Words · Meanings · Passages
Lexicon
Terms from the books in the Diotimos library, with definitions, translation notes, and links to their passages.
4,297 entries across 21 collectionsTerms beginning with P
37–72 of 264
Pebbles
Pebbles translate the Kiselsteinen named by some claimants in the page 34 catalogue.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Peculiar
Peculiar means specially one’s own, proper to a person, or privately belonging.
Centuries of Meditations
Peers, emulation, and remembered arguments
Hēlikiōtēs is someone of the same age, dēmotēs a fellow member of a deme.
Theages
Pentathlete and the generalist ideal
Pentathlos means a pentathlete, a competitor in the five-event contest.
The Lovers
Peparethos
The Peparethians, paired with the Athenians as a possible audience for a political adviser.
Alcibiades I
Perceptible
Aisthētos describes an object accessible to sense-perception.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Perception
Aisthēsis is perception, sensing or awareness; aisthanesthai is to perceive or notice.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+3 books
Perception under Love
The phrase means under Love or during Love's ascendancy; the infinitive means not to flow off.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Perfection
Perfection can be completeness and exactness, an ideal guiding judgment, or the excellence of a particular mode.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations+1 book
Perfection and completeness
Teleios describes attainment of an end or completeness of constitution.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Pericles and Xanthippus
Pericles, identified as the son of Xanthippus, is Alcibiades’ guardian and his most important example of political power.
Alcibiades I · Alcibiades II
Pericles’ sons
The two sons of Pericles; the Greek dual marks two sons, although their personal names are not spoken here.
Alcibiades I
Perishable
Phthartos names what can pass away or be destroyed.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Perishing and disappearance
Apollymi means destroy; in the middle/intransitive forms, perish or disappear.
Lysis
Permanence and the hour test
Permanere remains or persists; perdurare endures; perseverare continues.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Perplexity and lack of resources
Aporein is to be at a loss, lack a resource or have no way forward.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+5 books
Perseus
Perseus, son of Zeus, is the common heroic point to which Socrates traces the Spartan and Persian dynastic families.
Alcibiades I
Persia
Persia is the royal country and people whose king is the Great King.
Alcibiades I
Persistence, memory and recognition
Memory preserves what was received; agnoscere is recognizing it again.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Person
Person ordinarily names a particular human or spiritual being.
Centuries of Meditations
Persons names and the silent participant
A proper name identifies a person; it does not supply that person's philosophical role without context.
Epinomis
Perspective
Perspective can mean a visible prospect or an arranged intellectual distance from which something becomes apprehensible.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Persuasion
Πείθειν is to persuade.
Alcibiades I · Stobaeus, Volume I+1 book
Persuasion and compulsion
Allicere attracts or entices, trahere drags or draws, cogere compels, and persuadere persuades.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Persuasion and obedience
The active peithein means to persuade; the middle-passive peithesthai can mean to be persuaded, trust or obey.
Charmides · Hipparchus+1 book
Perturbation
Perturbation (plural perturbations) is a disturbance, disorder or unsettling.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Phantom-like forms
Eidōlophaneis means image-like, apparition-like, or phantom-like in appearance.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Phase and appearance
Phasis is an appearance or becoming visible.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Philo
Philo is named once, in the margin beside the real physical denarius.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Philosophers and stopping points
The first several names appear as group genitives: the followers or schools whose inquiry is described.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Philosophers of Limbo
Empedoclès is the Italian name-form.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Philosophers’ Dung
The dung of the Philosophers is the putrefactive agency located in the catholic pri-material fountain.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Philosophical comparisons and their limits
This heading is an interpretive category, not an expression used by Abbott's narrator.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Philosophical liberty
The free Philosopher must philosophize freely: the page 142 margin gives this compact maxim beside an account of knowledge founded in Nature rather than merely human books.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Philosophical metals
Philosophical metals are silver and gold read, in some philosophical passages, as the Mercury and Sulphur hidden in Magnesia.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Philosophical Salts
Salt occurs in several different relations: as an essential constituent, an ordinary laboratory material, a product drawn from a metal, and a philosophical name for the regenerated end or its universal source.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Books in the Lexicon
October 2026
Plato’s Alcibiades I Lexicon
Alcibiades I · Plato
176 entries · 701 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Alcibiades II Lexicon
Alcibiades II · Plato
94 entries · 290 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Traherne Lexicon
Centuries of Meditations · Thomas Traherne
471 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Charmides Lexicon
Charmides · Plato
173 entries · 777 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Empedocles Lexicon
Empedocles, Volumes I–II · Empedocles of Acragas
490 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Epinomis Lexicon
Epinomis · Plato
77 entries · 1,061 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Flatland Literary Lexicon
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions · Edwin A. Abbott
85 entries · 476 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Khunrath Lexicon
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum · Heinrich Khunrath
326 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Hipparchus Lexicon
Hipparchus · Plato
90 entries · 291 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Baudelaire Literary Lexicon
Intimate Journals · Charles Baudelaire
80 entries · 323 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Lysis Lexicon
Lysis · Plato
239 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I Lexicon
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I · Marsilio Ficino
231 entries · 1,313 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II Lexicon
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II · Marsilio Ficino
148 entries · 1,398 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Minos Lexicon
Minos · Plato
54 entries · 506 subsidiary terms
October 2026
René Literary Lexicon
René · François-René de Chateaubriand
81 entries · 275 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Stobaeus Lexicon
Stobaeus, Volume I · John Stobaeus
610 entries · 85 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy Lexicon
The Anatomy of Melancholy · Robert Burton
103 entries · 3,864 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Guérin Lexicon
The Green Notebook · Maurice de Guérin
165 entries · 0 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Lovers Lexicon
The Lovers · Plato
83 entries · 361 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Joubert Lexicon
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Joseph Joubert
459 entries · 110 subsidiary terms
October 2026
Plato’s Theages Lexicon
Theages · Plato
62 entries · 510 subsidiary terms