The wise man’s silence and the others’ praise · Lexicon

From the book

The Lovers

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordSigan means to be silent; the aorist esigēsen reports that the cultivated lover fell silent.
In The LoversSocrates’ last statement rejects much learning and occupation with crafts.
In this editionNote 30 connects amathēs with polymathia.
A place to readὁ μὲν σοφὸς αἰσχυνθεὶς τοῖς προειρημένοις ἐσίγησεν — The wise one’s silence is explicitly associated with shame.

Meaning

Sigan means to be silent; the aorist esigēsen reports that the cultivated lover fell silent. Amathēs means unlearned, lacking learning; it labels the athletic lover in the final sentence. Epainein means to praise or approve, with epēinesan reporting the others’ response. Aischynesthai is to feel shame or be ashamed; the participle aischyntheis gives the wise one’s reaction to what was said before.

The terms describe the outcome of the encounter, not four new propositions about the nature of philosophy. “Unlearned” also echoes the root of polymathia, the “much learning” initially proposed as philosophy.

Use in the book

Socrates’ last statement rejects much learning and occupation with crafts. The narrator then calls one rival “the wise one” and the other “the unlearned one.” The labels are dramatically loaded. The man who claimed superior learning is now silent and ashamed, while the one whose learning was disparaged affirms what has been said. Edition note 30 highlights the lexical return to the root of much learning.

This reversal does not establish that ignorance is philosophy or that the athlete has become an expert in the one governing craft. His final agreement is reported without a new argument from him. The scene instead exposes the inadequacy of the cultivated lover’s confident account and rearranges the status competition that had animated the discussion.

Silence also has different roles across the dialogue. The lads’ earlier silence made them listeners; the athlete’s temporary silence allowed Socrates to call on his practical expertise. The final silence belongs to someone whose account has failed in public. It can signal shame and lack of a reply without proving that he has accepted a fully articulated positive teaching. The narrator explicitly supplies shame as its circumstance, so purely serene contemplation would be an unsupported redescription.

The others’ praise closes the narrated scene with approval. The text does not specify every member of that group or give their reasons. Their reaction therefore belongs to dramatic evidence about persuasion and reception, not an independent logical warrant for all the preceding transitions.

The ending remains open in a specific sense. Two proposed definitions have been rejected and a demanding ethical-political orientation has been introduced, yet no final definition states exactly whether philosophy is the unified craft, knowledge of it or love of it. The audience can applaud and the proud speaker can be refuted while that conceptual question remains uncompleted.

Places to read

139aὁ μὲν σοφὸς αἰσχυνθεὶς τοῖς προειρημένοις ἐσίγησεν — The wise one’s silence is explicitly associated with shame.
139aὁ δὲ ἀμαθὴς ἔφη ἐκείνως εἶναι — The unlearned rival agrees with the final statement.
139aκαὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ἐπῄνεσαν τὰ εἰρημένα — The other listeners praise what has been said.

Translation in this edition

Note 30 connects amathēs with polymathia. The apparatus also reports B’s polymathia and T’s philomathia in the concluding rejection at 139a; the running text chooses “much learning,” matching the earlier thesis and the translation. The lexical closing effect belongs to that printed reading.