Food

Use in the book

Food first enters the dialogue as a practical test of knowledge (226a–b). A knowledgeable horseman who supplies worthless food cannot fail to know that he is ruining the horse. Socrates uses that expertise to challenge the idea of knowingly expecting gain from worthless resources. The example concerns the relation between recognized quality and expected outcome, not simply an exchange price for feed.

At 230a–b food serves a different function. Socrates has permitted the companion to distinguish good and bad gain and asks whether good gain is more gain. When the question is unclear, food makes the distinction accessible: both good and bad food are equally food “as far as being food goes.” The analogy establishes a common classification while preserving differences in quality. It does not establish equal portions, equal nourishment or equal benefit.

At 230e the example becomes a model definition. Both kinds are called food because they are dry nourishment of the body. The companion is meant to supply a comparable common description of gain. That is a more precise task than listing gains or repeating that some are bad. Yet the model’s usefulness has limits: whether bad gain remains genuinely gain is the very question the later inquiry will unsettle.

The continuity with the early horse example is instructive. The same word can name something that fails its practical purpose and still remains food. Thus an appeal to ordinary food-language can support the companion’s insistence that a harmful acquisition remains a gain in one sense. Socrates’ later account instead restricts genuine gain through worth and benefit. The food comparison helps formulate the problem but does not alone decide whether the restriction is correct.

The feast example at 231b then reconnects acquisition with bodily consequences. Receiving food at no cost can yield disease rather than gain. The narrative moves from food as a classificatory example to eating as an event whose result must be evaluated.

Places to read

1. 226aοὐδενὸς ἄξια σιτία τῷ ἵππῳ παρέχει — Food supplied to the horse is evaluated by an expert.
2. 230bκατὰ τὸ σιτίον εἶναι — The sameness concerns being food.
3. 230eἀμφότερα ξηρὰ τροφὴ σώματός — The common description is dry nourishment of the body.

Translation in this edition

The edition keeps “food” for σιτίον in both the horse passage and the final analogy; it does not shift to a specialized English term in the earlier case. “Nourishment” keeps τροφή distinct. Its use of “good” and “bad” here, beside “decent” and “base” for the drink example, preserves a change in Greek vocabulary rather than polishing it away.

Use in the book

Once the cultured lover admits that moderate exercise produces good condition, Socrates asks simply, “And what about food: moderate or much?” The speaker agrees about food too. Its familiarity makes the next generalization seem natural: in all bodily matters, moderate amounts are most beneficial. Food bridges training and the wider class of things supplied to a person.

That bridge is necessary for the subsequent question about the soul. Learning-subjects can now be viewed as inputs whose benefit depends on appropriate selection and measure. The analogy is intelligible without asserting that knowledge behaves exactly like food. An alert reader should notice how quickly the interlocutor permits the generalization and consider what would justify it.

When Socrates asks whom they should consult about bodily labors and food, they agree on doctor or trainer. Thus “moderate” does not mean whatever amount an uninformed person happens to call moderate. The example directs attention toward an informed judgment suited to a recipient and an end. The difficulty of naming an equivalent adviser for the soul then becomes sharper.

The dialogue offers no medical regimen. Its use of food is conceptual and dramatic: an ordinary material necessity makes it harder to defend the indiscriminate maximization of learning merely because learning is praised.

Places to read

1. 134cΤί δὲ τὰ σιτία; τὰ μέτρια ἢ τὰ πολλά; — Food extends the test from exertion to another bodily input.
2. 134eὁποῖοι μέτριοι πόνοι καὶ σιτία πρὸς τὸ σῶμά ἐστιν; — The subsequent question asks who can judge suitable labor and food.

Translation in this edition

The English “food” is deliberately ordinary. It avoids inserting either austerity or indulgence into sitia itself, even though the competing portraits of the lovers mention overeating and going unfed. At 134e the text joins food and labors in a single question about suitable bodily measure. The edition’s outline correctly preserves the distinction between this agreed example and the still unanswered educational analogue.

Use in the book

Corn raised by the sun shows creation meeting an actual bodily need. The image then passes into contemplation: divine works and reasons for love become the food of angels. This higher nourishment does not abolish bodily care, but it alters the scale of value. The exemplary person cares little for personal delicacies while spending more attention on the good of others. Eating and enjoyment furnish the terms of an ethic of generous use.

Places to read

1. II.8Corn for food belongs to the sun’s manifold services.
2. III.70Contemplation discovers the viands that feed the soul with Angels’ food.
3. IV.29Indifference to personal delicacies accompanies a life active in benefiting others.

In this edition

“Angels’ food” is spiritual nourishment in this context, not a claim about ordinary angelic digestion. The surrounding literal food remains a genuine divine benefit.