Thursday, March 28, 2024
Diagnostic Conjectures
Hugh Lloyd-Jones, "Paul Maas," Blood for the Ghosts: Classical Influences in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 215-218 (at 217-218):
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Maas held strongly that it was better to make a wrong conjecture than to ignore a difficulty; he strongly upheld the value of the 'diagnostic conjecture' and the usefulness of the crux; and he was the sworn enemy of the lazy acquiescence in the anomalous or the excessive caution which many scholars dignify with the name of judgment.... His principles were exemplified in numerous conjectures and supplements whose average quality was very high indeed. At times his vigorous logic could carry him too far; but even the suggestions to which this applies had usually the value of drawing attention to a difficulty or of provoking curiosity as to why the author should have departed from his usual norm.
