Art and craft

Use in the book

The crafts enter as a refutation. When Charmides proposes that temperance is "doing one's own business" (161b), Socrates takes "doing" in its widest sense: writing others' names, healing, building, weaving and "producing, by any craft whatever, any of the works of craft" are all doing something (161d–e). Charmides agrees that a city whose law made each man make everything he used would not be well managed (161e–162a). Critias, taking the definition over, agrees that "all craftsmen make something", and that they make other people's things as well (162e–163a2), and tries to save the formula by separating making from doing and working: Hesiod, the early epic poet, he argues, called works only "things made finely and beneficially", not cobbling shoes or selling salt fish (163b–c).¹

Socrates next asks whether a doctor must know when his treatment is beneficial, and each craftsman when he is going to profit from his work. "Perhaps not," Critias answers (164b), and rather than concede that "a man who does not know himself is temperate", he makes temperance knowing oneself (164c–d). From then on the crafts measure it. Medicine, Socrates says, produces health, "a fine work for us", and house-building houses, "and the same with the other crafts"; what fine work, then, does temperance produce, "worthy of its name" (165c–e)? Critias answers that "the art of calculation" and geometry have no work "in the way that a house is the work of house-building, or a cloak of weaving" (165e). Socrates grants it, "That's true", and moves the test from the work to the object: calculation is of the even and the odd, weighing of the heavier and the lighter, and each, Critias agrees, is "something other than" the knowledge itself (166a–b2). Asked, then, what temperance is knowledge of, Critias answers that it "alone is knowledge both of the other kinds of knowledge and of itself" (166c).

The same principle then turns the crafts against him. Medicine was defined "by being knowledge of the healthy and the diseased" (171a), so a doctor must be examined "in what is said or done" in that field, and no one can do it without medicine; if the temperate man could, "he would be a doctor in addition to being temperate" (171b–c). If temperance is only knowledge of knowledge, it will be able to tell "neither a doctor who knows the things of his craft from one who does not know them but pretends or thinks he does, nor anyone else who knows anything at all", except a man of the temperate man's own craft, as any craftsman can (171c).

Socrates now grants temperance all that was claimed for it (172c–d) and tells his dream, "whether it has come through horn or through ivory" (173a), the Odyssey's gates of true and false dreams.² Under temperance no false pilot, doctor or general would escape us; we would be "healthier in body than we are now, and come through safe when in danger at sea and in war", and our equipment, clothing, footwear and possessions would be expertly made, "because we would be using genuine craftsmen" (173b–c), and prophecy, if it is a knowledge, would be cleared of impostors (173c). We would "act and live knowledgeably", Socrates grants, but "that by acting knowledgeably we would do well and be happy, this, my dear Critias, we cannot yet learn" (173d). Knowledgeably about what, Socrates asks: cutting leather, working bronze, wool, wood? Critias refuses each, and Socrates observes that "these people live knowledgeably", yet Critias does not admit that they are happy (173d–e). Critias then names the knowledge that makes a man happy: the one "by which he knows good ... and bad" (174a–b2).

Socrates then puts the crafts to a test of subtraction, taking that knowledge away: "will medicine make us any less healthy, or cobbling any less well shod, or weaving any less well clothed, or will the pilot's art any less prevent us from dying at sea, and generalship in war?" "No less," Critias says. "But, my dear Critias, each of these things being done well and beneficially: that will be gone from us, if this is absent" (174c–d). The questions run again through the goods of the dream: health, footwear, clothing, and safety at sea and in war. The knowledge of good and bad, "whose work is to benefit us", is not temperance (174d). When Critias answers that temperance, presiding over all knowledge, would rule this one too and so benefit us (174d–e2), Socrates objects that it would not then heal us in place of medicine, nor do each craft's work: health and benefit each belong "to another craft", and temperance is "the craftsman of no benefit" (174e–175a).

The crafts come through intact; it is Critias' temperance that has no work, no object but knowledge, no power to judge a craftsman and no share in benefit. Yet the crafts are not sufficient either. The doctor of 164b can be read as the first sign of what the subtraction test shows: a craft by itself can make us healthy or shod without doing so to our benefit. The argument ends with two kinds of knowledge where Critias wanted one, the many crafts, each the knowledge of its own field, and the knowledge of good and bad, which Socrates also calls a craft. A knowledge of knowledge is neither.

