From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The word“Excluded middle” is an analytical heading for the alternatives discussed, not the dialogue’s own name for a logical law.
- In Alcibiades IISocrates first gets Alcibiades to deny the existence of people who are neither healthy nor sick.
- In this editionThe note on 139a records Ast’s “necessary” and Stallbaum’s “only”, but the translation keeps Burnet’s “possible”.
- A place to readHealthy and sick are treated as excluding a third condition.
Meaning
“Excluded middle” is an analytical heading for the alternatives discussed, not the dialogue’s own name for a logical law. Its actual expressions are “either be ill or not be ill”, “a third condition”, and “neither intelligent nor unintelligent”. Pathos here is a condition one is in, not specifically an emotion or a later technical category.
Use in the book
Socrates first gets Alcibiades to deny the existence of people who are neither healthy nor sick. He then gives the sharper wording “either be ill or not be ill” at 139a. That formulation expressly contains a predicate and its negation. The previous healthy/sick pair is made to behave as an exhaustive alternative, but the exchange does not pause to establish the equivalence of its positive terms with illness and non-illness.
The same structure is transferred to intelligence and unintelligence: is there a third condition between them? Alcibiades denies it, and Socrates concludes at 139b that one of the two conditions is necessary. The later identification of unintelligence with madness requires an additional premise about only one opposite to a thing. Exhaustiveness alone would not identify every condition described as contrary to intelligence with the whole of unintelligence.
The awkward wording at the start must remain part of the evidence. Burnet prints “possible” at 139a, although the question’s course and the following “must” suggest why editors proposed stronger wording. The translation treats Alcibiades’ “Certainly not” as an answer to whether a third condition exists. It does not turn the first question into the unqualified assertion that the argument would ideally require.
Places to read
- 138d–139aHealthy and sick are treated as excluding a third condition.
- 139aThe explicit alternative is illness or non-illness; Burnet nevertheless retains “possible” in the next question.
- 139bNo third condition is recalled and the necessity of one alternative asserted.
- 139b–dA separate uniqueness premise drives the identity with madness and its subsequent rejection.
Translation in this edition
The note on 139a records Ast’s “necessary” and Stallbaum’s “only”, but the translation keeps Burnet’s “possible”. This lexical difference affects the argument and must not be quietly corrected in paraphrase. The heading is modern exposition, not an unattested Greek lemma.
Source note
At 139a the edition translates Burnet's ‘possible’. Its note 4 records Ast's proposed ‘necessary’ and Stallbaum's ‘only’; it also explains that Alcibiades' negative answer addresses the second question. The logical force of the subsequent exhaustive division must not be obtained by silently translating the first question as a different text.