From the book
Alcibiades I
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordΧρῆσθαι, a middle verb taking the dative, means to use or make use of.
- In Alcibiades ISocrates first asks about the conversation occurring before them.
- In this editionThe edition uses “use” for the central argument and “make use of” for civic relations.
- A place to readCivic participants make use of one another.
Meaning
Χρῆσθαι, a middle verb taking the dative, means to use or make use of. Ὁ χρώμενος substantivizes its participle: “the user.” Ὄργανα are tools or instruments. The user–used distinction is a relation between an agent and a means of acting; the verb by itself does not imply exploitation, ownership, or material separation. At 125c–d it describes people making use of one another in civic activity; at 129c–e2 it becomes the pivot of the argument about the self.
Use in the book
Socrates first asks about the conversation occurring before them. He speaks with Alcibiades by using speech. That description opens a distinction between the speaker and the medium. The craftsman's external tools then provide an easier case: the person cutting is not the knife or cutter with which he cuts. The lyre-player and what he plays with yield another instance. Alcibiades agrees to generalize: the user and what he uses are always different.
The next step extends instrumentality inward. The shoemaker uses hands as well as tools, and eyes as well as hands. Craftspeople are accordingly different from their bodily organs. A human being uses the whole body, so the human being differs from the body. Soul is accepted as what uses it. At 130a the relation of use is immediately glossed through ruling: soul uses the body as its ruler.
Several distinctions are worth keeping. First, the dialogue does not initially call the body an ὄργανον; it brings bodily members and the whole body under the broader relation of use. The instrument label is a useful description of the analogy, not a reason to put an unattested phrase into the text. Second, the move from individual tools to the whole body is an inference, not a lexical truth contained in χρῆσθαι. Third, the move from use to rule introduces an additional criterion that drives the elimination of the composite. Readers may accept the ordinary examples while still asking whether the generalized premises are strong enough.
The vocabulary returns after the proof. At 130d–e2 the two souls converse using words; speech is a medium through which one person addresses another rather than the person himself. In the supplied mirror passage at 133c, the god is used as the finest mirror. The recurrence does not make god a bodily tool. It demonstrates the verb's broad instrumental construction: different kinds of things can serve as means in different activities.
The dialogue's own account of the proof's limited precision prevents this chain from being inflated into a complete metaphysics of tools and persons. Its secure role is methodological and practical. It makes Alcibiades distinguish himself from the media, organs, and possessions through which he acts, and thereby prevents their improvement from automatically counting as care of himself.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition uses “use” for the central argument and “make use of” for civic relations. Its “user” is an agent, not a modern technological role. The supplied status of the god-as-mirror occurrence must be retained when tracing the verb across the dialogue.
ἄλλος
Attested: ἄλλο (allo; 129c). At 129c: Different: the user and the thing used are initially distinguished before the same relation is extended to bodily organs. Lexical identification: lemma: ἄλλος. See User and instrument.
ἕτερος
Attested: ἕτερον (heteron; 129d). At 129d: Different, the relational separation conceded between a user and what that user uses. Lexical identification: lemma: ἕτερος. See User and instrument.
ὄργανον
Attested: ὀργάνοις (organois; 129c). At 129c: External craft tools, such as cutter and knife, whose difference from the craftsman is initially uncontroversial. Lexical identification: lemma: ὄργανον. See User and instrument.
χράομαι
Attested: ὁ χρώμενος (ho chrōmenos; 129d); χρῆσθαι (chrēsthai; 129c); χρωμένων ἀλλήλοις (chrōmenōn allēlois; 125c). At 129d: The user, distinguished from what he uses; the participle supplies the agent in the self argument. At 129c: To use speech in talking; this ordinary instrumental description begins the distinction of person from means. At 125c: People making use of one another within civic dealings, before use acquires its role in the argument about body. Lexical identification: lemma: χράομαι. See User and instrument.