Places to read

1. 161d–162aWriting others' names, healing, building, weaving and producing the works of any craft are doing something; a city where each man made all his own things would not be well managed.
2. 162e–163c2All craftsmen make, and make other people's things; Critias separates making from doing and working, on the authority of Hesiod.
3. 164a–c2Critias allows that a doctor may not know when his treatment is beneficial, nor a craftsman when he will profit from his work; a man could then, Socrates infers, be temperate without knowing it.
4. 165c–166b2Medicine produces health and house-building houses; Critias objects that calculation and geometry have no such work; Socrates answers that each knowledge is of something other than itself.
5. 170e–171c2Only medicine can examine a doctor; a knowledge of knowledge could judge no expert, beyond the temperate man's own fellow craftsman.
6. 173a–d2The dream: under temperance no pretender escapes, and genuine craftsmen make all we have; whether acting knowledgeably makes us happy is not yet learned.
7. 173d–174b2Those who live knowledgeably about leather, bronze, wool or wood Critias will not call happy; the knowledge that makes a man happy, he says, is of good and bad.
8. 174b–dWithout that knowledge, medicine, cobbling, weaving, the pilot's art and generalship would still do their work, but not "well and beneficially".
9. 174d–175a2Critias sets temperance over all knowledge; but it would not make us healthy, health and benefit belong to other crafts, and it is "the craftsman of no benefit".

Translation in this edition

Τέχνη occurs at 161e, 165d, 165e, 171c, 174e and 175a, and is "craft" at every place but one: Critias' τῆς λογιστικῆς τέχνης at 165e is "the art of calculation", as English idiom has it, though the same sentence ends with "many crafts". Λογιστική on its own is "calculation" (166a, and τὸ λογιστικόν at 174b). "Art" occurs once more, in "the pilot's art" (174c), where the Greek has the adjective κυβερνητική without τέχνη. The other craft names, adjectives in the Greek, are English nouns: "medicine" (ἰατρική, though "doctoring" once, of Socrates' pretence, at 158e), "house-building" (οἰκοδομική), "weaving" (ὑφαντική), "geometry" (γεωμετρική), "weighing" (στατική), "statesmanship" (πολιτική), "music" (μουσική), "cobbling" (σκυτική), "generalship" (στρατηγική), "prophecy" (μαντική) and "draughts" (τὸ πεττευτικόν). Δημιουργός is "craftsman" at all seven places, and ὁμότεχνος "fellow craftsman" (171c). Τεχνικῶς is "expertly" in "expertly made for us" (173c), where "made" renders a form of ἐργάζεσθαι, "work". Because "craft" and "craftsman" are kept throughout, the end of the argument sounds in English as it does in Greek: temperance is not "the craftsman of health", health belongs "to another craft", and temperance is "the craftsman of no benefit" (174e–175a).

ἀμπεχόνη

Attested: ἀμπεχόνην (ampechonēn; 173b). Clothing, a wrap worn about the body. In the dream "our equipment and clothing and our footwear, all of it, and all our possessions would be expertly made for us" (173b–c); in the subtraction test weaving still keeps us "well clothed" (174c), where the verb is ἠμφιέσθαι, from ἀμφιέννυμι, "to clothe". Lemma: ἀμπεχόνη.

ἀποθνῄσκω

Attested: ἀποθνῄσκειν (apothnēiskein; 174c). To die. With the knowledge of good and bad taken away, Socrates asks whether the pilot's art will "any less prevent us from dying at sea, and generalship in war"; Critias answers "No less", and Socrates replies that their being done "well and beneficially" will be gone (174c–d). Lemma: ἀποθνῄσκω.

δημιουργός

Attested: δημιουργούς (dēmiourgous; 162e, 164a), δημιουργῶν (dēmiourgōn; 164b), δημιουργοί (dēmiourgoi; 171c), δημιουργοῖς (dēmiourgois; 173c), δημιουργός (dēmiourgos; 174e, 175a). A craftsman, one who practises a craft and makes its works. Craftsmen make other people's things as well as their own (162e–163a2, recalled at 164a); Critias allows that each may not know when he will profit from his work (164b); each can judge a fellow craftsman in his own craft (171c); in the dream we would be "using genuine craftsmen" (173c). At the end the word is turned on temperance, which is not "the craftsman of health" and proves "the craftsman of no benefit" (174e–175a). Lemma: δημιουργός.

ἔριον

Attested: ἐρίων (eriōn; 173e). Wool. Asked what the man who lives knowledgeably knows about, Critias refuses cutting leather and working bronze, and then "wool, or wood, or anything else of that sort"; those who live knowledgeably in such work, Socrates observes, Critias does not admit to be happy (173d–e). Lemma: ἔριον.

ξύλον

Attested: ξύλων (xylōn; 173e). Wood, timber, the material of the carpenter and the joiner. It comes in the same question as wool, among the things one might work knowledgeably without, by Critias' answer, being happy (173e). Lemma: ξύλον.

στρατηγική

Attested: στρατηγική (stratēgikē; 174c). Generalship. It comes last in the subtraction test: without the knowledge of good and bad it would no less keep us from dying in war, though not well and beneficially (174c–d). Lemma: στρατηγική.

στρατηγός

Attested: στρατηγός (stratēgos; 173b). A general. In the dream, under temperance, no doctor or general "or anyone else" who "pretended to know what he did not know" would escape our notice (173b). Lemma: στρατηγός.

