Alcibiades I

Key Words of the Dialogue

These notes are for orientation, not reference: each explains a word the argument leans on, what it meant in Plato’s Athens, and what the dialogue does with it. The Glossary at the back lists the renderings with the places where they matter.

Care for oneself (epimeleisthai heautou)

The verb means to take pains over a thing, to look after it, to make it one’s concern: a guardian cares for a ward, a magistrate for his charge. It is the dialogue’s demand. Socrates tells Alcibiades that he must “learn, and care for himself” before contending with the king (123d), and that nothing will let him surpass his rivals but care and craft (124b); from 127e the question is what caring for oneself is. The argument separates caring for a thing from caring for what belongs to it: shoemaking cares for shoes, gymnastics for the feet (128a–d), so whoever cares for what is his own is not yet caring for himself, and whoever tends his money tends what is further off still (131b–c). The answer, that caring for oneself is caring for the soul (132c), carries the rest of the dialogue to its close, where Alcibiades says he will “care for justice” (135e). The verb is rendered “care for” throughout, and the noun epimeleia “care”; its opposite, amelein, is “take no care” (113c, 120b), and melei is “care about” (122b), so that the family of words stays visible. At 120c–d, where the phrase first appears with “yourself”, an earlier state of this edition had “take more care of yourself” and “taking care of yourself”; both are now “care for”.

Know thyself (gnōthi sauton), and temperance (sōphrosynē)

“Know thyself” was carved at Apollo’s temple at Delphi. The dialogue first invokes it at 124a–b, where it is Socrates’ own command as well as the god’s, for Burnet prints the words without quotation marks: Alcibiades is to listen to Socrates and the inscription and “know thyself: these are our rivals”; an earlier state of this edition quoted the inscription and added a second “know”. It comes back three times. At 129a Socrates asks whether it is easy; at 130e the one who enjoins it bids us know the soul; at 132c–d its meaning is shown by the eye that sees itself in another eye. Sōphrosynē, rendered “temperance” throughout, one word for one word, as in the Charmides of this series, is the virtue the Persian prince’s “most temperate” tutor teaches, not to be ruled by his pleasures (121e–122a), and one of the Spartan virtues (122c). From 131b it is identified with knowing oneself, the definition Critias tries in the Charmides, and the argument makes it the condition of knowing what is one’s own, of ruling a city, and of being happy (133c–134d). The narrow modern sense, abstinence from drink, should be set aside.

Just and advantageous (dikaios, ta sympheronta)

Dikaios covers what is just and fair between men, and what is lawful; ta sympheronta are the things that are advantageous, that pay. The first argument makes “the more just” the better in war and peace (109c), and asks where Alcibiades learned it; the second answers his retreat to the advantageous, which he says is different (113d), by showing, from his own answers, that just things are advantageous (116d). The Greek words are rendered “just” and “advantageous” throughout, and ta dikaia “what is just”, or “just things” in the argument of 114e–116d; adikein, to do injustice, is “do wrong” (109b, 110b–c, 113d). Justice (dikaiosynē) returns at the end, joined with temperance as what Alcibiades must procure for himself and the city (134c), and as what he says he will begin to care for (135e).

Fine, beautiful, shameful (kalos, aischros)

Kalos is beautiful, of a person or a thing, and fine or noble, of an act; aischros is ugly and shameful. The dialogue uses both senses, and the English divides them: of persons “beautiful” and “ugly” (104a, 107b, 113b, 131d, 135c), of conduct “fine” and “shameful” (109c, 115a–116c). The division is sometimes a loss, because Plato means the reader to hear one word: Alcibiades is “the beautiful” (113b), Socrates urges him to be “as beautiful as you can” (131d), and the last page speaks of a condition one should not name “where a beautiful man is concerned” (135c), while the argument at 115a–116c makes the fine the good. Kaloi kagathoi, “the fine and good”, the usual phrase for gentlemen, keeps “fine” (124e); the note there explains the phrase. Kalōs is rendered as the idiom requires in “well said” (108c, 109e, 126a), “not well said” (135d) and “you have not spoken well” (112e).

