As foreign as those who, regarding the body, doctors have established that one cannot benefit from the offered food before one expels what obstructs within, the same thought occurred to them concerning the soul, that it cannot derive any benefit from the offered lessons before someone, having brought the examined into shame through questioning, removes the obstructive opinions that hinder learning, so that one may declare pure, believing only what one knows, and no more.
For, just as the doctors of the body believe that the body cannot benefit from food before removing what hinders its absorption, so too do they believe that the soul cannot gain from teachings if the obstacles and distorted views are not first removed, allowing a person to realize that they only know what they know and nothing more.
This is certainly the best and most temperate of dispositions. (Plato, Sophist 230c-d)
*Translation based on Dimitris Glinos (1940)