σῴζω

Attested: ἐσώθης (esōthēs; 153b), σῴζεσθαι (sōizesthai; 173b). To keep safe, and in the passive to come through safe. When Socrates is just back from the army besieging Potidaea in the north Aegean, his friend Chaerephon's first question is "how did you come out of the battle alive?" (153b); in the dream, with genuine pilots and generals, we would "come through safe when in danger at sea and in war" (173b). Lemma: σῴζω.

τέχνη

Attested: τέχνῃ (technēi; 161e, 175a), τέχνης (technēs; 161e, 165e, 171c, 175a), τεχνῶν (technōn; 165d, 165e, 174e); the compound ὁμότεχνον (homotechnon; 171c), "fellow craftsman". A craft: a teachable skill with its own field and, mostly, its own work. Healing, building, weaving and producing "any of the works of craft" are doing something (161e); each craft, like house-building, has its work (165d), though Critias names "the art of calculation" as a knowledge with no such work (165e); only one who has the craft can tell whether a doctor knows "the things of his craft" (171c); and at the end health and benefit each belong to "another craft", not to temperance (174e–175a). Lemma: τέχνη; ὁμότεχνος.

τεχνικῶς

Attested: τεχνικῶς (technikōs; 173c). Expertly, as a craft would do it. In the dream our possessions "would be expertly made for us ... because we would be using genuine craftsmen" (173c). Lemma: τεχνικῶς.

ὑπόδεσις

Attested: ὑπόδεσιν (hypodesin; 173b); from the same root ὑποδήματα (hypodēmata; 161e), "shoes", and ὑποδεδέσθαι (hypodedesthai; 174c), "shod". Footwear, literally a binding under the foot. In the dream our footwear, "all of it", would be expertly made (173b–c); under the law Socrates imagines each man would cobble his own "shoes" (161e); and without the knowledge of good and bad cobbling would leave us no less "well shod" (174c). Lemma: ὑπόδεσις; ὑπόδημα; ὑποδέω.

χαλκός

Attested: χαλκοῦ (chalkou; 173e). Bronze, the smith's metal. "Working bronze, then?" is Socrates' second suggestion for the knowledge by which the happy man lives; Critias answers "Not at all", and so the bronze-worker, like the leather-cutter, lives knowledgeably without being, on Critias' account, happy (173e). Lemma: χαλκός.

ξύλων (xylōn)

Attested: ξύλων (xylōn; 173e). Wood, timber, the material of the carpenter and the joiner. It comes in the same question as wool, among the things one might work knowledgeably without, by Critias' answer, being happy (173e). Lemma: ξύλον.

πολέμῳ (polemōi)

Attested: πολέμῳ (polemōi; 173b, 174c). War. In the dream we would "come through safe when in danger at sea and in war" (173b); in the subtraction test generalship would still keep us from dying in war without the knowledge of good and bad, though not well and beneficially (174c–d). Lemma: πόλεμος.

σκεύη (skeuē)

Attested: σκεύη (skeuē; 173b). Equipment: the gear, vessels and implements of a house or a campaign. First of the things that in the dream would be "expertly made for us" by "genuine craftsmen" (173b–c). Lemma: σκεῦος.

σκυτικὴ (skytikē)

Attested: σκυτική (skytikē; 174c). Cobbling, the shoemaker's craft. Without the knowledge of good and bad it would leave us no less "well shod" (174c), but not "well and beneficially" (174c–d). Lemma: σκυτική.

σκυτῶν τομῆς (skytōn tomēs)

Attested: σκυτῶν τομῆς (skytōn tomēs; 173d), "cutting leather"; the compound verb σκυτοτομεῖν (skytotomein; 161e) and σκυτοτομοῦντι (skytotomounti; 163b), "cobble". The cobbler's trade, named by its first task. "About cutting leather?" is the first of Socrates' suggestions for the knowledge by which the happy man lives, and Critias rejects it with an oath (173d–e). The verb gives the law Socrates imagines, under which each man would "cobble his own shoes" (161e), and the first of the trades by which Critias argues that Hesiod did not count every making as work (163b). Lemma: σκῦτος; τομή; σκυτοτομέω.

χρήματα (chrēmata)

Attested: χρήματα (chrēmata; 173c). Things one has and uses, possessions, and not only money. In the dream "all our possessions would be expertly made for us" (173c). Lemma: χρῆμα.

Elsewhere in Plato

The rule that each craft has its own field is stated most plainly in the Ion. Asked who would better judge Homer's lines on driving a chariot round the turn, a doctor or a charioteer, Ion, a professional reciter of Homer, answers the charioteer, because he has the craft. Socrates draws the rule: to each craft the god has given a work that it can know, so that what we know by piloting we shall not know by medicine, and whoever lacks a craft will not be able to judge well what is said or done in it (537c–538b). That is the test the Charmides applies to the doctor, "in what is said or done" (171b).

