Note (return) — Chapter X

3d. JUDGMENT (διάνοια, λόγος), the Discursive Faculty, or the Faculty of Relations.--According to Plato, this faculty proceeds on the assumption of certain principles as true, without inquiring into their validity, and reasons, by deduction, to the conclusions which necessarily flow from these principles. These assumptions Plato calls hypotheses (ὑποθέσεις). But by hypotheses he does not mean baseless assumptions--"mere theories--"but things self-evident and "obvious to all;" 540 as for example, the postulates and definitions of Geometry. "After laying down hypotheses of the odd and even, and three kinds of angles [right, acute, and obtuse], and figures [as the triangle, square, circle, and the like], he proceeds on them as known, and gives no further reason about them, and reasons downward from these principles," 541 affirming certain judgments as consequences deducible therefrom.