Knowledge of one’s own and others

Use in the book

At 131a–c2 the discussion provisionally distributes objects of knowledge among levels. A doctor or trainer knows the body, classed as the person's own; farmers and other craftspeople know what serves the body, farther removed from the self. None has self-knowledge merely by exercising that craft. Those claims initially allow lower-level knowledge without knowledge of the owner.

After the eye analogy, Socrates reopens the concession. Without knowing oneself and being temperate, can one know one's own bad and good? Alcibiades cannot see how. Socrates gives the named example: someone who does not know Alcibiades cannot know what is Alcibiades' as Alcibiades'. If the owner is unknown, the relation of belonging is not adequately known. The same applies to the next level of belongings.

At 133d–e Socrates explicitly says the earlier agreement was not quite right. It is for one person and one craft to discern all three: self, own things, and their belongings. This is a real revision, not merely a repetition of the previous hierarchy. The text itself invites the reader to track a developing argument instead of turning the first concession into the final doctrine.

The most conservative interpretation preserves both the revision and the demonstrated competence of the specialists. Doctors can recognize bodily conditions and shoemakers can repair shoes, as the earlier examples assume. The later question asks for those objects understood in their relation to a person's good and identity. This contextual distinction explains why the dialogue can rely on expertise while denying its completeness. It is an interpretation of the shift, not a separate distinction formally defined by Socrates.

The consequence extends outward. Someone ignorant of his own is ignorant in the same manner of what belongs to others, and then of cities. Such a person cannot become a statesman or household manager. Self-knowledge is accordingly a condition of rightly understanding affairs whose management affects others; it is not a permission to ignore them. The argument's connective phrase “in the same way” carries the extension, and the reader may still ask how much has been established about each new domain.

This passage is especially useful against two simplifications. The dialogue does not permanently assign self, body, and external goods to three independent knowledges. Neither does it straightforwardly deny every piece of ordinary specialist knowledge. Its explicit correction concerns whether those objects can be known as one's own without knowing the person to whom they belong.

Places to read

1. 131a–131c2Specialists are initially credited with knowledge of lower levels without self-knowledge
2. 133c18–133d92The question of one’s own good introduces knowledge of belonging as belonging
3. 133d10–133e3Socrates retracts the earlier agreement and assigns all levels to one discerning craft
4. 133e–134a2Ignorance extends to others and cities, excluding competent management

Translation in this edition

The edition's repeated “what is one's own” makes the retraction visible. At 133d12 Burnet prints ἄλλους δέ from Stobaeus, “and others,” against the manuscripts' “but not”; the supplied note identifies the earlier doctor, trainer, and craft examples as the reference.

καθοράω

Attested: κατιδεῖν (katidein; 133e). At 133e: Discern oneself, one's own, and their belongings together; the infinitive is assigned to one person and one craft. Lexical identification: lemma: καθοράω. See Knowledge of one’s own and others.