Two other dialogues draw the limit of the crafts much as the subtraction test does (174c–d). In the Laches the Athenian general Nicias says that doctors know only what is healthy and what is diseased, not whether health is more to be feared than sickness for a given man, though for many it would be better not to rise from their sickness; and a prophet need know only the signs of what is to come, death, disease, loss of property, victory or defeat in war, not whether it is better for someone to suffer them or not (195c–196a). In the Gorgias Socrates tells Callicles that the pilot's art saves lives, bodies and goods from the worst dangers, yet the pilot asks two drachmas at most even from Egypt or the Black Sea, and walks modestly by the shore; for he can reckon that it is unclear which passengers he has benefited by not letting them drown and which he has harmed, since he has landed them no better in body or soul than they were when they embarked (511c–512b).

The Euthydemus reaches the Charmides' last difficulty by another road. Socrates tells his old friend Crito how he and the young Cleinias sought the kingly craft, to which, it seemed to them, generalship and the other crafts hand over the rule of the works they make, since it alone knows how to use them. Asked what work it produces, as medicine produces health and farming food, they could not say. It must give us some good, and they had agreed that the only good is a kind of knowledge, so that making the citizens rich, free and free from faction proved neither good nor bad; it does not hand on cobbling or carpentry either; and so it must be the craftsman of none of the works that are neither good nor bad, and hand on no knowledge but itself (291b–292e). The search ends where the Charmides does, with a ruling knowledge that has no work of its own.

Later readings

Plato's pupil Aristotle drew the line between making and doing that Critias tried to draw (163b–c). A craft, for him, is a reasoned state concerned with making, whose end lies outside the making; practical wisdom is concerned with doing, about what is good and bad for a human being, and deliberates not about what serves health or strength in part but about living well as a whole. The subtraction test can be read as pointing toward that line (174b–d), with one difference: Aristotle denies that practical wisdom is a craft at all, since doing and making differ in kind, while the Charmides still assigns benefit to "another craft" (175a).³ He opened the Nicomachean Ethics with the order Critias reached for at the end (174d–e2), crafts ranged under master crafts, bridle-making under horsemanship and horsemanship under generalship, and the chief good under the most authoritative knowledge, the "architectonic" or master-builder's knowledge, which is politics.⁴

Use in the book

Craft provides Socrates' most persistent model for asking what Alcibiades knows. At 107a–c2 an audience seeks the builder, prophet, or doctor appropriate to the problem, not the most beautiful or wealthy speaker. The examples undermine the substitution of social prestige for competence. They do not assume that every question confronting the Assembly belongs to one of these already named occupations; identifying Alcibiades' proposed expertise remains the task.

At 108b–e2 Socrates makes the normative function of craft explicit. What happens correctly according to the craft supplies the better in an activity. Gymnastics governs the better in wrestling, music in lyre-playing, singing, and stepping. Socrates asks Alcibiades to supply the analogous standard for war and peace. The answer becomes the more just (109c). No separate named craft of justice is thereby fully described. The analogies establish a burden to explain standards, not a completed classification of politics as a trade.

At 124b craft and care are the resources by which Alcibiades could surpass the foreign rivals whose advantages he cannot match. When the inquiry resumes, the local character of expertise becomes restrictive. A shoemaker is intelligent and good about shoes, but not about cloaks (125a–b). Piloting and chorus-training can organize people making use of other people, so that description does not yet identify civic rule. Even “good counsel” applies to a pilot. Expertise must be specified by the object, task, and beneficial condition it secures.

Arithmetic and measurement introduce a further feature: competent judgments should support concord within their domain (126c–d). The same craft can make a person agree with himself, people agree with one another, and cities agree. Yet extending this model directly to friendship generates the household difficulty: spouses can cooperate while possessing different specialized knowledge. The dialogue leaves the resulting account of civic concord unresolved, illustrating a limit in transferring craft models without examining their relational assumptions.

The self-care argument uses another craft distinction. Shoemaking improves shoes; gymnastics improves feet. Ring-engraving cares for what belongs to the hand; training cares for the hand itself (128b–d2). Improving a possession cannot simply count as improving its possessor. To identify the craft that improves oneself, one must know what oneself is. The subsequent user–instrument analysis is likewise illustrated by craftsmen: a shoemaker uses cutters, hands, and eyes; the worker differs from what he works with (129c–e2).

At 131a–b these distinctions produce a limitation on specialist self-knowledge. A doctor as doctor knows bodily matters, and craftsmen's skills concern the body's provisions; neither skill by itself establishes knowledge of the self. The qualification “as” or “insofar as” is crucial: the text does not demonstrate that a practicing doctor can never acquire philosophical understanding. Its disparaging description of crafts as menial must also be reported as the dialogue's social evaluation, not adopted as the lexicon's judgment.

Finally, at 133d–e Socrates corrects the earlier concession that specialists could know their own without themselves: discerning self, one's own, and what belongs to one's own seems to be the work of one person and one craft. This is not an announcement that one expert can make shoes, sail ships, and practise medicine without learning their different skills. The claim concerns recognition of the relation between the person and the things properly called his. Keeping it distinct from local technical knowledge prevents an apparent contradiction from being “solved” by erasing either passage.

