Whole and part

Use in the book

Socrates begins with an example Charmides accepts as familiar. A good doctor will not treat painful eyes on their own, but includes the head; treating the head in isolation from the whole body is similarly foolish. The prescription then turns to regimen for the entire body so that the part may be treated with the whole. At this stage the argument concerns interdependence within bodily treatment.

The Thracian doctor extends rather than simply repeats it. As one should not treat eyes without head or head without body, one should not treat body without soul. Greek doctors fail to cure many diseases because they neglect the whole; when the whole is in bad condition its part cannot fare well. Good and bad are then said to flow from the soul into the body and entire person. The explicit claim is the necessity of attending to soul. The sentence about “the whole” does not itself give an anatomical definition that would make soul one organ among others.

Readers may therefore speak cautiously of whole-person treatment, provided they distinguish the claim from modern medical holism and retain its fictional speaker. It is not an empirical demonstration that all disease has a psychological cause. Nor is it a claim that correcting bodily conditions is pointless: the story continues to promise a bodily remedy, conditional on the necessary prior treatment.

The analogy also has a structural consequence for the inquiry. Charmides cannot receive the desired local cure until the more comprehensive question is addressed, but the comprehensive question proves much harder to answer. Later the argument distinguishes knowledge of a limited technical domain from knowledge of good and bad. This creates a suggestive parallel between local success and human benefit, although the dialogue never formally derives the later epistemology from the earlier medical image.

Textually, the crucial sentence at 156e is constructed by editorial choices. Burnet prints a genitive “of the whole” and the verb “neglect,” while the principal manuscripts give wording that supports “do not know the whole.” The printed reading emphasizes failure of care; the alternative emphasizes failure of knowledge. Both make an adequate relation to the whole indispensable, but their verbal emphases should not be fused without notice.

Places to read

1. 156b–cThe eyes, head, and entire body establish the part–whole medical analogy
2. 156e–157aThe analogy is extended to soul and the entire human being
3. 156e (apparatus)2Burnet’s τοῦ ὅλου and the variant ἀμελοῖεν determine the wording about neglecting the whole
4. 157b–c2The order of treatment becomes a binding condition for giving the remedy

Translation in this edition

At 156e4 “of the whole” is Burnet's conjectural τοῦ ὅλου; “neglect” follows a reading recorded as a variant in T and in Stobaeus. The main B and T reading is ἀγνοοῖεν, “would not know.” The edition rightly flags the intervention rather than presenting its wording as unanimous manuscript evidence.

αἴτιος

Attested: αἴτιον (aition). Responsible for, or the reason for; neglect of the whole is given as the reason many diseases elude Greek doctors. References: 156e. Lexical identification: lemma: αἴτιος. See Whole and part.

μέρος

Attested: μέρος (meros). A part; the medical examples insist that a part’s good condition cannot be secured independently of the larger whole to which it belongs. References: 156c, 156e. Lexical identification: lemma: μέρος. See Whole and part.

ὅλος

Attested: ὅλου (holou). Whole or entire; the reference expands from head to body and the human being in the medical analogy. References: 156c, 156e. Lexical identification: lemma: ὅλος. See Whole and part.

χωρίς

Attested: χωρὶς ἑκατέρου (chōris hekaterou). Separately from each of the two; the error is treating temperance and health in isolation. References: 157b. Lexical identification: lemma: χωρίς. See Whole and part.

αἴτιον (aition)

A cause or reason: neglect of the whole explains failures of treatment in the Thracian doctor's account. References: 156e. Lemma: αἴτιος. See Whole and part.

ἀνθρώπῳ (anthrōpōi)

Human being or person; the healer extends the claim about body and soul to the whole person. References: 156e. Lemma: ἄνθρωπος. See Whole and part.

διαφεύγειν (diapheugein)

Escape; diseases elude Greek doctors because, according to the Thracian account, they neglect the whole. References: 156e. Lemma: διαφεύγω. See Whole and part.

ὀμμάτων (ommatōn)

Eyes; an alternative noun for the organ whose treatment illustrates the dependence of part on whole. References: 156c. Lemma: ὄμμα. See Whole and part.

Use in the book

The Tacitus comparison locates supreme perfection in a perfect whole and perfect elements. The desired literary order holds parts together through harmony and relation, yet insists that nothing be nailed in place. The two forms of physics show why the relation matters to inquiry: synthesis displays order through the whole, whereas analysis can produce apparent incoherence through divided parts. These passages favor neither indiscriminate fusion nor disconnected enumeration.

Places to read

1. II, p. 898, entry 2, ¶1Perfection belongs jointly to whole and elements.
2. II, p. 700, entry 1, ¶1Parts should hold together without being nailed in place.
3. II, p. 768, entry 8, ¶1Whole and divided parts yield different appearances in physics.
4. I, p. 179, entry 12, ¶1The repeated whole-account imagines nested bodies and souls.

Translation in this edition

The English translation renders ensemble as “whole” in the relevant arguments; adverbial ensemble elsewhere means together and supplies no independent theory of wholeness. The title groups a relation rather than inventing an unprinted technical phrase. The English “perfect whole and perfect elements” adopts a contextual shared attachment: French prints parfaits only after élémens, and a narrower attachment to elements alone remains possible.