DiotimosReading Desk

Skills, experts and governing knowledge

Possession and guidance

κτῆμα (ktēma); κεκτημένος (kektēmenos); ἀντέχεσθαι (antechesthai); παρέπεσθαι (parepesthai); ὀρφανός (orphanos); κυβερνήτης (kybernētēs)

Ktēma is a possession, and kektēmenos describes someone who has acquired or possesses something.

From the book

Alcibiades II

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Browse this book’s lexicon →

Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordKtēma is a possession, and kektēmenos describes someone who has acquired or possesses something.
  • In Alcibiades IIThe first thesis calls other knowledge a possession at 144d.
  • In this editionThe edition retains the material vocabulary of “possession” and the relational images “accompanies”, “hold fast” and “orphan”.
  • A place to readOther knowledge is explicitly described as a possession.

Meaning

Ktēma is a possession, and kektēmenos describes someone who has acquired or possesses something. Antechesthai is to hold fast to; parepesthai to accompany or follow alongside. Orphanos means orphaned or bereft, and kybernētēs is a pilot or helmsman. The image contrasts having capacities with having their proper direction.

Use in the book

The first thesis calls other knowledge a possession at 144d. Acquisition by itself is insufficient because the possessor may lack the best. At 145c the governing knowledge must accompany the skilled person, while at 146e city and soul must hold fast to it. These expressions describe a relation between capacities and guidance. The dialogue does not present the best as simply one more interchangeable specialist item in a collection.

The commonwealth passage strengthens the personal dimension by distinguishing the knowledge from the one who knows when to use the experts. At 147a the learned and many-skilled man is called an orphan of the required knowledge and is led by each of his other attainments. The language makes lack of an ordering relation feel like abandonment, even in the midst of abundant possessions.

The doctor and pilot are models of useful dependence. A sick person and a voyager do not benefit merely from owning instruments, and a strong wind is dangerous without direction. Yet the comparison does not establish blind obedience to any claimant of expertise: what makes the guide adequate is the knowledge whose possession is at issue. The dialogue ends by describing a caring teacher without proving a general institutional solution for identifying every such guide.

Places to read

  1. 144dOther knowledge is explicitly described as a possession.
  2. 145cKnowledge of the best must accompany the skilled person.
  3. 145e–146aKnowledge and the person able to employ specialists are separately lacking.
  4. 146e–147a2Holding fast to knowledge is compared with dependence on doctor and pilot.
  5. 147aMuch learning can leave a person orphaned and pulled by separate capacities.

Translation in this edition

The edition retains the material vocabulary of “possession” and the relational images “accompanies”, “hold fast” and “orphan”. The storm passage at 147a follows several conjectures printed by Burnet; its language should be cited as the text of this edition, not as an unproblematic manuscript consensus.