Expert writings and the authority of a text

Use in the book

The turn to writing begins with an ordinary question about the companion's experience: has he ever encountered a writing about the health of sick people (316c)? He recognizes the field as medicine. Socrates then identifies its practitioners as those who have knowledge of the relevant matters, obtains agreement that knowledgeable people accept the same things about the same subjects, and asks whether doctors write what they also accept as being. The authority of the writing is thus traced through knowledge and its subject matter. It is not derived from the bare fact of inscription.

Calling these writings “laws of medicine” is a further step (316e). Socrates extends the designation to farming, gardening, and cookery before reaching the writings about the ordering of cities. Only here does he add that these are writings “which people call laws” (317a–b2). The sequence begins outside ordinary civic legislation and brings its criterion of competence back to the case everyone recognizes as law. It does not report a historical practice by which every medical treatise was formally enacted as a statute.

The same noun remains in use when Socrates distinguishes right kingly law from an incorrect text that merely seems to be law to the ignorant (317c). A document's status as a syngramma survives this rejection; its status as law does not. This distinction is especially important beside the companion's earlier appeal to resolutions and decrees. Writtenness cannot restore the civic authority that the argument has already subjected to a standard of truth and goodness.

There is a later, different instance of writing when Talos carries laws written on bronze tablets (320c). That narrative supplies a medium and a bearer for already attributed laws. The middle argument supplies a test of what deserves the name law. Reading the two together shows why the presence of a written code is relevant without being sufficient.

Places to read

1. 316cσυγγράμματι περὶ ὑγιείας τῶν καμνόντων — The first writing has a determinate practical subject: the health of the sick
2. 316d–eοἱ ἰατροὶ συγγράφουσι περὶ ὑγιείας ἅπερ καὶ νομίζουσιν εἶναι — What doctors write is linked to what they accept as being
3. 316eἰατρικοὶ νόμοι ταῦτα τὰ συγγράμματα — The medical writings receive the designation “laws”
4. 317a–b2βασιλέων τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἀγαθῶν συγγράμματα — The relevant civic writings are attributed to kings and good men
5. 317bοὐκ ἄλλοτε ἄλλα συγγράψουσι περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν — The future tense states the consistency expected of those who know how
6. 317cἐν τοῖς συγγράμμασι τοῖς περὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων — Written accounts of just and unjust things remain subject to the distinction between right and wrong

Translation in this edition

Syngramma is consistently “writing,” not automatically “code,” “treatise,” or “statute.” This restrained rendering lets the argument itself confer, or withhold, the further title “law.” At 317b Burnet prints συγγράψουσι, “will write,” rather than the present συγγράφουσι recorded for F. The edition follows the future in its statement of what competent writers will not do.

Call laws — καλεῖν (kalein)

καλεῖν (kalein)

Call laws. People give the name laws to the civic writings in the analogy; ordinary naming remains distinguishable from the subsequent test of whether a writing is right. Attested: καλοῦσι (317a). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Come across — ἐντυγχάνειν (entynchanein)

ἐντυγχάνειν (entynchanein)

Come across. To encounter or come upon something. Socrates asks whether the companion has encountered a medical writing, grounding the next analogy in a recognizable experience. Attested: ἐνέτυχες (316c). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Write — συγγράφειν (syngraphein)

συγγράφειν (syngraphein)

Write. To set down a written account. Doctors write what they also accept as being about health, connecting the writing with the knower’s judgment. Attested: συγγράφουσι (316d). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Will write — συγγράφειν (syngraphein)

συγγράφειν (syngraphein)

Will write. The future form used in the claim that actual knowers will not write different things at different times about the same subjects. Attested: συγγράψουσι (317b). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Writing — σύγγραμμα (syngramma)

σύγγραμμα (syngramma)

Writing. A written work encountered by the companion, here concerning the health of the sick. The noun itself guarantees neither truth nor legal authority. Attested: συγγράμματι (316c). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Writings — σύγγραμμα (syngramma)

σύγγραμμα (syngramma)

Writings. Written accounts concerning civic ordering, assigned to those who know how to rule cities. Socrates subsequently distinguishes right law from an incorrect writing merely taken as law. Attested: συγγράμματά (317a). Expert writings and the authority of a text.

Those who really know (contextual phrase)

317b: οἵ γε ἐπιστάμενοι. The particle γε emphasizes the class under discussion: those who know, at least. The claim that they do not write different things at different times about the same matters is not a neutral census of everyone called a doctor or statesman. It relies on the description of them as possessors of the relevant knowledge. See Expert writings.