Eine nahe liegende Konjektur zu Phaidros 274b9 - 11

Abstract

In the question that introduces Plato's critique of writing the word πραττων seems out of place, though handed down by all our manuscripts. Instead of πραττων η λέγων this paper suggests γραΦων η λέγων, with a comma immediately before this phrase. This conjecture is argued for comprehensively: The paper shows that the efforts of modern scholars to make sense of πραττων do not solve the problem; that πραττων can have invaded the text from μe;ν λέγeiν... δe; πραττeιν in 273e7 very early; and that it is good Greek, used by Plato several times, to end a word-question by a disjunction of possible answers to it.