Craft is therefore both a standard of accountable competence and an analogy whose limits require care. The dialogue repeatedly asks what a skill knows, does, improves, and permits its possessor to teach or judge. It never licenses assuming that the possession of just any craft supplies the virtue required to govern.

Places to read

1. 107a–108e234Expert advisers and the craft-specific meaning of the better set the initial standard
2. 124b–127d2345678Craft, local goodness, coordinated rule, and concord shape the unresolved search for civic expertise
3. 128b–129b23Distinct crafts improve a thing and its belongings, motivating inquiry into the self
4. 129c–129e2Craft tools and bodily instruments illustrate user and used
5. 131a–131bSpecialist knowledge does not by itself establish self-knowledge
6. 133d–133eThe earlier concession is revised: one discernment relates self, own, and own’s belongings

Translation in this edition

The stable “craft” keeps the argument's repeated τέχνη visible across manual, mathematical, and directive activities. The edition's “virtue of piloting” at 125c preserves functional excellence. At 133e “one craft” must be read with κατιδεῖν, discern or comprehend, and with the explicit correction immediately preceding it.

δημιουργός

Attested: δημιουργοὶ (dēmiourgoi; 131a). At 131a: Practitioners whose professional objects are provisions by which the body is tended. Lexical identification: lemma: δημιουργός. See Craft and expertise.

δρομικός

Attested: δρομικοί (dromikoi; 111d). Good at running or fitted for racing; distinguishing runners among humans or horses demands more than knowing which objects are humans or horses. Lexical identification: lemma: δρομικός. See Craft and expertise.

κρήγυος

Attested: κρήγυοι (krēgyoi; 111e). Useful, good or serviceable; the many fail as worthwhile teachers of racing ability when their judgments conflict. Lexical identification: lemma: κρήγυος. See Craft and expertise.

τέχνη

Attested: τέχνη (technē; 108b); τέχνῃ (technēi; 124b); τέχνης (technēs; 133e). At 108b: The determinate expertise whose standards make performance correct. At 124b: Craft as a necessary means of surpassing formidable rivals. At 133e: One craft’s discernment relating oneself, one’s own, and what belongs to one’s own. Lexical identification: lemma: τέχνη. See Craft and expertise.

Use in the book

At 140b–d2 the differentiated crafts make an uncomplicated point of classification: shoemaking and carpentry are crafts without being one another. Later the same field supplies a more demanding test. The horseman, boxer and flute-player receive their proper specialist descriptions from knowledge of the better result within their activities. Socrates does not expose their expertise as pretence. He asks whether that expertise entails intelligence, and Alcibiades emphatically denies the entailment at 145d–e2.

The commonwealth of experts then shows why the distinction matters. Each pursues the activity in which he is strongest and seeks the largest share of collective life for it. What is best according to his own craft may leave him far from what is best for himself or the city. A technical standard is genuine but partial; making it sovereign over the whole is the error.

The account therefore differs from a blanket rejection of craft. The required knowledge concerns when and toward whom to use the experts, and at 147a it would guide the man who possesses many crafts. At 151b Teiresias’ successful craft helps explain the garlands in the closing comparison. That positive example does not retroactively identify every craft with comprehensive wisdom; it shows that the word remains available for an effective, bounded competence.

Places to read

1. 140b–d2Different crafts establish inclusion without identity.
2. 145c–e2Specialist excellence does not by itself make its possessor intelligent.
3. 145e–146aA city needs a standard for using and ordering its technical capacities.
4. 147aMany crafts require guidance rather than mere accumulation.
5. 151bTeiresias receives first-fruits because of his craft.

Translation in this edition

The edition consistently uses “craft” for technē. Its “according to that craft” and “according to the craft itself” preserve the scope restriction at 145d and 146a. Rendering these simply as knowing “the best” would destroy the contrast the argument is making.

Use in the book

After the failure of much learning, the cultivated lover proposes familiarity with all crafts, or as many as possible, particularly those “worth mentioning” (135b). Socrates initially construes this as command of the understanding possessed by an outstanding master builder. The lover retreats from that demanding interpretation. His philosopher need only follow specialists and contribute intelligent judgments in their presence. The passage thus separates knowledge across fields from the full competence internal to each field.

The usefulness test then makes the plurality of crafts a difficulty for the proposed philosopher. For sickness there is medicine; for a storm there is piloting. As long as the appropriate practitioner exists, Socrates asks, what use is someone less expert? The conclusion that the generalist has no use is stronger than the examples alone establish, but the lover accepts it. At 137a Socrates expressly limits the damaging result to expertise “in the way you mean.” It is this account of philosophy that is under pressure.

The next movement does not abolish craft as an explanatory model. On the contrary, the “same craft” both makes animals best and punishes them rightly (137c). The argument extends that unity to human beings, then identifies judicial knowledge, justice, temperance and the governing arts. At 138c it reaches “one craft.” The contrast is consequently between being second in a collection of others’ crafts and possessing the relevant knowledge for judging and ordering human affairs. Even this leaves open exactly how philosophy relates to the one craft. The concluding rejection of “busying oneself with the crafts” is not an explicit definition of philosophy as a new profession.