Good and bad, doing well, happy (agathos, kakos, eu prattein, eudaimōn)

Agathos and kakos are “good” and “bad” throughout, never “evil”. “Good” is first good at something (125a–b: the shoemaker is good at shoes and bad at cloaks); Alcibiades wants to be “good at managing affairs” (124e). Eu prattein means both to act well and to fare well, and the argument at 116b trades on both senses (“Whoever does finely, does he not also do well?”); the English “do well” keeps both, and kakōs prattein is “do badly” (134a, 135b). At 134a–e the same verb runs through acting and faring, and “act” and “do” render it. Eudaimōn is “happy”, the prosperous and blessed condition of a life, not a mood; athlios is “wretched” (134a–b).

Knowing, and thinking one knows (eidenai, epistasthai, oiesthai eidenai, amathia)

The dialogue’s diagnosis is that Alcibiades does not know what he thinks he knows. Eidenai and epistasthai are both “know”; gignōskein, which carries “Know thyself”, is also “know”, and gnōrizein “come to know” (130e). The condition of not knowing but thinking one knows is the cause of mistakes (117d–118a); Socrates calls it “the disgraceful stupidity” (amathia, literally “not having learned”, 118a–b), and contrasts it with the harmless ignorance of one who knows he does not know, and leaves the tiller to the pilot (117c–e). Its symptom is that a man “wanders” (planasthai), giving one answer and then another (112d, 116e–118a). Agnoein, “be ignorant”, is kept apart from “not know”. Hamartanein is “make mistakes” (117d–e, 134a).

Learning, discovering, seeking (manthanein, heuriskein, zētein)

The argument of 106d–114a rests on a dilemma: whatever a man knows he has either learned from someone or discovered himself, and he will not seek what he thinks he already knows. Alcibiades has thought he knew what is just since he was a boy, so he never sought it and did not discover it; and the many, from whom he says he learned it, do not know it themselves (109d–112d). The three verbs are “learn”, “discover” and “seek” throughout, so that the dilemma, when it returns at 113e–114a and again with “the self itself” (129b), is recognisable; only where manthanein means “I understand” (111c, 128a–b) is it rendered so. Other verbs of finding out are kept off “learn”: pynthanesthai is “find out” (103a, 104d, 123d, 131e), and at 105a gnōsēi is “you will come to know”; at 103a, 105a and 123d an earlier state of this edition had “learn”. At 116c “find” renders heuriskein where it means finding that something is so.

Craft, and the better (technē, to beltion)

Technē is a craft or art, a skill with rules that can be taught: shoemaking, piloting, medicine, music. Socrates’ method is to ask what craft governs a thing and what it calls the better: the better in wrestling is “gymnastic”, in singing to the lyre “musical” (108a–e), and so the better in war and peace must have a name too, which turns out to be “the more just” (109c). Later the question is which craft makes us better, as shoemaking makes shoes better (128b–e), and it turns out to be for one craft to discern oneself, what is one’s own and what belongs to it (133d–e). Beltion and ameinon are both “better”, since the argument at 108b turns on the word. Ruling a city is likened to the crafts of piloting and chorus-training (125c–e); their knowledge is “good counsel”.

Good counsel, concord, friendship (euboulia, homonoia, philia)

Asked what knowledge rules the city, Alcibiades says “good counsel” (125e), and that what it produces is friendship among the citizens, which he takes to be homonoia, literally “like-mindedness”, rendered “concord” (126c). Homonoia was a political watchword, the opposite of faction (stasis), and the dialogue tests it on the household: husbands and wives cannot be in concord about wool-working or hoplite fighting, which only one of them knows (126e–127a). “Agree” is kept for homologein, the partners’ assent in the argument, and “disagree” for diapheresthai, the disagreement of the many about justice (111b–112d), so that the three ideas stay apart. Philia is “friendship” and philein “love”, as of a father for his son (126e).

