Vitae philosophorum

In the first trilogy they place the Republic, Timaeus and Critias; in the second the Sophist, the Statesman and Cratylus; in the third the Laws, Minos and Epinomis; in the fourth Theaetetus, Euthyphro and the Apology; in the fifth Crito, Phaedo and the Epistles. The rest follow as separate compositions in no regular order. Some critics, as has already been stated, put the Republic first, while others start with the greater Alcibiades, and others again with the Theages; some begin with the Euthyphro, others with the Clitophon; some with the Timaeus, others with the Phaedrus; others again with the Theaetetus, while many begin with the Apology. The following dialogues are acknowledged to be spurious: the Midon or Horse-breeder

Plato has employed a variety of terms in order to make his system less intelligible to the ignorant. But in a special sense he considers wisdom to be the science of those things which are objects of thought and really existent, the science which, he says, is concerned with God and the soul as separate from the body. And especially by wisdom he means philosophy, which is a yearning for divine wisdom. And in a general sense all experience is also termed by him wisdom, e.g. when he calls a craftsman wise. And he applies the same terms with very different meanings. For instance, the word φαῦλος (slight, plain) is employed by him[*](As e.g. Theaet. 147 c οἷον ἐν τῇ τοῦ πηλοῦ ἐρωτήσει φαῦλόν που καὶ ἁπλοῦν εἰπεῖν ὅτι γῇ ὑγρῷ φυραθεῖσα πηλὸς ἂν εἴη, τὸ δʼ ὅτου ἐᾶν χαίρειν. Cf. Rep. 527 d οὐ πάνυ φαῦλον ἀλλὰ χαλεπὸν πιστεῦσαι.) in the sense of ἁπλοῦς (simple, honest), just as it is applied to Heracles in the Licymnius of Euripides in the following passage[*](Nauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 473.):

Plain (φαῦλος), unaccomplished, staunch to do great deeds, unversed in talk, with all his store of wisdom curtailed to action.

But sometimes Plato uses this same word (φαῦλος) to mean what is bad, and at other times for what is small or petty. Again, he often uses different terms to express the same thing. For instance, he calls the Idea form (εἶδος), genus (γένος), archetype (παράδειγμα), principle (ἀρχή) and cause (αἴτιον). He also uses contrary expressions for the same thing. Thus he calls the sensible thing both existent and non-existent,

The right interpretation of his dialogues includes three things: first, the meaning of every statement must be explained; next, its purpose, whether it is made for a primary reason or by way of illustration, and whether to establish his own doctrines or to refute his interlocutor; in the third place it remains to examine its truth.

And since certain critical marks are affixed to his works let us now say a word about these. The cross X is taken to indicate peculiar expressions and figures of speech, and generally any idiom of Platonic usage; the diple[*](A wedge-shaped mark >, used in early papyri to denote a fresh paragraph.) (>) calls attention to doctrines and opinions characteristic of Plato;

the dotted cross (⁜) denotes select passages and beauties of style; the dotted diple (⸖) editors’ corrections of the text; the dotted obelus (÷) passages suspected without reason; the dotted antisigma (Ͽ·) repetitions and proposals for transpositions; the ceraunium the philosophical school; the asterisk (✶) an agreement of doctrine; the obelus (-) a spurious passage. So much for the critical marks and his writings in general. As Antigonus of Carystus says in his Life of Zeno, when the writings were first edited with critical marks, their possessors charged a certain fee to anyone who wished to consult them.