Places to read

1. 135bτῶν τεχνῶν ἔμπειρος εἶναι πασῶν — The lover initially values a reputation for experience of all crafts.
2. 137cἩ αὐτὴ ἄρα τέχνη — The same-craft claim begins the constructive sequence.
3. 138cκαὶ μία τέχνη ἐστὶν — Several governing and ethical capacities are declared one craft.

Translation in this edition

The edition consistently uses “craft,” including in contexts where “art” or “expertise” might sound more natural in present-day English. That consistency exposes the deliberate return to the craft model after the rejection of polymathy. Its Key Words describe the late argument as finding a craft for the philosopher; this is a helpful interpretive summary, provided it is not mistaken for the dialogue’s having supplied a formal definition.

Use in the book

Craft first becomes explicit when Socrates asks whether he understands the technē Theages means (124a). He has already treated piloting, charioteering, medicine, music, and gymnastics as wisdoms distinguished by their fields. Calling the desired activity a craft imports a promising pattern of intelligibility: the aspiration should have a recognizable object, competent practitioners, and an intelligible way of learning.

The farming and carpentry examples make this pattern particularly concrete. Each coordinates several kinds of work, whereas the political wisdom sought by Theages is to rule the craftsmen themselves along with private persons, women, and men (124a–b). The distinction is between a restricted occupational field and a more comprehensive population. It need not mean that the political expert personally masters every subordinate operation.

Socrates exploits the model comically at 125a, reproaching the father for failing to make his son a “craftsman” of the desired wisdom by sending him to a tyrant-teacher. The very plausibility of craft apprenticeship makes the proposed specialty absurdly conspicuous. At 125e the alleged fellow craftsman of Callicrite extends the joke, while the source gives too little of the song to reconstruct an independent curriculum of “tyrannical things.”

The analogy receives a more serious test in the argument about learning from painters and musicians (126d–127a2). Refusing all relevant practitioners while demanding competence appears unreasonable. Yet Theages has just supplied a reason for distrusting the political parallel: famous statesmen's sons are not conspicuously better than others. The analogy may support seeking relevant experience, but it does not answer the challenge about transmission simply by naming a craft.

Socrates' own final account sharpens the limitation. Benefit from his presence is governed by a power he does not claim to control, and Aristides denies having learned anything from him. This is not the straightforward production of a trained craftsman envisaged earlier. The dialogue thus uses the craft pattern both to clarify ambition and to reveal what an ordinary teacher-pupil model leaves unexplained.

Places to read

1. 124aἣν λέγεις τέχνην — Socrates provisionally classifies the desired competence as a craft
2. 124bτῶν δημιουργῶν ἁπάντων — All craftsmen belong to the comprehensive population governed
3. 125aδημιουργὸν ἂν ἐποίησας τῆς σοφίας — The father is teasingly charged with withholding the making of a craftsman
4. 125eὁμότεχνος ὢν Καλλικρίτῃ — A prospective companion is described as sharing Callicrite's craft
5. 126eτοὺς δὲ δημιουργοὺς αὐτοῦ τούτου — Painters are practitioners of exactly the activity sought

Translation in this edition

The translation differentiates “craft,” “craftsman,” and “fellow craftsman.” These renderings retain the link between political questioning and artisanal examples. The Key Words' general description of a teachable skill should be read alongside the dialogue's explicit doubt about whether political wisdom can in fact be handed on.

Craft — τέχνη (technē)

τέχνη (technē)

Craft. The desired competence is provisionally classified on the model of recognized expertise. Attested: τέχνην (124a). Craft, craftsmen, and the limits of the analogy.

Craftsmen — δημιουργός (dēmiourgos)

δημιουργός (dēmiourgos)

Craftsmen. All occupational practitioners are included within the desired scope of government. Attested: δημιουργῶν (124b). Craft, craftsmen, and the limits of the analogy.

Craftsman — δημιουργός (dēmiourgos)

δημιουργός (dēmiourgos)

Craftsman. The boy's supposed attainable status as practitioner of the desired wisdom. Attested: δημιουργὸν (125a). Craft, craftsmen, and the limits of the analogy.

Use in the book

The first explicit generalization is that craft is a finding of things (314b). Medicine finds what is healthy and sickly; prophecy is introduced as finding what the gods have in mind, with the qualification “as the prophets say.” These examples belong to Socrates' attempt to determine what kind of activity law might be. They precede the companion's return to civic resolutions and decrees.

The longer craft sequence begins at 316c. Medicine provides a recognizable written body of subject-specific judgments; gardening and cooking then supply the construction “know how to rule”; governing cities inherits this construction at 317a. At 317d a new sequence examines distribution: the farmer fits seeds to soil, musicians fit strokes to tunes, and the trainer fits food to bodies. Herding then leads to the king whose laws are best for human souls (318a). These are related stages, not one repeated argument. The first connects law with knowledgeable writing; the second connects it with fitting allocation and beneficial care.

