From the book
The Lovers
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordEpakolouthein means to follow along, here intellectually following what a craftsman says.
- In The LoversThe cultivated lover introduces these capacities at 135d after refusing exact specialist knowledge as an educational requirement.
- In this edition“Follow” and “contribute” recur in the English so that the later challenge visibly reuses the earlier standard.
- A place to readἐπακολουθῆσαί τε τοῖς λεγομένοις — The first proposed capacity is following the specialist’s words.
Meaning
Epakolouthein means to follow along, here intellectually following what a craftsman says. Hepesthai is also to follow and performs the corresponding role in the final discussion. Symballesthai means to contribute or bring something to a shared undertaking; with gnōmē, a judgment or considered opinion, it means contributing one’s own judgment. At 135d the text prints the infinitive xymballesthai with the alternative spelling ξυμ-; at 138d it has συμ-. These are not two contrasting activities.
The pair defines active, informed participation. Following is more than hearing words, while contributing a judgment is more than displaying facts. Neither activity by itself entails possessing the craft or directing its performance.
Use in the book
The cultivated lover introduces these capacities at 135d after refusing exact specialist knowledge as an educational requirement. His free and educated man should follow better than the other people present and add his own judgment. A genuine intellectual ability is being proposed, but its measure is social and comparative: the effect is to seem the most accomplished and wisest member of the audience.
The practical tests at 136c–d2 do not directly examine this conversational competence. They ask whom one would summon for illness or trust in a storm. The preferred person is the one who can perform the decisive task. This is why an interpreter might defend the cultivated participant by distinguishing assistance with discussion from responsibility for treatment or navigation. The dialogue does not develop that defense; its interlocutor accepts the shift in criterion.
At 138d the original vocabulary returns almost as an audit of the proposal. If inability to follow or contribute when a doctor speaks is shameful, can inability to do so when a judge or king speaks be unshameful? The lover rejects the proposed exemption: having nothing to contribute about such great matters would indeed be shameful. The negative in the question is therefore not Socrates’ final verdict.
The next question raises the standard further. In one’s own household, and when friends or the city entrust decisions, the philosopher cannot remain an informed runner-up. He must judge rightly and lead. The progression is important: the dialogue does not discard receptive understanding or conversation as worthless. It treats them as insufficient when a person bears the responsibility to act. The final challenge redirects the lover’s own educational ideal toward matters where his status cannot excuse a lack of authoritative judgment.
Places to read
- 135dἐπακολουθῆσαί τε τοῖς λεγομένοις — The first proposed capacity is following the specialist’s words.
- 135dκαὶ αὐτὸν ξυμβάλλεσθαι γνώμην — The participant contributes a judgment of his own.
- 138dοὐκ αἰσχρὸν περὶ τούτων μήτε ἕπεσθαι — The question proposes an exemption from shame which the answer rejects.
Translation in this edition
“Follow” and “contribute” recur in the English so that the later challenge visibly reuses the earlier standard. The source’s apparatus reports variation in the longer wording about what is said or done at 138d, but the central pair of capacities remains clear in the printed text. The article quotes the edition’s chosen wording, not an independent reconstruction.