From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThese concrete nouns name animals and working occupations, not coded philosophical entities with a fixed hidden equivalent.
- In the SymposiumAlcibiades says Socrates seems always to speak about the same things through the same things.
- In this editionThe translation differentiates smiths, shoemakers, and tanners.
- A place to readCommonplace vocabulary is the satyr-like exterior of arguments with ethical scope.
Meaning
These concrete nouns name animals and working occupations, not coded philosophical entities with a fixed hidden equivalent.
Use in the book
Alcibiades says Socrates seems always to speak about the same things through the same things. Pack-asses and familiar craftsmen form the rough exterior of speeches that repay being opened. The point is not that any mention of a shoemaker is profound; it is that social prestige and verbal grandeur are unreliable tests of an argument’s sense. The sequence culminates in what must be examined to become beautiful and good.
Places to read
- 221d–222aCommonplace vocabulary is the satyr-like exterior of arguments with ethical scope.
Translation in this edition
The translation differentiates smiths, shoemakers, and tanners. It does not turn them into three formal branches of a craft taxonomy in this passage.
βυρσοδέψης (byrsodepsēs)
byrsodepsēs — A tanner, a worker preparing hides.
- 221e — βυρσοδέψας. Tanners complete the local list of lowly examples.
Read: Commonplace crafts.
ὄνος κανθήλιος (onos kanthēlios)
onos kanthēlios — A pack-ass, one of the ordinary examples that make Socratic speech seem comic on first hearing.
- 221e — ὄνους γὰρ κανθηλίους. The animal belongs to Alcibiades’ list of humble conversational materials.
Read: Commonplace crafts.
σκυτοτόμος (skytotomos)
skytotomos — A shoemaker or leather-cutter.
- 221e — σκυτοτόμους. Shoemakers are part of the apparently repetitive exterior of the speeches.
Read: Commonplace crafts.
χαλκεύς (chalkeus)
chalkeus — A smith or metalworker.
- 221e — χαλκέας. Smiths appear among Socrates’ recurrent examples.
Read: Commonplace crafts.