The analogy gains force from its determinate objects. A doctor concerns health; a gardener gardens; a shepherd sheep. To call political rule a comparable expertise raises the question of its proper object and good. “The souls of men” provides an object, but the final question exposes the still-missing account of what improves that object. The ending does not erase the analogy. It makes clear how much remains to be supplied before an expert name becomes an explanation.

The later distinction between the whole kingly craft and service to it adds a further limit (320b–c). Rhadamanthys can be a good judge without possessing the complete competence attributed to Minos. Nor does the presence of a divine teacher simply equate every named practitioner with Zeus: Socrates is interpreting a particular poetic description of Minos' education. The lexicon therefore uses “craft model” as a description of an argumentative procedure, not as a Greek phrase spoken in the dialogue or as a warrant for a complete modern theory of technocratic government.

Places to read

1. 314bἡ γάρ που τέχνη ἡμῖν εὕρεσίς ἐστιν τῶν πραγμάτων — The first general account joins craft and finding
2. 316cτίνος τέχνης — The question asks to which craft the medical writing belongs
3. 316e–317aκήπων ἄρχειν; ὄψου σκευασίας ἄρχειν; πόλεων ἄρχειν — A shared verbal construction carries the comparison into civic rule
4. 318aταῖς ψυχαῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων — Human souls are identified as the recipients of the king's best laws
5. 319cἡ τέχνη αὕτη παγκάλη ἐστί — Socrates praises the craft associated with Zeus as educator
6. 320b–cοὐχ ὅλην τὴν βασιλικὴν τέχνην — Rhadamanthys' training is explicitly less than the whole kingly craft

Translation in this edition

Technē is “craft.” The translation does not add the noun where the Greek instead names an activity or practitioner. The article accordingly distinguishes the word's actual occurrences from the broader interpretive description “craft analogy.”

Craft — τέχνη (technē) · τέχνη (314b).

τέχνη (technē)

Craft. The finding of things ascribed to practical expertise in Socrates’ exploratory account of what kind of thing law might be. Attested: τέχνη (314b). Craft and the limits of the analogy.

Craft — τέχνη (technē) · τέχνης (316c).

τέχνη (technē)

Craft. An organized expertise to which a writing can belong. The question identifies medicine as the relevant field; the word is not inserted afresh for every later practitioner. Attested: τέχνης (316c). Craft and the limits of the analogy.

Use in the book

The survey is introduced by a functional test: which kinds of knowledge make their possessor wise? Necessary kinds come first because mortal life first needs them (974d–e2). Their temporal and practical priority is acknowledged before their insufficiency is asserted. The Athenian's argument is therefore not that necessities are unnecessary, or that doing without food and shelter is a route to wisdom.

Different exclusions have different grounds. Food-making receives an express concession of goodness; farming is attributed to nature under the god rather than craft; equipment suits the people without conferring virtue; interpretation knows an utterance without its truth; imitative production lacks the required seriousness; military and medical aid depend on fortune or opinion; forensic help misses real justice. The catalogue is unified by its governing question, not by a single demonstrated defect shared identically by every occupation.

Social estimation enters the reasoning. Some necessary knowledges may once have conferred a reputation for wisdom, whereas now they bring reproach; aspirants to being the best man avoid them (974e–975a). At 976d the knowledge sought must leave its possessor neither menial nor an idiot. These expressions reveal the evaluation operating in the speech. They should be reported rather than accepted as proof that manual labor is inherently ignorant or morally inferior. The argument's epistemic demands and its social valuations are related but distinguishable.

Number changes the catalogue's use. At 977d–e the Athenian allows all the earlier pursuits to count as crafts and says that none would remain if arithmetic were removed. The crafts that do not confer complete wisdom still depend on its proposed foundation. This dependence gives number a breadth no individual occupation possesses. It does not entail that all practitioners already possess the final astronomical and theological wisdom.

The later course of learning can itself be approached “by education or by craft” (989a), and stereometry is another craft (990d–e). The opening exclusions consequently do not ban the category technē from the solution. They disqualify particular claimants under a stronger test than ordinary utility, reputation, or dexterity.

Places to read

1. 974bτῶν λεγομένων τεχνῶν — The initial search among the so-called crafts is unsuccessful
2. 974d–e2ἀναγκαιόταται … πρῶται — The necessities are conceded the highest practical priority
3. 975c–d2τὴν τῶν ἀναγκαίων … κτῆσιν διὰ τέχνης — Acquisition of necessities is achieved through craft
4. 976dοὔτε βάναυσος οὔτ’ ἠλίθιος — Social and intellectual disqualifications are separately stated
5. 977d–eἐῶντες εἶναι πάσας τὰς τέχνας — The Athenian allows all the earlier candidates to be crafts
6. 977eὅταν ἀριθμητικήν τις ἀνέλῃ — Their dependence on arithmetic gives the catalogue a new role

Translation in this edition

Technē is consistently “craft.” A craft is sometimes named by a feminine adjective with the noun understood, as in stratēgikē or iatrikē; the English can make the activity explicit without claiming that the noun technē occurs on every occasion. “Menial” renders banausos at 976d and preserves the speech's valuation without warranting an independent sociological generalization.

