The self itself and each self

Use in the book

The question arises from a practical problem. If one does not know what one is, one cannot know which craft will make one better. At 129a Alcibiades admits that self-knowledge has sometimes seemed universally accessible and sometimes extraordinarily difficult. Socrates refuses to make the practical requirement depend on settling its ease. Knowing oneself may permit knowledge of proper care; ignorance cannot. He then asks how the self itself could be discovered, because discovering it might disclose what “we ourselves” are.

The conversation does not answer that original question directly. Socrates turns to the present speakers: who is talking, who is listening, and by what means? Speech is used by a speaker; craft tools are used by craftspeople; hands and eyes, and finally the whole body, are also used. The user is distinguished from what is used. Soul is then identified as what uses and rules the body. Elimination of body and the body–soul composite leaves soul as the human being, if the human being is anything.

At 130c–d Socrates explicitly limits the result. Alcibiades finds the proof sufficient, and Socrates allows an adequate account to suffice for their present purpose. Exact knowledge awaits an investigation passed over because it requires much examination. That investigation is precisely the self itself. What they have considered instead is “what each thing itself is.” The achieved identification of the person with soul therefore cannot silently be substituted for a complete definition of the phrase at 129b.

The distinction admits several interpretations. The original phrase may ask for selfhood as such, with the subsequent argument isolating the self of a particular human being. It may distinguish a general explanatory account from the identification of individual selves. Other readings treat the larger object as a principle of reason or connect it with the divine. These are possibilities recorded by the edition's note, not conclusions delivered by the dialogue. The text neither announces a separately existing Form of the Self nor identifies the phrase straightforwardly with god. It also does not simply erase the distinction by saying that “the self itself” meant the soul all along.

The wording of the printed text helps restrain interpretation. At 130d Burnet prints “instead of the self” and then αὐτὸ ἕκαστον. He does not print the expanded contrast proposed by Schleiermacher, “instead of the self itself,” or Stallbaum's “the self by itself.” Those conjectures occur in the apparatus. Even “each thing itself” is textually mediated: Burnet follows Stephanus' neuter αὐτό against the manuscripts' masculine αὐτόν. A reader should therefore distinguish the accessible argument from the exact philosophical weight assigned to a highly compressed and contested sentence.

What is secure is the practical status of the result. Nothing belonging to us has more authority than soul, Socrates says; they may accordingly treat their conversation as soul addressing soul. That is enough to redirect love, knowledge, and care. It is not a license to claim that every ontological problem about the self has been resolved. The article's combined heading keeps the unresolved larger question and the more limited achievement visible together.

Places to read

1. 128e–129bKnowing what we are is required for care; the self itself is proposed as the object of discovery
2. 129b–130c234The user argument identifies the human being with soul
3. 130c–130dSocrates distinguishes the adequate identification from the uncompleted precise inquiry
4. 130d (apparatus)2Stephanus’ αὐτό is printed; expansions by Schleiermacher and Stallbaum remain reported alternatives

Translation in this edition

“The self itself” at 129b and 130d is the edition's rendering. Its note explicitly refuses to settle the major interpretations. The exact contrast printed at 130d is ἀντὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ αὐτὸ ἕκαστον, not an expanded conjectural formula. The appearance of the same words in contracted and uncontracted form does not establish a change of doctrine.

αὐτὸ ἕκαστον

Attested: αὐτὸ ἕκαστον (auto hekaston; 130d). At 130d: What the speakers have actually examined, contrasted with the self itself; Burnet prints Stephanus' neuter correction. Lexical identification: phrase label: αὐτὸ ἕκαστον. See The self itself and each self.

αὐτὸ ταὐτό

Attested: αὐτὸ ταὐτό (auto tauto; 129b); αὐτὸ τὸ αὐτό (auto to auto; 130d). At 129b: The difficult proposed object of inquiry, rendered the self itself, whose discovery might disclose what we ourselves are. At 130d: The uncontracted form names the original inquiry that Socrates says remains to be examined precisely. Lexical identification: phrase label: αὐτὸ ταὐτό. See The self itself and each self.