Correctness and error

Use in the book

The Thracian account calls it a mistake to practise medicine for temperance and bodily health separately (157b). Correct treatment requires attending to the relevant whole. During the argument, the interlocutors repeatedly judge claims correctly or incorrectly stated; these conversational approvals do not by themselves establish the adequacy of the final theory.

At 171b a doctor is examined through what is said and done in medicine: whether his statements are true and his actions are performed correctly. The distinction between truth of claims and rightness of performance is explicit. Such assessment requires medical competence, not only a general capacity to recognise knowledge.

The next imagined regime removes mistakes altogether. Those who possess temperance and those they rule would be anamartētoi, with error excluded and correctness taking the lead (171d–172a). Here technical reliability appears to ensure happiness. Socrates then reopens that very inference. The dream grants expert performance yet still asks which knowledge makes it good and beneficial (173d–174d2). Thus an error-free activity in its technical field can fail to establish the value of its result for human life.

Finally Socrates locates the apparent error in their inquiry rather than announcing that temperance itself is valueless (175a–e2). The work's repeated pursuit of correctness remains active even in failure: recognising that an argument has not earned its concessions is part of responsible examination.

Places to read

1. 157bTreating temperance and health separately is called a mistake
2. 164c–165b2Critias retracts earlier statements rather than admit a conclusion he rejects
3. 171bA practitioner’s true statements and correct actions require domain-specific evaluation
4. 171d–172aError-free life and the leadership of correctness are imagined
5. 173d–175e234Correct expertise is separated from benefit, and the inquiry’s failure is acknowledged

Translation in this edition

“Rightly” and “correctly” translate ὀρθῶς in different English settings. “Rightly” can also render δικαίως, as at 175a, so English wording alone is not a concordance. The edition's “without error” preserves the negative adjective at 171d without recasting it as moral impeccability.

ἁμάρτημα

Attested: ἁμάρτημα (hamartēma). An error or mistaken practice; the healer identifies separating temperance from health as the specific error. References: 157b. Lexical identification: lemma: ἁμάρτημα. See Correctness and error.

ἁμαρτία

Attested: ἁμαρτίας (hamartias). Error; its removal is part of the optimistic picture of action governed by temperance. References: 171e. Lexical identification: lemma: ἁμαρτία. See Correctness and error.

ἀναμάρτητος

Attested: ἀναμάρτητοι (anamartētoi). Free from error; a promised result of the life governed by knowledge of knowledge. References: 171d. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀναμάρτητος. See Correctness and error.

ὀρθότης

Attested: ὀρθότητος (orthotētos). Correctness or rightness; personified as guiding the error-free life envisaged under temperance. References: 172a. Lexical identification: lemma: ὀρθότης. See Correctness and error.

ὀρθῶς

Attested: ὀρθῶς (orthōs). Rightly or correctly; qualifies a performance, account or inquiry without by itself proving that it benefits its agent. References: 171b, 172e. Lexical identification: lemma: ὀρθῶς. See Correctness and error.

Use in the book

At 227c Socrates places two results side by side: according to the first account no one is a lover of gain, whereas according to the next everyone is. He asks which argument one could use without making a mistake. This is more than a request for the companion’s preferred conclusion. The opposed results force a reconsideration of the criteria governing the name.

The companion answers that one must take the lover of gain rightly, and immediately specifies his intended social distinction: such a man eagerly seeks gain from sources from which decent men do not dare to gain. “Rightly” here claims fidelity to the blame expressed in the ordinary designation. The proposed correction is not an admission that everyone uses worthless instruments knowingly; it shifts attention to disreputable gain and the standards of respectable conduct.

Socrates presses that account against prior agreements about gain’s goodness. The companion insists that some gains harm, but Socrates characterises the resulting contradiction as attempted deception. The dispute therefore concerns what counts as the decisive error: departing from an ordinary moral distinction, or combining assertions incompatible with what has been conceded. The later permission to retract the claim that every gain is good temporarily allows the companion to revise his commitments instead of being bound to every previous answer.

At 232c orthōs returns in the conclusion: someone who reproaches another for loving gain does not do so rightly, since the reproacher is himself such a person. This gives the opening problem a practical destination in the use of blame. If everyone loves gain in the established sense, that property cannot by itself distinguish the base from the decent.

The inference still requires care. Sharing a property with the person one criticises does not generally make every criticism of it mistaken; people can correctly condemn a failing they also possess. Socrates’ conclusion has more force if the preceding argument has shown the common property to be desire for genuine good, not merely shown it to be universal. Conversely, the companion’s unease matters: universality has been reached through a contested interpretation of gain, and he says the argument compelled him rather than persuaded him. “Not rightly” is the dialogue’s final judgment, not a reason to conceal the route and its tensions.

Places to read

1. 227cοὐκ ἂν ἐξαμαρτάνοι — The question concerns using an argument without going wrong.
2. 227c–d2ὀρθῶς λαμβάνοι — The companion claims a correct construal of the lover of gain.
3. 232cΟὐκ ἄρα ὀρθῶς ὀνειδίζει — Correctness finally governs the act of reproach.

Translation in this edition

The edition gives “making a mistake,” “rightly to take” and “does not reproach him rightly.” This consistency reveals the return of orthōs without turning its first occurrence into a technical definition. At 227c9 the apparatus records Cobet’s proposed tōn logōn in place of the printed tōi logōi. The alternative concerns the construction of “which of the arguments”; the edition follows Burnet’s singular wording while translating the choice intelligibly.