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 S
37–72 of 309
Science
Science can denote a body of knowledge or disciplined knowing.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations+2 books
Sciences, virtues, and mutual containment
Plural scientiae can mean distinct disciplines or bodies of knowledge.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Scripture
Scriptural books are discussed both as sources of religious meaning and as distinctive forms of language.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations
Scripture gospel and prophetic speech
Gospel is good news proclaimed to others, with an unmistakable Christian resonance.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Scruple
Scruple is a restraining inward check; scrupulous can also describe a precision or hesitation that limits action.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Sculpture
Sculpture and statue serve as specific artistic categories whose beauty can differ from beauty of expression or of a work considered more broadly.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Sea
The sea is a created body of water, useful as well as beautiful.
Centuries of Meditations · Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I+2 books
Sea and tides
Thalassa is the sea.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Seal, wax and restoration
Sigillum is a seal, cera wax and figura the impressed shape.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Search the Scriptures
The injunction to search the Scriptures is transferred at p. 139 to the divine writing of the great World-book.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Season
Hōra is a season or a time appropriate to an activity.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Second mind
Mens is mind; secunda qualifies a mind receiving from a first source.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Second prizes and refusing second place
Ta deutereia is the neuter plural expression for the second prizes or second honors.
The Lovers
Seed
Sperma is seed, including the generative material of animals.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Empedocles’ Complete Fragments, Volume I+1 book
Seed and germ
Semence and germe connect potential growth, generation, and the self-developing beginnings of a work.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · The Green Notebook+1 book
Seed, Field and Fruit
Seed, field and fruit articulate the relations required for metallic regeneration.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Seek first Magnesia
The p. 106 margin tells Artists to seek before all things catholic Magnesia and its Nature-conforming solution; everything else will then fall to them.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Seeking possessing and distraction
Quaerere seeks or searches; possidere possesses or holds.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Self
Moi and soi mark a relation to oneself, not automatically a philosophical substance called the self.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations+1 book
Self motion
Autokinēton means self-moving.
Stobaeus, Volume I · Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause
An efficient cause is a producer of being or action; a formal cause supplies the determining principle by which a thing is what it is.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Self-complete
Autotelēs describes something whose completeness belongs to itself.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Self-control and temperance
Sōphrosynē is the feminine abstract noun naming the virtue under investigation; sōphrōn describes its possessor, sōphronein means to be or behave temperately, and sōphronōs means temperately.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+3 books
Self-determination
Autexousion names a power of acting on one’s own authority.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Self-endedness
To be self-ended is to make oneself the end or purpose of an action.
Centuries of Meditations
Self-knowledge
The person is the grammatical object in gignōskein heauton, “to know oneself”.
Charmides · Alcibiades I+3 books
Self-love
Amour-propre names a regard for oneself that can produce satisfaction, tenderness or gratitude as well as demand accommodation from others.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II · Centuries of Meditations
Self-production and reservation
Agere ranges from acting to producing; gignere means begetting; producere bringing forth.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I
Self-relation
The reflexive pronoun marks identity between the subject and the object or correlate: something exercises its own power “in relation to itself”.
Charmides
Self-sufficiency
Autarkeia is sufficiency without the relevant deficiency or external supplement.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Selinus
These forms designate the people of Selinus, the civic community for whom Empedocles allegedly altered a harmful river.
Empedocles’ The Testimonia, Volume II
Semen and generation
Gonē can denote generation, offspring, or generative seed according to context.
Stobaeus, Volume I
Seminal power, fish eggs and the tree
Vis seminaria is the generative power conveyed in seed; it is called soul’s instrument.
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Seminal reasons
Seminal reasons are the formative, seed-bearing powers through which universal matter becomes a particular natural kind.
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Seneca
Seneca is the Roman philosopher named as the source of a maxim about the reciprocal gift of self and world.
Centuries of Meditations
Senior and Hamuel son of Zadith
The primary text's designation is Hamuel son of Zadith, interpreter of Senior.
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