Note 728 — Chapter LXVIII · SOKRATES.

This tripartite graduation of the intellectual scale is brought out by Plato in the Symposion, c. 29, p. 204, A, and in the Lysis, c. 33, p. 218, A.

The intermediate point of the scale is what Plato here, though not always, expresses by the word φιλόσοφος, in its strict etymological sense, “a lover of knowledge;” one who is not yet wise, but who, having learned to know and feel his own ignorance, is anxious to become wise,—and has thus made what Plato thought the greatest and most difficult step towards really becoming so.