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CHAIR'S STATEMENT FACULTY GRADUATE STUDENTS COLLOQUIUM CALENDAR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PLACEMENT MASTER SCHEDULE UNDERGRADUATE BULLETIN GRADUATE BULLETIN ACADEMIC CALENDARS USC LIBRARIES CAS COMPUTING & IT USC COMPUTER SERVICES ABOUT COLUMBIA SC RESTRICTED ACCESS: Faculty | Graduate Students Search USC   THIS SITE		COLLOQUIA & CONFERENCES TWELFTH ANNUAL SPRAGUE LECTURE   THEAETETUS, THE MAN AND HIS WORK: RECOVERING SOME OF HIS FRAGMENTS   Malcolm Brown Brooklyn College City University of New York   April 20, 2004 Tuesday, 4:00pm-6:00pm Nursing, Room 127   The text of Euclid's Elements includes both his original work and embedded material, traceable to predecessors at the early Academy. I propose to myself to identify seven or more fragments from Theaetetus, all from Books X and XIII. These recovered materials should exceed in bulk all the now extant writings of pre-Platonic pythagoreans, whom our Theaetetus Euphroniades will have known as well as family members.   Three species of evidence: External: Archytas, Plato, Aristotle, Eudemus, Proclus; Quasi-external: in scholia attached to our best manuscripts; Internal, or philological: computer-aided comparisons of language.   My work concentrates on internal evidence, and begins from a suite of 9 propositions leading to the Regular Icosahedron of Book XIII. One of these propositions has phrasing which echoes a passage in the Republic. Alternatively, Plato may be echoing a text from Theaetetus.   Two scholia to Book X and one to Book III are likely to be relaying explanatory remarks from Theaetetus.   A website is now nearly completed, where A.E. Taylor's unfinished translation of the Theaetetus is published online, including Taylor's notes. This site will be open to further work on early mathematicians and the Academy, whether by myself or by others.
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