First, with regard to texts in print, it must be recognized that all the works read in this course were first produced in handwritten form, copies of which we do not have, with the exception of Rousseau. Hence, reading printed versions of the author's works puts us one or more steps away from the original. In the cases of Plato and Aristotle, we are many steps from the original texts. Second, most of the works studied in the course will be read in translation. Even among classicists, only specialists read through Plato or Aristotle in ancient Greek.
Latin sources present other complexities.
Yet other terms, seemingly familiar, may prove deceptively so. The foregoing qualifications are important, and, to increase accuracy, require at least two acknowledgments. First, the translated texts are representations of the original classics. Subject to critical review by the community of scholars, the translations vary in the degree to which they recapture the ideas expressed in the manuscripts inherited from the past. Second, some translations have themselves attained the status of classics, simply because of having been accepted by generations of readers as valid representations of the original work.