yet the hair would not thereby itself be white. The noun is used explicitly; it need not be supplied by an interpreter.

The example separates the presence of a quality from a particular manner of possessing it. Old age subsequently produces white hair in another way. The passage does not identify λευκότης as a separately existing Form or explain a full theory of predication: it gives an analogy for two effects of the presence of badness.

Places to read

1. 217dπαρείη γ’ ἂν αὐταῖς λευκότης — Whiteness would be present to them.

Use in the book

The Pythagorean color report lists white with black, red, and pale yellow, explaining differences through elemental mixtures. The Timaeus mixture account also combines white and black to produce gray. These classifications treat white as a component in an explanation of color, rather than merely a symbol of purity.

Places to read

1. I.16.1.2White appears among four kinds of color.
2. I.16.2.7White participates in several stated color mixtures.

Translation in this edition

“White” is appropriate in these lists; “bright” would obscure their distinctions between brightness and hue.

Use in the book

At A69a Theophrastus assigns white to fire, and at §7 he explains recognition of white through fire-passages. The paired relation to black and water gives this colour a specific place within the reported sensory structure. Aëtius also includes white among four colours equal in number to the elements, without explaining how that fourfold list relates to the twofold account.

Theophrastus later makes white an argumentative test. If like increases like, everyone, whether rich or poor in inner light, should see white better by day. His criticism is directed at the reported mechanism of visual variation, not at the occurrence of whiteness itself. Likewise the grey objection depends on white being one simple endpoint whose fitting channel does not automatically explain intermediate colours.

Places to read

1. A 69a (testimony)Theophrastus, On the Senses. Associates white with fire.
2. A 86 §§ 7–8 (testimony)2Theophrastus, On the Senses 7. Assigns white objects to fire-passages.
3. A 86 §§ 18–19 (polemical)Theophrastus, On the Senses 18. Uses white objects to test the day-vision theory.
4. A 92 (testimony)Aëtius. Includes white in the four-colour list.

Translation in this edition

The editorial assertion that colour simply is the presence of a root is stronger than the brief wording “white belongs to fire.” Preserve the association without making it a complete ontological definition.