From the book
Hipparchus
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordAnaischyntia is shamelessness, a lack of the shame or regard for disgrace that ordinarily restrains conduct.
- In HipparchusThe companion’s first explanation is insistently voluntary and knowing: people know the sources are worth nothing and nevertheless dare to love gain.
- In this editionThe edition retains “dare” in both the initial accusation and Socrates’ later self-defence.
- A place to readδι’ ἀναισχυντίαν — Shamelessness explains why the knowing agent ventures the conduct.
Meaning
Anaischyntia is shamelessness, a lack of the shame or regard for disgrace that ordinarily restrains conduct. Tolman means to dare, venture or bring oneself to do something. Daring is not inherently admirable or blameworthy: its moral value depends on what is attempted and what inhibition is overcome.
The lover of gain’s daring is paired with shamelessness at 225b. In the third definition decent men do not dare to gain from certain sources. Their refusal need not mean timidity. It marks an ethical limit on what they can bring themselves to do.
Use in the book
The companion’s first explanation is insistently voluntary and knowing: people know the sources are worth nothing and nevertheless dare to love gain. Shamelessness supplies the motive or enabling disposition for crossing the boundary. The “nevertheless” matters because he does not intend a simple mistake about worth. He is trying to condemn pursuit that remains objectionable even if the pursuer is clever.
Socrates substitutes examples of known practical failure. Once worthlessness is interpreted as inability to serve the practitioner’s purpose, daring loses its original point. Courage or shamelessness cannot make a worthless rudder function as a good one. The issue has moved from violation of a restraint to misjudgement of an outcome. This is why the companion later defines the disputed conduct by the sources decent men avoid, restoring a moral contrast after the craft argument has dissolved the original one.
At 227d the third definition attaches earnest pursuit and thinking fit to those disallowed sources. The passage recognises that two agents may share a desire for benefit but differ in what they are willing to do for it. Socrates’ universalisation will turn on the object “good things”; the companion’s description turns on allowable means. The distinction between those questions is a central source of the dialogue’s friction.
The daring vocabulary returns unexpectedly at 229b. Having quoted Hipparchus’ injunction not to deceive a friend, Socrates says that he would surely not dare to deceive the companion and disobey such a man. He thus presents himself under a restraint structurally like the decent men’s earlier restraint. The historical appeal does not demonstrate that his arguments are free from deception, and the companion immediately says he remains unconvinced. It does show that the dialogue has not abandoned the language of prohibited conduct merely because everyone is said to love gain.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition retains “dare” in both the initial accusation and Socrates’ later self-defence. That recurrence links ethics of acquisition with ethics of conversation. It should not be normalised to “are able” in the first case or “would never” in the second, since both would weaken the motif of an action one refuses to venture. No historical claim about a comprehensive Greek shame culture is necessary to explain this local usage.