Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/490

 476 G. VAILATI : III. By the phrases indicating resemblance or difference, followed by the preposition Kara or by the dative or any of the particles mentioned above. IV. By asking what they call by the same name in each of the objects in a given class, or what is that which, being in them, makes them be what they are. E.g., in the Laches (192), Socrates, after examining the different cases oidv&peia asks : ri ov ev iracn rovrois ravrov ecrriv ; adducing the ex- ample of the various kinds of velocity ; ri b ev Traai ovo[Adei? ra%vTr)ra elvai ; and, similarly, in the Hipparchus, after speaking of good and evil gain : ri ravrov ev ap,$orepoi, ; 230, E. The meaning attributed to such questions is perfectly determined by the answers which are given to them, answers- which consist in defining (opi^etv) the word in question. E.g., in the Hipparchus, 230 D, to the question : " What is there in common between good and bad food ? " the answer is made : Stort, a^orepa r/pa rpofyrj o-co/iaro? eo-rr rovro jap elvai cnr'iov 6^0X07049. The prepositions, Sid, Kara are, however, often used with the sense, as seen above, of the preposition, ev. E.g., in the Thecetetus and in the Meno : ravrov Sia Trdvrwv, ravrov Kara irdvrwv. Also the analogous use of the preposition eW (-ravrov eirl iraai) must be kept quite distinct from the other which is seen, for irfstance, in the Protagoras and in other dialogues, comparable, in its turn, to that of the preposition of in the phrases : "Of what is such and such a word the name?" and other analogous ones expressing denotation rather than connotation. E.g., in the Charmides (175 B) and repeatedly also in the Sophistes (218 G TO 8e epyov e'' o5 KOOV/jLev). Other equivalent expressions are those in which the prepositions, irapd, 7rpo<? appear in composition with the verbs to be, to become, e.g., Trapayiyveadai, Trapetvai. The metaphor implied in these expressions is used ex- plicitly in the Hippias major (290) where beautiful things are said to be such through the presence of something, in the same way as great things are such by the presence of the excess by which they surpass smaller things. But the above-mentioned ways of indicating the possession of a common characteristic on the part of all the objects denoted by the same name were not sufficient to enable Plato to indicate so fundamental a difference as that which subsists between such characteristics and the objects which possess them.