Theaetetus [antikvár]

PREFACEThe main aim of this volume is to provide for the needs of Greekless readers who wish to make a philosophical study of the Theaetetus. I have used John Burnet's Oxford Classical Text (hereafter 'OCT'). Departures from that text, and places where the translation seems to me to be more than usually disputable, are marked by an asterisk in the translation, and discussed in the Notes on the Text and Translation. The line numbers printed in the margin of the translation and in the notes are those of the OCT. Differences between Greek and English word order mean that the marginal indications sometimes correspond only approximately with those in the Greek text.In the translation I have tried to combine faithfulness with a modicum of conversational verisimilitude. The second aim accounts for my use of colloquial contractions; for my omission of those apostrophes which are conventionally translated by phrases like 'my dear fellow'; and for the absence from the translation of the conjunction 'for', and the presence instead (which will, I am afraid, be rébarbative to some readers) of 'because' at the beginnings of sentences. The first aim has sometimes seemed to me to require the abandonment of the second: conspicuously in my painfully literal renderings of many of Plato's uses of his equivalent for the verb 'to be'. I have not hesitated to adopt ideas from previous translators: in particular, I have been greatly helped by the excellent version of M. J. Levett.The Notes are intended as an aid to the understanding of the translation. I have tried to direct the reader's attention to what seem to me to be the main questions of interpretation, and to sketch answers to some of them. A proper commentary would require much more discussion of the philosophical issues than I have had space for. It would also require much