From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordRecognition is represented chiefly by the same language as knowing and failing to know.
- In Alcibiades IIAt 144a–b the would-be attacker enters and sees Pericles himself, yet is ignorant of him and thinks he is someone else.
- In this editionThe translation’s deliberate “were ignorant of him” keeps agnoein connected to the broader discussion of ignorance.
- A place to readAlcibiades asks whether ignorance could ever be preferable to knowing.
Meaning
Recognition is represented chiefly by the same language as knowing and failing to know. Agnoein can mean not recognising someone; gignōskein is to know or discern. The decisive hypothesis adds the positive mistake of thinking the person before one to be someone else. The dialogue does not coin a distinct technical word for misrecognition.
Use in the book
At 144a–b the would-be attacker enters and sees Pericles himself, yet is ignorant of him and thinks he is someone else. Seeing the person is expressly compatible with failing to identify him. The case is therefore more specific than lack of sensory contact: the intended victim is perceptually present, but not available to the attacker under the identity that directs his intention.
The argument depends on an intention fixed on this individual. Alcibiades has not wished to kill whichever person he meets, and Orestes has not wished to kill any woman or anyone’s mother. Under those conditions, repeated failure to recognise the target repeatedly prevents the attack. The text does not establish that all misidentification is harmless; a different intention or error could produce a different outcome. What matters is the fit between this ignorance and this specified purpose.
At the end, recognition becomes an image for improved understanding. Athena’s removal of the mist enables Diomedes to know god and man; the unnamed educator must similarly clear Alcibiades’ soul before he can know bad and good. The parallel is interpretive, not a claim that the earlier identity error itself constitutes moral insight. Elsewhere gnōrisai at 147b–c concerns making out a poet’s meaning, another discernment whose object must be kept distinct.
Places to read
- 143cAlcibiades asks whether ignorance could ever be preferable to knowing.
- 144a–bSeeing Pericles does not entail identifying him.
- 144b–cThe prevention argument depends on an individually specified victim.
- 147b–cMaking out poetry uses another verb of discernment.
- 150d–eThe mist image transfers discernment from persons to bad and good.
Translation in this edition
The translation’s deliberate “were ignorant of him” keeps agnoein connected to the broader discussion of ignorance. It also preserves “thought he was someone else”, which excludes treating the hypothesis as mere failure to see. The Greek forms listed cover distinct objects of discernment, not a single specialised faculty.