Fellow expert · Lexicon

From the book

Charmides

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordHomotechnos means someone practising the same craft.
In the CharmidesThe summary at 171c says that if temperance is only knowledge of knowledge and ignorance, it cannot distinguish a real practitioner of any particular craft from a pretender or someone mistakenly confident, except its own fellow craftsman, as other practitioners can.
In this editionThe edition explicitly renders “the temperate man's own fellow craftsman”, clarifying the reflexive's reference.
A place to readSame-field exception to the failure of universal certification.

Meaning

Homotechnos means someone practising the same craft. The phrase “his own fellow craftsman” at 171c refers to the temperate person's fellow expert in the proposed field. It does not refer back to the doctor's colleague in a way that restores universal medical competence to the temperate examiner.

Use in the book

The summary at 171c says that if temperance is only knowledge of knowledge and ignorance, it cannot distinguish a real practitioner of any particular craft from a pretender or someone mistakenly confident, except its own fellow craftsman, as other practitioners can. The exception is easy to overlook because it occurs inside an otherwise negative conclusion.

Its role is to preserve domain-relative examination. Just as a medical practitioner is competent to judge medical claims, someone expert in the proposed second-order field would, under the concession, judge someone claiming that same field. This does not automatically provide first-order medical or navigational knowledge.

The neighboring suggestion at 172b extends this idea in a qualified way: reflective awareness might improve examination of subjects its possessor has learned. The combination of domain competence and reflection is distinct from a universal supervisory science with no knowledge of the domains it supervises.

Places to read

171cSame-field exception to the failure of universal certification
172bPossible benefit when reflection accompanies acquired subject knowledge

Translation in this edition

The edition explicitly renders “the temperate man's own fellow craftsman”, clarifying the reflexive's reference. Reading it as merely the doctor's fellow doctor obscures the force of the exception.

ὁμότεχνος

Attested: ὁμότεχνον (homotechnon). Fellow practitioner of the same craft; limits the examiner’s competence to another expert in the proposed same field. References: 171c. Lexical identification: lemma: ὁμότεχνος. See Fellow expert.