Talk:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

ref
Runescape reference irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.209.155 (talk) 21:43, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Please edit if it is relevant for the "Uses in pop culture" or other part :

‘Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes.’ was the citation of the famous report (page 3) of the 11 july 2001 of the European parliament on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI) Bhagavad gita 13:23, upadrasta anumanta ca bharta bhokta mahesvarah paramatmeti capy ukto dehe 'smin purusah parah. But in the body an other been is present, a trascendental beneficiary,; he is The Lord, the supreme owner, the supervisor and the agreeable, He has called The Supreme Soul. Sri Krishna Geova Allah

Link : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN

Regards,

123.2.69.191 05:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC) Samuel Hubault

NOBLE LIE
I'm no expert on Plato's dialogues but as I understand it "Noble lie" is a mistranlation, implying propaganda which Plato disagreed with. I think "magnificent myth" is more appropriate. Please advise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.42.13 (talk • contribs) 08:43, 11 August 2007

Whether it is a mistranslation or not, the article would be misleading if all it said was that Plato thinks that the guardians should be manipulated by the noble lie and if it ended with the 403e passage. How is anybody going to come up with the right noble lie? Is it in fact absurd that the guardians themselves should have guards? The middle books of the Republic are in a way devoted to answering this question, because the answer lies in the development of reason. The craft of ruling is rooted in nature and reason, and that's why the "noble lie" isn't just arbitrary and conventional. Socrates gives his answer at 590d: ideally, we should be guarded by the rational element in our souls, where we ourselves possess wisdom. Absent that, we should be guarded by somebody like that. Debell (talk) 15:07, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Blog motto not WP:NOTE?
Although perhaps not notable [WP:NOTE at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability], the motto of my public blog, scanlyze, is "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" at http://scanlyze.wordpress.com/ FYI, FWIW.

Scanlyze 14:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Djerassi: Who will mentor the mentors?
Carl Djerassi's essay, "Who will mentor the mentors?" was published in Nature 397, 291 (28 January 1999) | doi:10.1038/16786. It addresses graduate school mentoring in the sciences. Professors are the "guardians" of their graduate students but some professors are not up to the task. (Should this be added to the main page under 'pop culture' or 'see also'?) AdderUser 20:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
This quote is listed as "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" here but as "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" in Wikiquote. (I believe the word "sed" translates as "but," i.e., "But who shall guard the guards?" Which is correct?  Or did Juvenal use both versions? Wakedream (talk) 17:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

✅ The full passage appears in the article. The phrase is usually quoted as we have it here and so no action is required. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Colonel Warden, if you are still willing to debate this, my recollection is always that the phrase is quoted including the initial sed (but), but I am not sufficiently familiar with current usage to be able to say how it is "usually" quoted. The article on Satire VI includes sed in what it calls a "famous phrase". At the very least, a redirect including sed might have some benefit? BobKilcoyne (talk) 04:53, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Article doesn't make it clear that original quote was in Greek, not Latin
The article could easily be inferred as suggesting that the original quote was in Latin. Forgive my lack of classical education, but I feel this is unlikely since both Plato and Socrates were Greek. Can someone with better knowledge in the classics please edit the article to make this clear? There is then the knock-on issue of whether this article should have its current Latin title, or its original Greek title, or (my preference) supersede the English article currently occupied by a dreary science fiction TV episode. Andrew Oakley (talk) 09:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Is the question mark justified in this quotation? I know that it would be in English, but is it in Latin? I know that this is a trivial point, but I like to get things straight, so I'd be grateful if someone knowledgeable could answer this. 68.99.252.93 (talk)

It would be good to know original greek phrase as well and exactly where it appears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.133.112 (talk) 14:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The original quotation was Latin. It is not Greek in origin. Plato never actually said it or anything like it that I know of. I don't know what that line from the Republic is even cited in this article, since it clearly is not in any way parallel to the line from Juvenal. As for the question mark, it would not have been used in Juvenal's time, but it is fairly common to punctuate normalized Latin texts. Tarchon (talk) 06:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed the original line comes from Plato, The Republic, Book 3, 403e. Glaucon speaking: "Yes, he said, it would be absurd that a guardian should need a guard". The original version goes as follows: "γελοῖον γάρ, ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, τόν γε φύλακα φύλακος δεῖσθαι". The term used by Plato is φύλαξ, literally "guardian" or "watchman", so there's no doubt he is indirectly pointing to the question here discussed, specially when taking into account the meaning that this term has in the society depicted by Socrates in this dialogue. I don't feel authorised enough to make changes to the article, but for anyone wishing to do it this is the reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.116.143.162 (talk) 16:47, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean "there's no doubt"? Did you talk to Juvenal? Did you know him personally? What evidence FROM JUVENAL is there that in any way indicates that it has any connection? Yes, he uses the word custos, but the fact that he uses one LATIN word that could be translated as the GREEK word φύλαξ, does not mean that he was making a reference to a Greek work of a whole different genre from over 400 years earlier that he might not even have read. If you can read Latin, it's patently obvious that the tone has nothing in common with the Republic. It never references the Republic implicitly or explicitly. It's just a poem that happens to use a word for chaperone while talking about chaperones. I get that all the people on the internet who have been going around saying this is a Plato quotation are embarrassed and trying to explain why they never bothered to check the source, but you people are going to have to accept the reality that the original source has not one thing to do with Plato's Republic. Tarchon (talk) 23:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that you (and like minded people) misunderstand what either Plato via Glaucon or Juvenal is saying. Juvenal's point is that chaperones are useless with an unfaithful wife, since she'll just cheat with them, they being no less corruptible. Plato/Glaucon's point is that a guardian of the state must have moral character such that he is incorruptible. OK, yes, both things have words sort of like guardian and deal with the problem of corruption, but not every discussion of corruption in the history of the universe is necessarily a Plato allusion, and what's more to the point, if you want to say that it, you need to go find yourself one of those reliable sources for it instead of just sneaking it into the lede while other editors aren't watching. Tarchon (talk) 00:23, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

