From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordNous is mind or intelligence and, in practical idioms, good sense.
- In Alcibiades IIAt 142e the prudent poet has senseless friends whose conduct and prayers are not better although they seem so to them.
- In this editionThe edition reserves “sense” for nous except where idiom requires “pay attention” or “in your mind”.
- A place to readThe noun appears in the idiom for paying attention.
Meaning
Nous is mind or intelligence and, in practical idioms, good sense. “Without sense” and “having sense” provide opposed assessments of judgment. Anoētos is senseless. The edition keeps this family separate from phronēsis and sophia, although their uses intersect in the argument about appropriate conduct.
Use in the book
At 142e the prudent poet has senseless friends whose conduct and prayers are not better although they seem so to them. He provides a prayer that allows the gods to withhold harmful requests. Sense here is connected to recognising the inadequacy of the friends’ own preferences, not to knowing a larger repertoire of things they could request.
The commonwealth’s specialists at 146a and the many at 146c have missed what is best by trusting opinion without sense. Nous marks the missing intelligent direction of judgment, but the passage does not separately define it as a faculty or systematically distinguish its operation from the knowledge of the best. One should therefore preserve the lexical distinction without inventing a fully worked psychological taxonomy.
At 150a–b people who have sense join the gods in especially honouring justice and intelligence. Elsewhere the same noun occurs in ordinary conversational idioms: Alcibiades is asked to apply his mind at 140a, and the partners can have something “in mind” to offer at 143a and 150b. Attention and having a response in mind are not by themselves proof of the sound judgment required in the more evaluative uses.
Places to read
- 140aThe noun appears in the idiom for paying attention.
- 142eThe poet’s friends are senseless in their choices and prayers.
- 146a; 146cOpinion is trusted without the sense needed to judge the best.
- 150a–bThose with sense honour justice and intelligence.
- 143a; 150b“In your mind” invites a possible response.
Translation in this edition
The edition reserves “sense” for nous except where idiom requires “pay attention” or “in your mind”. At 142b “there would be some reason in it” translates logos, not nous. “Senseless” at 142e translates anoētos and must not be treated as a further occurrence of aphrōn.