The top master builder

Use in the book

The master builder is Socrates’ first candidate for what the lover means by understanding without handiwork. His enormous value and rarity suggest a kind of intelligence that does much more than attend conversations about construction. There might be only a few such people even in all Greece. The example therefore takes the proposed intellectual distinction in a demanding direction before the lover scales it back.

The price statement is negative: not even ten thousand drachmas would buy this person. It is not a claim that every master builder costs precisely that amount, nor an exact salary attached to an occupation. Socrates uses the distance from a carpenter’s five or six minae to bring scarcity and depth into view. An education that promised the corresponding mastery of many great crafts would face a serious burden.

Akros also prepares the later word hypakros, the runner-up “just under the top.” The dialogue moves from a person at the summit of a field to a person just below each summit. That verbal connection gives the pentathlete proposal more precision than “a little of everything.” The revised philosopher is still meant to be impressive; he simply no longer possesses the full command represented by the top builder. The later objection is not that such a person knows nothing, but that a better-qualified practitioner will be preferred when the craft is needed.

Places to read

1. 135cἄκρον ἀρχιτέκτονα δὲ οὐδ’ ἂν μυρίων δραχμῶν — Not even ten thousand drachmas would purchase the top master builder.
2. 135cὀλίγοι γε μὴν κἂν ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς Ἕλλησι γίγνοιντο — Rarity extends across Greece in Socrates’ hypothetical comparison.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s notes 16 and 182 connect “top” with “runner-up.” That is a lexical explanation of the Greek, whereas treating the builder as an image of philosophical mastery would be an interpretation. The text never explicitly names the master builder a philosopher.