If the article is going to refer to the Republic, it's worth noting that Plato's last word on this is not where Glaucon says at 403e that it would be absurd for a guardian to need a guard. Much later, at 590d, Book 9, Socrates returns to the point, where he says that everybody does need a ruler, preferably the rational element in their own soul, i.e., within themselves, but, failing that, a wise ruler external to them. If the article doesn't say that, it misrepresents Plato. Debell (talk) 14:51, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

That's OR. The Hurwicz reference is explicitly discussing the Juvenal quotation in connection to Plato's Republic, which is why I put it in there. This other thing you've added from some other part of the Republic may or may not have some connection to it, but your assumption of a connection is OR as is this attempt to construct an argument against Hurwicz. I don't know why people insist on adding their own personal analyses of the Republic to this article, but please see WP:OR. This is an article on Quis Custudiet Ipsos Custodies - it's not a Plato's Republic discussion board.Tarchon (talk) 21:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Should the "In literature and media" be a bullet list?
Just asking? Spandox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC).

Quis custodia custodias ipsos?(?)
I reverted because 1) I can't find any source for that phrase; 2) I don't believe that's proper Latin (see e.g. custodia). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:31, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

"Quis ipsos custodes custodient"
The origin of the word "custodes" is from "custos", guard, with the accusative plural being custodes and custodiet is from custodio, to guard, however, this is the third person singular, future tense. I don't know why custodient, third person plural isn't used. Also, the above is the correct sentence structure.Tojuki (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

It's custodiet because quis is the subject and quis is singular. You don't see quis in the plural a whole lot, but it would be qui if it were. If you don't specify anything about the who, you use the formally singular and vague interrogative pronoun quis = "who", but if you know something about the class of persons you're asking about, you say something more like "qui [homines]"="which men" or "quae [mulier]"="which woman." Tarchon (talk) 07:10, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Popular Culture
I put the reference to The Simpsons back into the popular culture section.

I'm sure there are many people around who aren't fans of The Simpsons, or who perhaps have a particularly high opinion of the word "culture", but by sheer numbers it's surely quite difficult to argue that The Simpsons wouldn't, by the general public, be described as "Popular Culture".. It might also be argued that en entire episode dedicated to a topic might warrant mention in a wikipedia article, where a couple of droll lines uttered incidentally do not, but a google search for the phrase "I don't know. Coast guard?" produces over 11,000 results, the first few pages of which refer specifically to that episode, and are not simply lists of things characters happen to have said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.4.129.186 (talk) 15:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * There's nothing notable about the Simpsons reference. -Pollinosisss (talk) 05:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Undid the removal of the Simpsons paragraphs. I think the previous person who undid it explained well why it should be there. The simpsons is just as notable as Dan Brown, The Watchmen or any other popular culture reference in that section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 17.201.24.162 (talk) 19:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This line was used as an epigraph to the Tower Commission report on Iran-Contra. --Patbahn (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

"pone seram, cohibes."
This is quoted as "pone seram, cohibes." and "pone seram, cohibe." (without the "s"). I do not have access to the "Classical Review" article. Are both correct? TomS TDotO (talk) 14:03, 5 November 2014 (UTC)


 * "Cohibe" makes more sense to me, but the three different manuscript traditions manuscripts use "cohibes", "prohibe", or "cohibe". Cohibes is kind of odd because it's not imperative - it's a statement "you restrain" rather than the expected "restrain" (cohibe), in agreement with the imperative "pone". "Prohibe" would work for me too though. It's fairly common for manuscripts, especially lower quality ones, to have little inconsistencies like this. Tarchon (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Watchmen

 * The question "Who watches the Watchmen?" frequently appears in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen, though the phrase is never seen in any one place in its entirety

This is actually wrong, unless one is being particularly pedantic. In the first chapter, in Nite Owl's flashback, you can see a protester almost completing the phrase in graffiti on the wall, although the Comedian orders him to stop. in the end, at Chapter 12, the Latin phrase appears on the page after the ending. hbdragon88 (talk) 03:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Reference to political power
Any references to Grube Edition can be validated here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5ZjRDTmOCMoC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false Yoga Mat (talk) 12:36, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Tower Commission
The section on popular culture is - IMHO - correctly labelled as trivial. The quote is a snappy sound byte that has been used very widely. Relevant to the context that Plato and Socrates discussed however is its use in the Tower Commission report on the Iran Contra Affair. The Wiki entry for the Tower Commission correctly reports that an appendix of the report opens with that line. This seems more relevant than (with all due respect) the Simposons or some of the other pop culture references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TrustyJules (talk • contribs) 13:04, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Missing connections: Separation of powers, AI alignment theory, etc.
The question taps into a wider and deeper pool of problems. Elias (talk) 13:15, 31 March 2023 (UTC)