Aspiration to human excellence — ἀγών (agōn)

ἀγών (agōn)

Aspiration to human excellence. The contest before would-be best men explains, in the Athenian’s social evaluation, their avoidance of the necessary trades. Attested: ἀγὼν (975a). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Insufficient candidate — τέχνη (technē)

τέχνη (technē)

Insufficient candidate. Crafts are among the forms of competence in which wisdom is first unsuccessfully sought. Attested: τεχνῶν (974b). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Acquisition of necessities — τέχνη (technē)

τέχνη (technē)

Acquisition of necessities. Craft makes the acquisition of necessities possible, while none of those crafts makes its possessor wise in the required sense. Attested: τέχνης (975c–d2). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Be reputed wise — δοξάζειν (doxazein)

δοξάζειν (doxazein)

Be reputed wise. The passive verb describes the changing public estimation of the necessary crafts: their knowledgeable practitioner is no longer reputed wise. Attested: δοξάζεται (974e). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Intellectual disqualification — ἠλίθιος (ēlithios)

ἠλίθιος (ēlithios)

Intellectual disqualification. The ideal possessor of the sought knowledge will not be an idiot; this is paired with, but distinct from, the social term menial. Attested: ἠλίθιος (976d). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Social qualification of the ideal knower — βάναυσος (banausos)

βάναυσος (banausos)

Social qualification of the ideal knower. The sought knowledge must leave its possessor neither menial nor an idiot. The description preserves the speech’s social valuation without proving manual labor intrinsically ignorant. Attested: βάναυσος (976d). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Priority of subsistence — ἀναγκαῖος (anankaios)

ἀναγκαῖος (anankaios)

Priority of subsistence. The first kinds of expertise are conceded to be very nearly most necessary and truly first, before being denied complete wisdom. Attested: ἀναγκαιόταται (974d–e2). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Pursuit of an occupation — ἐπιτήδευσις (epitēdeusis)

ἐπιτήδευσις (epitēdeusis)

Pursuit of an occupation. Practice accompanies acquired intelligence in the explanation of why aspirants to the best standing avoid the necessary trades; the speech joins occupational practice and reputation. Attested: ἐπιτηδεύσεως (975a). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Social depreciation — ὄνειδος (oneidos)

ὄνειδος (oneidos)

Social depreciation. The possessor of the earliest necessary knowledge now receives reproach rather than the reputation for wisdom it may once have conferred. Attested: ὀνείδη (974e–975a). Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Most necessary and genuinely first (contextual phrase)

ἀναγκαιόταται σχεδὸν ἀληθῶς τε πρῶται (974d–e2)

The strongest concession of need and priority precedes the rejection of subsistence expertise as wisdom. The qualifications concern what mortals first need, not the highest rank in the educational argument. Practical indispensability and the power to produce a completely wise person are deliberately separated. Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Even the crafts depend on arithmetic (contextual phrase)

ὅταν ἀριθμητικήν τις ἀνέλῃ (977e)

The indefinite temporal condition imagines someone removing arithmetic. In the surrounding claim all the formerly surveyed crafts disappear with it. The rejection of those crafts as complete wisdom is compatible with their being genuine skills and with their indispensable numerical dependence. Craft necessity and the standard of complete wisdom.

Use in the book

The Symposium excerpt presents divination as an art governing communication between gods and humans, including sacrifice. Elsewhere painting, music, and writing illustrate how art combines contrasting elements in imitation of nature. The shared idea is skilled ordering, although the objects and aims differ.

Places to read

1. I.9.16.2Divination is described as an art concerned with divine-human relations.
2. I.40.1.58Painting, music, and writing illustrate art’s combination of contrasting elements.

Translation in this edition

Choose “art” or “craft” according to the activity; neither necessarily implies manual work alone.

Use in the book

The Laws passage first says that fire, water, earth and air exist by nature and chance, not art. It then explains how the later celestial and living bodies allegedly arise without mind, god or art through the interaction of opposed material powers. Art thus stands beside intelligence as an alternative explanatory source, not merely as ornament added to an already completed world.

The passage’s attribution is limited. Plato names no thinker, and Diels treats it as evidence about followers of Empedocles. It cannot establish that Empedocles himself rejected every craftsman-like description or every divine activity. Indeed, other passages in this same volume give the roots divine names and call them gods. The correct use of the headword is to illuminate Plato’s polemical contrast and the kind of material explanation it targets, while leaving open how accurately that contrast captures Empedocles’ own poetic practice.

Places to read

1. A 48 (polemical)Plato, Laws X 889b. Makes absence of art part of an anonymous account of world-formation by nature and chance.

Translation in this edition

The translation “art” can sound aesthetic; “craft” better conveys the productive contrast in this particular argument. Neither is an exact Empedoclean doctrinal slogan here.