Useful

Use in the book

The lover accepts that good people are useful and base people useless, then goes beyond Socrates’ question to call philosophers “most useful” (136b–c). Socrates now has a claim stronger than cultural distinction to test. A person who is second to each specialist must explain where this alleged supreme usefulness appears.

Illness supplies the first trial. The interlocutor’s initial answer, “Both,” allows doctor and runner-up to help together. Socrates excludes that response and asks whom he would summon rather and first. The doctor has priority. In the storm example the pilot is the person to whom one entrusts oneself and one’s belongings. The argument then generalizes: as long as a craftsman is present, the philosopher is not useful. Because craftsmen are said always to exist, this becomes an unrestricted practical indictment of the proposed philosopher.

The key inference is stronger than the examples. “A is preferred to B” does not by itself entail “B has no use,” and the initial answer “Both” points directly toward a possible complementary role. Nor does an expert’s existence somewhere automatically establish availability to every person at every moment. The lover nevertheless accepts the generalization, and the dialogue proceeds with the accepted account. A reading that silently supplies these missing premises makes the argument smoother than the text.

The conclusion that philosophers would be base is also governed by the accepted moral division between good/useful and base/useless. The text does not separately examine whether a person might be neither, or useful in one respect and harmful in another. The refutation is strongest as a challenge to the lover’s combined commitments: philosophy is fine and good, yet philosophy as he defines it appears to offer no distinctive needed competence.

Socrates immediately resists treating the damaging conclusion as the truth about philosophers. At 137b he suspects “they are not so” and proposes that philosophizing is something else. The closing sequence looks for a sphere in which a philosopher must exercise authoritative judgment rather than offer optional secondary help. It rejects a particular account of usefulness without spelling out a complete positive theory of philosophy.

Places to read

1. 136bτοὺς ἀγαθοὺς πότερον χρησίμους ἢ ἀχρήστους — The practical test begins with the value of good people.
2. 136cχρησιμωτάτους εἶναι ἡγεῖσθαι — The lover intensifies the claim to “most useful.”
3. 136dἕως ἄν τις δημιουργὸς ᾖ, οὐ χρήσιμός ἐστιν ὁ φιλόσοφος — The decisive generalization moves from preference to nonusefulness.
4. 138eκαὶ ἀχρεῖον εἶναι — The final question recalls the verdict of no use.

Translation in this edition

Edition note 24 explains the lexical relationship between usefulness and decent or bad quality. Note 21 identifies “always” at 136e as Hermann’s correction. Both points aid reading, but neither removes the logical gap between priority and uselessness. The edition’s introduction itself distinguishes the rejected runner-up account from the unnamed alternative sought at the close.

Use in the book

Socrates jokingly applies the word to himself outside his claimed ability to recognize lovers (204b–c). At 210c he argues that no one loves another καθ’ ὅσον ἂν ᾖ ἄχρηστος, “insofar as he is useless”: the qualification limits the claim, within the lesson on understanding and trust. At 220c the remedial hypothesis would make the good useless if badness vanished. At 222b–c likeness considered simply as likeness is again called useless, reproducing the difficulty of 214e–215a.

Places to read

1. 222b–cτὸ δὲ ἄχρηστον φίλον — the useless [as] a friend.
2. 204b–c
3. 210c
4. 220c

Use in the book

At 210c–d2 usefulness is linked to understanding, goodness, and being welcomed as a friend. In the likeness argument, the question is what service one like thing can render another simply by being like (214e–215a). At 220c the good risks becoming useless if its only function is to remove badness.

The word raises a question about the ground of affection. It should not be made into a blanket authorial claim that friendship is mere exploitation. The father who prizes his son above the wine and vessel needed to save him (219d–220a2) distinguishes an object loved from the means useful for its sake.

Places to read

1. 210dχρήσιμος γὰρ καὶ ἀγαθὸς ἔσῃ — for you will be useful and good.
2. 210c–d2
3. 214e–215a
4. 220c

Use in the book

Socrates offers Cebes an account of his intellectual experiences, inviting him to use whatever proves helpful in reaching conviction about the matter under discussion. Usefulness concerns the contribution to inquiry. The invitation does not make every recollected opinion automatically correct.

Places to read

1. I.49.14.1Socrates offers material useful for inquiry into causes and the soul.

Translation in this edition

“Useful” is direct; make the purpose explicit when the sentence supplies one.