One’s own and what belongs to others

Use in the book

In the first test, the expressions have concrete referents. Pupils write names belonging to friends and enemies; artisans make articles that will belong to other people; a hypothetical law tells citizens not to touch others' things (161d–163a23). If temperance demanded avoidance of everything associated with another, ordinary skilled cooperation would become impossible.

Critias changes the terms of membership. On his interpretation of Hesiod, beneficial and fine productions alone are oikeia, while all harmful ones are allotria (163c). Socrates restates his usage by connecting what is appropriate and one's own with good things (163d). An item can consequently be “alien” on this account even when one has made it, because the relevant criterion is its harmfulness rather than legal title. The proposal does not announce a general abolition of ownership or a rule about distributing property. It reinterprets the slogan under examination.

The own/other language also turns back on its defender. Critias reacts like a poet whose own compositions have been badly delivered by an actor (162d). His proprietary anxiety over the definition is visible while its account of one's own remains obscure. At 174e each expertise again has its own work. Here the opposition determines a field of competence: medicine's work is health, and the evaluative knowledge has been assigned benefit. The reflexive vocabulary therefore moves among possession, authorial responsibility, proper conduct and characteristic function; the differences should remain explicit.

Places to read

1. 161d–163a23Names, manufactured goods and cooperative work test the ordinary possessive sense
2. 162dThe poet’s own compositions provide a pointed dramatic echo
3. 163c–d2Oikeia and allotria are redescribed by goodness and harmfulness
4. 174e–175aEach expertise is allotted its own work

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “appropriate to one” for οἰκεῖα at 163c–d2 and “belonging to others” for ἀλλότρια. This is deliberately more explicit than translating both the possessive phrase and the adjective as “one's own.” “His own fellow craftsman” at 171c concerns the temperate person's own specialty, not the other craftsman's specialty.

ἀλλότριος

Attested: ἀλλοτρίων / ἀλλότρια (allotriōn / allotria). Belonging to others or alien; contrasted with one’s own things and, in Critias’ reinterpretation, with what is good and appropriate. References: 162a, 163c. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀλλότριος. See One’s own and what belongs to others.

ἅπτω

Attested: ἅπτεσθαι (haptesthai). To touch or have dealings with; here to concern oneself with what belongs to others. References: 162a. Lexical identification: lemma: ἅπτω. See One’s own and what belongs to others.

οἰκεῖος

Attested: οἰκεῖα / οἰκεῖά (oikeia / oikeia). One’s own or appropriate to oneself; Critias assigns this description to good and beneficial things, making it an ethical qualification rather than simple private ownership. References: 163c, 163d. Lexical identification: lemma: οἰκεῖος. See One’s own and what belongs to others.

Use in the book

Alcibiades initially thinks caring for what is one's own amounts to caring for oneself. The shoe–foot and ring–hand comparisons expose the inference's weakness. Each object has belongings, but the skill that improves the object is different from the skill that improves those belongings. A possessive relationship therefore cannot substitute for an identity relationship. The question is not whether shoes matter to their wearer; it is whether repairing shoes is the very same activity as improving the person.

The argument identifying the person with soul gives this distinction a striking application. Body is something belonging to the person. Medical and gymnastic expertise initially count as knowledge of one's own rather than of oneself. Farmers and other craftspeople reach things further removed, which serve the body. The distinction becomes erotic as well: the bodily lover loves something of Alcibiades, whereas the lover of soul loves Alcibiades.

There is, however, a later correction. At 133d–e Socrates says that their earlier agreement was not quite right. Knowing a thing as Alcibiades' requires knowing Alcibiades; knowing what is one's own as one's own requires self-knowledge. One craft must discern the whole relational series. This does not abolish the different objects or say that shoemaking and bodily training have become the same practice. It revises the claim that adequate knowledge of the belonging relation can exist independently of knowledge of its owner.

The correction is indispensable to the political conclusion. Ignorance of one's own extends to ignorance of other people's and of cities' affairs. Conversely, looking toward the divine makes it possible to know oneself and one's own goods. The phrase therefore carries a movement from possession to informed practical relation. It should not be restricted to a catalogue of assets, nor assimilated without argument to the separate ethical formula “doing one's own business.”

Places to read

1. 107c–107dThe possessive phrase initially designates the Athenians’ affairs
2. 128a–128e23Care of belongings is separated from care of their owner
3. 131a–131c2Body is provisionally classed as one’s own; craft products are further removed
4. 133c–133e2Knowledge of what is one’s own as one’s own requires knowledge of oneself
5. 134c–134d2The distinction informs care for the city and knowledge of one’s own goods

Translation in this edition

The repeated rendering “what is one's own” preserves the retrospective correction at 133d. At 131a the doctor's bodily knowledge must not be translated as knowledge of external things belonging to the body. At 133d12 Burnet follows Stobaeus' “and others,” making the reference back to the two kinds of specialist explicit.

τὰ αὑτοῦ

Attested: τὰ αὑτοῦ (ta hautou; 131a); τὰ ἡμέτερα (ta hēmetera; 133d). At 131a: What belongs to the person, provisionally including the body as distinct from the self identified with soul. At 133d: Our own things considered as ours: knowledge of this relation is said to require knowledge of ourselves. Lexical identification: phrase label: τὰ αὑτοῦ. See What belongs to oneself.

Use in the book

At 210c οἱ ἀλλότριοι are strangers, contrasted with parents and closer kin; ἀλλότρια are things belonging to others, from which the uncomprehending person gains no benefit. At 222c calling the bad alien and the good akin to everything is one option offered for testing. The boys instead choose each kind as akin to its own kind; neither option becomes a secure definition.

Places to read

1. 222cτὸ δὲ κακὸν ἀλλότριον — the bad alien.
2. 210b–c