Plato: Philebus (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews Plato: Philebus. Trans., with notes and comm., J. C. B. Gosling. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. Pp. xxii + 238. $15.50) This volume is part of the Clarendon Plato Series, a series of translation-plus-commentary volumes designed especially for persons who wish to make a philosophical study of Plato's dialogues but who do not know ancient Greek. The translations in this series are aimed first of all at faithfulness to the original; elegance of English style is of subordinate importance. In his preface Gosling admits that much of the English of his translation is cumbersome but defends this as an attempt to give the reader some idea of the relationships and ambiguities in the original Greek. Uniform translation of certain Greek terms can at times produce awkward English, but the uniformity enables the reader to recognize in different passages that the same term is being used. When such uniformity has proved to be impossible (as in the case of the words psuche and al~th~s), Gosling has inserted parenthetically a transliteration of the Greek word in passages where it occurs. This technique is quite beneficial to readers who want to follow Plato's terminology closely. Gosling's interpretative work on the dialogue consists of an introduction and a general commentary , both of which are devoted to general problems of interpretation, and a set of notes devoted to more particular questions, including questions of text and translation. A certain amount of technical philological discussion is necessitated by the many textual difficulties of the Philebus. When discussing textual problems Gosling often inserts transliterations in order to provide the reader who does not know Greek with some idea of the dispute. With many exceptions he has translated Burnet's text. Given the aim of the Clarendon Plato Series and Gosling's prefatory remarks about his translation, one would expect the translation to be more consistently literal than it is. There are points at which the English rendering is admittedly interpretative, in addition to a number of other places where the rendering is not literal. Also, there are a few instances of nonuniformity in translation. The verbal adjective hairetos, a word of some importance in the Philebus, is usually rendered "desirable" (but also "worth choosing," 21e4) in the text of tho dialogue, while in the commentary it is apparently rendered "chooseable" (p. 182). Some explanation is called for of the meaning of the Greek term (one that can be troublesome for philosophical analysis) and of the various renderings. In addition, both bios eudaim~n at 1ld6 and agapr bios at 61e8 are translated "most desirable life." The use of "desirable" as a translation for three Greek adjectives suggests a verbal consistency not present in the Greek. Certain important uses of einai are not translated literally. For example, at 58a2 to on is translated "the final truth" (with defense in a note), and at 59d4 to on ontOs is rendered "the real truth." The sentence at 59a7-9 is translated: "Our man, in fact, has undertaken a labour on present, future and past events, not on unchanging truths (onta)." Compare Hackforth's version: "Then the task which such students amongst us have taken upon themselves has nothing to do with that which always is, but only with what is coming into being, or will come, or has come." Hackforth's more literal translation of ta onta aei, and of ta gignomena kai gen~somena kai gegonota more effectively brings out the contrast between the verbs einai (to be) and gignesthai (to come to be). [221] 222 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY It should be mentioned that where Gosling's translation of important terms is not literal the use of transliterations in parentheses is quite helpful. And he often explains and defends his translations in the notes, at times providing a more literal translation for comparison. (There is no note on 17a3-5, however, where Plato's contrast between eristic and dialectical argument is expressed in translation as a contrast between "sophistical" and "philosophical" argument. The Greek terms should have been mentioned, and the reader should have been referred to an earlier note [on 1665-7] that provides the explanation for the translation.) In...