From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordBlaming identifies an alleged cause or responsible agent for a bad outcome.
- In Alcibiades IIAfter describing prayers that people later reverse, Socrates quotes Zeus’ complaint that mortals blame the gods for their sufferings although their own recklessness contributes to them.
- In this editionNote 13 identifies the Odyssey passage and explicitly separates Socrates’ addition from the quoted words.
- A place to readHarmful wishing can coincide with divine fulfilment.
Meaning
Blaming identifies an alleged cause or responsible agent for a bad outcome. Recklessness is heedless or presumptuous misconduct; unintelligence names failure of practical judgment. The dialogue uses the difference between requesting, receiving and using to complicate where blame belongs.
Use in the book
After describing prayers that people later reverse, Socrates quotes Zeus’ complaint that mortals blame the gods for their sufferings although their own recklessness contributes to them. The speech introduces unintelligence alongside the Homeric expression. It is not enough that the requested thing came from a god to infer that responsibility for the damaging course lies wholly with divine action.
This point neither makes every misfortune deserved nor explains away the gods’ role in granting a harmful request. The initial warning explicitly includes divine fulfilment, and the anonymous poet asks Zeus to ward off harmful things even if requested. The safest reading keeps the two claims together: human judgment is responsible for an important part of the danger, and the prayer itself acknowledges dependence beyond the petitioner’s control.
The ignorance counterexample sharpens this concern with agency. Acquiring information can make a bad intention effective. The later commonwealth generalizes it to institutions: experts can carry out what they know while lacking the judgment that would make their activity beneficial. Skill then increases an agent’s power to produce consequences without settling the responsibility for choosing them.
Near the end, sacrifices cannot purchase favourable treatment from the gods as though they were a corruptible lender. The quality of the worshipper’s soul matters. This offers an ethical interpretation of religious success and failure, not a formula for calculating every individual’s fate.
Places to read
- 138b–cHarmful wishing can coincide with divine fulfilment.
- 142d–143aZeus’ complaint and the protective prayer distinguish agency from the mere receipt of a gift.
- 144a–cRecognition would enable a harmful intention.
- 146c–dKnowing or thinking one knows can increase readiness for harmful action.
- 149e–150bThe gods’ ethical scrutiny rejects a merely transactional view of offerings.
Translation in this edition
Note 13 identifies the Odyssey passage and explicitly separates Socrates’ addition from the quoted words. “Recklessness” and “unintelligence” must therefore not be merged as though they were alternative translations of a single Homeric term.
Source note
Supplied note 13, on Odyssey 1.32–34. The source marks the Homeric words separately from Socrates' “or unintelligence.” The text attributes some suffering to human recklessness; it does not offer an exhaustive doctrine that every sufferer is responsible for everything suffered.