Complete Works (132 page)

A
LCIBIADES
: I would.

S
OCRATES
: So, according to your argument, some subjects are women’s subjects and some are men’s subjects.

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: So, in these areas at least, there’s no agreement between men and women.

A
LCIBIADES
: No.

S
OCRATES
: Nor is there any friendship, since friendship was agreement.

A
LCIBIADES
: Apparently not.

S
OCRATES
: So women are not loved by men, insofar as they do their own work.

[b] A
LCIBIADES
: It seems not.

S
OCRATES
: Nor are men loved by women, insofar as they do theirs.

A
LCIBIADES
: No.

S
OCRATES
: So neither are cities well governed when the different groups each do their own work.

A
LCIBIADES
: But I think they
are
, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: What do you mean? In that case there’s no friendship in cities, but we said friendship was present when cities are well governed, and not otherwise.

A
LCIBIADES
: But I think it’s when each person does his own work that mutual friendship results.

S
OCRATES
: You’ve just changed your mind. What do you mean now? [c] Can there be friendship without agreement? Can there be any agreement when some know about the matter and others don’t?

A
LCIBIADES
: There can’t possibly.

S
OCRATES
: But when everyone does his own work, is everyone being just, or unjust?

A
LCIBIADES
: Just, of course.

S
OCRATES
: So when the citizens do what is just in the city, there is no friendship between them.

A
LCIBIADES
: Again, Socrates, I think there must be.

S
OCRATES
: Then what
do
you mean by this ‘friendship’ and ‘agreement’ [d] that we must be wise and good advisers in if we’re to be good men? I can’t figure out what it is, or who’s got it. According to your argument, it seems that sometimes certain people have it and sometimes they don’t.

A
LCIBIADES
: Well, Socrates, I swear by the gods that I don’t even know what I mean. I think I must have been in an appalling state for a long time, without being aware of it.

S
OCRATES
: But don’t lose heart. If you were fifty when you realized it, [e] then it would be hard for you to cultivate yourself, but now you’re just the right age to see it.

A
LCIBIADES
: Now that I’ve seen it, Socrates, what should I do about it?

S
OCRATES
: Answer my questions, Alcibiades. If you do that, then, God willing,—if we are to trust in my divination—you and I will be in a better state.

A
LCIBIADES
: Then we will be, if it depends on my answering.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, what does it mean to cultivate oneself?—I’m afraid
[128]
we often think we’re cultivating ourselves when we’re not. When does a man do that? Is he cultivating himself when he cultivates what he has?

A
LCIBIADES
:
I
think so, anyway.

S
OCRATES
: Really? When does a man cultivate or care for his feet? Is it when he’s caring for what belongs to his feet?

A
LCIBIADES
: I don’t understand.

S
OCRATES
: Is there anything you’d say belonged to a hand? Take a ring, for example—could it belong anywhere else on a man but on his finger?

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course not.

S
OCRATES
: Similarly a shoe belongs nowhere but on the feet.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Likewise cloaks and bedclothes belong to the rest of the body.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes. [b]

S
OCRATES
: So when we cultivate or care for our shoes, are we caring for our feet?

A
LCIBIADES
: I don’t really understand, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Surely, Alcibiades, you talk about taking proper care of one thing or another, don’t you?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: And when you make something better, you say you’re taking proper care of it.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: What skill is it that makes shoes better?

A
LCIBIADES
: Shoemaking.

S
OCRATES
: So shoemaking is the skill by which we take care of shoes.

[c] A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Do we use shoemaking to take care of our feet, too? Or do we use the skill that makes our feet better?

A
LCIBIADES
: The latter.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t the skill that makes the feet better the same as what makes the rest of the body better?

A
LCIBIADES
: I think so.

S
OCRATES
: Isn’t this skill athletics?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: So while we take care of our feet with athletics, we take care of what belongs to our feet with shoemaking.

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And while we take care of our hands with athletics, we take care of what belongs to our hands with ring-making.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And while we cultivate our bodies with athletics, we take care [d] of what belongs to our bodies with weaving and other skills.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s absolutely right.

