Escaping notice

Use in the book

Critias claims that the distinctive character of temperance cannot have escaped Socrates: he suspects a deliberate attempt to defeat him rather than a genuine inquiry. Socrates answers with a different use of unnoticedness. He examines himself because he fears thinking he knows something without actually knowing it, and doing so without recognizing the discrepancy. The danger is thus not ignorance alone but ignorance concealed from the person who has it. No confession that all his beliefs are false follows. The later dream turns the same concern outward: under the imagined supervision of temperance, a pretended pilot, physician or general would not pass undetected. That promised social detection exceeds what the preceding examination had secured; it is restored as a hypothesis for testing benefit. The three contexts connect accusation of concealed purpose, vigilance over oneself and the imagined screening of experts.

Places to read

1. 166cCritias says that his proposed difference between temperance and other sciences has not escaped Socrates.
2. 166dSocrates fears unwittingly supposing that he knows what he does not.
3. 173a–173bIn the dream, a person falsely professing expertise would not go unnoticed.

Translation in this edition

The edition varies “escaped,” “without noticing” and “escape our notice” according to the construction. Preserving the repeated underlying family reveals a connection obscured by separate English lookup words.

λανθάνω

Attested: λεληθέναι / λάθω / λανθάνοι (lelēthenai / lathō / lanthanoi). To escape notice; Critias denies Socrates can have missed the definition’s special feature, Socrates fears unnoticed false pretensions to knowledge, and the dream imagines impostors unable to pass undetected. References: 166c, 166d, 173b. Lexical identification: lemma: λανθάνω. See Escaping notice.

Use in the book

At 109d Socrates asks whether Alcibiades' ignorance has escaped his own notice or his lessons escaped Socrates'. The paired alternatives frame the acquisition problem without yet determining which explanation is correct. The first concerns self-awareness; the second concerns Socrates' observation of the young man's education.

At 127d Alcibiades makes the first alternative his own. He may have been in a shameful condition for a long time without noticing it himself. Recognition is not the creation of the defect but its discovery. Socrates responds that his age makes the discovery timely and care possible.

The inquiry into self-care immediately repeats the danger. At 127e–128a2 the speakers may perhaps fail to notice that they are not caring for themselves while thinking they are. At 132b Socrates recalls this fear when the soul has been identified: mistaking the object could make them care for something else unknowingly. The risk is more subtle than openly choosing possessions over self. It is misdescribing one's own practice as adequate self-care.

The verb therefore supplies a precise connection between epistemic conceit and practical misdirection. Awareness matters because it makes correction possible, but awareness alone does not yet provide the missing knowledge of what one is or how one should become better.

Places to read

1. 109dThe paired possibilities are unnoticed ignorance or unobserved learning
2. 127d–127eAlcibiades recognizes a previously unnoticed shameful condition
3. 127e–128a2Mistaken confidence in one’s self-care is posed as a danger
4. 132bSocrates recalls the risk of caring for the wrong object

Translation in this edition

At 127e–128a2 πολλάκις after the warning μή is rendered “perhaps,” not “often.” The edition accordingly presents a danger the inquiry must avoid, rather than claiming frequent observed failures in self-care.

λανθάνω

Attested: λεληθέναι ἐμαυτὸν (lelēthenai emauton; 127d); λάθωμεν (lathōmen; 128a). At 127d: Having escaped one's own notice while in a shameful condition, which Alcibiades now recognizes. At 128a: Fail to notice that one is caring for something other than self while believing one is practicing self-care. Lexical identification: lemma: λανθάνω. See Failure to notice.

Use in the book

At 210e Hippothales wants to remain unnoticed by Lysis; Socrates suppresses a remark that would expose him. This concrete social use precedes the friend’s figurative elusiveness in the argument.

At 216c Socrates asks whether the friend is escaping their notice by being none of the things they have so far proposed. The construction takes the people who fail to notice as its object: ἡμᾶς means “us.”

The word depicts failure of attention or recognition, rather than proving that the object cannot be known. It leads directly to a new possibility, the neither-good-nor-bad as friend of the good. The elusive-object imagery soon becomes physical in the description of something smooth that slips past them.

Places to read

1. 216cμὴ ἔτι μᾶλλον ἡμᾶς λανθάνει τὸ φίλον — Whether the friend is escaping our notice still more.
2. 210e