One’s own, and doing one’s own business (ta hautou, ta hautou prattein)

The dialogue distinguishes three things: oneself; what is one’s own (ta hautou), such as the body or the hands; and what belongs to what is one’s own (ta tōn hautou), such as shoes, rings, cloaks and money. It draws the distinction at 128a–d (“what belongs to the foot”) and 131a–c (“things still further off than what is his own”), and names it at 133d–e. Caring for the second is not caring for the first, and knowing the first is the condition of knowing the others. The English is “what is one’s own” throughout, and at 133d–e “what belongs to what is one’s own”; in an earlier state of this edition 128d, 131a–c and 133d had “what is yours”, “what is his” and “what is theirs”, which hid that 133d recalls 131a. The phrase ta hautou prattein, “to do one’s own business”, is the formula the Charmides tests as a definition of temperance and the Republic makes the definition of justice; here Alcibiades offers it as the cause of friendship in cities (127b–c), and Socrates later makes a joke of it: the money-maker is no longer doing his own business (131c).

The self itself, soul and body, the user (auto tauto, psychē, sōma, chrēsthai)

At 129b Socrates asks how “the self itself” (auto tauto; at 130d auto to auto) might be discovered, and at 130d admits that the argument has looked instead into “what each thing itself is”. The phrase is difficult; the note at 129b sets out the readings. The argument between rests on using: the user and what he uses are different (129c–e); a man uses his body; what uses and rules it is the soul (psychē); so a man is his soul (130a–c). Chrēsthai is “use” and ho chrōmenos “the user” throughout; at 125c–d, of men who “make use of one another” in a city, the same verb is “make use of”. Anthrōpos, the human being as such, is “man”, as in “Then what on earth is man?” (129e). Psychē is “soul” and sōma “body” everywhere.

Lover and love (erastēs, erōs)

The relation the dialogue assumes is the Athenian one between an older lover (erastēs) and a beautiful youth. Socrates is the first of Alcibiades’ lovers and the only one to stay (103a), and he defines himself as the lover of the soul, who does not go away when the body’s bloom fades (131c–132a). The vocabulary extends to politics: Socrates fears that Alcibiades will become a dēmerastēs, “a lover of the people” (132a), and calls the Athenian people a handsome face that should be seen stripped. At the end the parts are reversed, and Socrates’ love will be tended by the love it has hatched, like the stork (135d–e). Erastēs is “lover” and erōs “love” throughout.

Virtue, license, rule, tyranny (aretē, exousia, archē, tyrannis)

Aretē is excellence of any kind: of a land (122d, where it is “excellence”), of a craft, of a man. It is “virtue” of persons and of crafts throughout, so that “the virtue of piloting” (125c) and “the eye’s virtue” (133b) stand beside the soul’s virtue, wisdom. In the last pages the argument sets virtue against power. Exousia, the freedom or authority to do as one likes, is “license”; archē is “rule”; tyrannis is “tyranny”, and tyrannein, to be a tyrant, is rendered literally even of the sick man who will take no rebuke (135a), so that it leads to the conclusion that follows: it is not tyranny one must procure, but virtue (135b). Until a man has virtue it is better for him to be ruled than to rule (135b).

Look into (skopein, blepein eis)

Skopein and skepsis, Socrates’ verb for examining a question, are “look into” and “looking into” throughout, so that the repetition shows (“Look into it this way”, 116b). In the passage on the eye and the soul (132d–133c) the same English also renders blepein eis, to look into an eye, a mirror or the god, because there the looking is the argument: the eye sees itself by looking into another eye, the soul by looking into a soul and into the god. Where both verbs meet, at 132d5, Socrates’ Skopei is rendered “Consider”. At 132c, where the soul is to be kept in view, and at 134d–e, where one acts with one’s eyes on the divine or the godless, the English is “look to” and “looking toward”. An earlier state of this edition had “look at” in parts of 133a–c.