Note 847 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

Cf. especially the words ὃ θρυλοῦμεν ἀεί (76 d 8). The phrases αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν, αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτό, and the like are assumed to be familiar. “We” define reality by means of question and answer, in the course of which “we” give an account of its being (ἧς λόγον δίδομεν τοῦ εἶναι, 78 d 1, where λόγον ... τοῦ εἶναι is equivalent to λόγον τῆς οὐσίας). When we have done this, “we” set the seal or stamp of αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστιν upon it (75 d 2). Technical terminology implies a school. As Diels puts it (Elementum, p. 20), it is in a school that “the simile concentrates into a metaphor, and the metaphor condenses into a term.”