From the book
Charmides
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe imperfect plural ἐπολυπραγμονεῖτε asks whether the boys were being meddlesome or busying themselves with too many affairs.
- In the CharmidesSocrates asks whether the pupils were being busybodies when they wrote other people's names, including their enemies' (161d–e).
- In this edition“Were you being busybodies” preserves the personal and potentially comic force of the question.
- A place to readWriting others’ names is agreed not to count as meddling or intemperance.
Meaning
The imperfect plural ἐπολυπραγμονεῖτε asks whether the boys were being meddlesome or busying themselves with too many affairs. Its lexical family is commonly represented by the lemma πολυπραγμονέω, “meddle,” and the noun πολυπραγμοσύνη, but that noun is not spoken in this dialogue. The contrast with doing one's own business is the relevant local meaning; an inventory should not turn the missing abstract noun into an attested Greek head-form.
Use in the book
Socrates asks whether the pupils were being busybodies when they wrote other people's names, including their enemies' (161d–e). Charmides rejects the suggestion. Writing a name is certainly doing something, and it is not confined to one's own name; nevertheless it is not the inappropriate interference that the moral contrast is meant to condemn. The example exposes the need to distinguish an activity's object from whether performing it exceeds the agent's proper business.
The word thus identifies the vice an ordinary hearer would understand the slogan to exclude. It does not settle which interventions are legitimate, or prove that all participation in others' affairs is wrong. The subsequent crafts and city examples make productive cooperation indispensable. Its single occurrence is philosophically substantial because it reveals the gap between a socially intelligible warning against interference and the over-literal wording Socrates tests.
Places to read
- 161d–eWriting others’ names is agreed not to count as meddling or intemperance
Translation in this edition
“Were you being busybodies” preserves the personal and potentially comic force of the question. The noun “meddling” is a convenient English lookup label, not a quotation of πολυπραγμοσύνη from the Greek dialogue.
πολυπραγμονέω
Attested: ἐπολυπραγμονεῖτε (epolypragmoneite). Were meddling or acting as busybodies; Socrates asks whether children become meddlers merely by writing other people’s names, exposing an over-literal interpretation of “one’s own business”. References: 161d. Lexical identification: lemma: πολυπραγμονέω. See Meddling.