S
OCRATES
: So while we cultivate each thing with one skill, we cultivate what belongs to it with another skill.

A
LCIBIADES
: Apparently so.

S
OCRATES
: And so when you’re cultivating what belongs to you, you’re not cultivating yourself.

A
LCIBIADES
: Not at all.

S
OCRATES
: For it seems that cultivating yourself and cultivating what belongs to you require different skills.

A
LCIBIADES
: Apparently.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, what sort of skill could we use to cultivate ourselves?

A
LCIBIADES
: I couldn’t say.

[e] S
OCRATES
: But we’ve agreed on this much, at least—it’s a skill that won’t make anything that belongs to us better, but it will make
us
better.

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: Now if we didn’t know what a shoe was, would we have known what skill makes a shoe better?

A
LCIBIADES
: No, we couldn’t have.

S
OCRATES
: Nor would we have known what skill makes a ring better if we didn’t know what a ring was.

A
LCIBIADES
: True.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, could we ever know what skill makes us better if we didn’t know what
we
were?

A
LCIBIADES
: We couldn’t.
[129]

S
OCRATES
: Is it actually such an easy thing to know oneself? Was it some simpleton who inscribed those words on the temple wall at Delphi? Or is it difficult, and not for everybody?

A
LCIBIADES
: Sometimes I think, Socrates, that anyone can do it, but then sometimes I think it’s extremely difficult.

S
OCRATES
: But Alcibiades, whether it’s easy or not, nevertheless this is the situation we’re in: if we know ourselves, then we might be able to know how to cultivate ourselves, but if we don’t know ourselves, we’ll never know how.

A
LCIBIADES
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: Tell me, how can we find out what ‘itself’ is, in itself?
²⁰
Maybe [b] this is the way to find out what we ourselves might be—maybe it’s the only possible way.

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: Hold on, by Zeus—who are you speaking with now? Anybody but me?

A
LCIBIADES
: No.

S
OCRATES
: And I’m speaking with you.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Is Socrates doing the talking?

A
LCIBIADES
: He certainly is.

S
OCRATES
: And is Alcibiades doing the listening?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And isn’t Socrates talking with words?

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course. [c]

S
OCRATES
: I suppose you’d say that talking is the same as using words?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: But the thing being used and the person using it—they’re different, aren’t they?

A
LCIBIADES
: What do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: A shoemaker, for example, cuts with a knife and a scraper, I think, and with other tools.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, he does.

S
OCRATES
: So isn’t the cutter who uses the tools different from the tools he’s cutting with?

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: And likewise isn’t the lyre-player different from what he’s playing with?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

[d] S
OCRATES
: This is what I was just asking—doesn’t the user of a thing always seem to be different from what he’s using?

A
LCIBIADES
: It seems so.

S
OCRATES
: Let’s think about the shoemaker again. Does he cut with his tools only, or does he also cut with his hands?

A
LCIBIADES
: With his hands, too.

S
OCRATES
: So he uses his hands, too.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And doesn’t he use his eyes, too, in shoemaking?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Didn’t we agree that the person who uses something is different from the thing that he uses?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So the shoemaker and the lyre-player are different from the hands and eyes they use in their work.

[e] A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: Doesn’t a man use his whole body, too?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: And we agreed that the user is different from the thing being used.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So a man is different from his own body.

A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: Then what
is
a man?

A
LCIBIADES
: I don’t know what to say.

S
OCRATES
: Yes, you do—say that it’s what uses the body.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

[130]
S
OCRATES
: What else uses it but the soul?

A
LCIBIADES
: Nothing else.

S
OCRATES
: And doesn’t the soul rule the body?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Now here’s something I don’t think anybody would disagree with.

A
LCIBIADES
: What?

S
OCRATES
: Man is one of three things.

A
LCIBIADES
: What things?

S
OCRATES
: The body, the soul, or the two of them together, the whole thing.

A
LCIBIADES
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: But we agreed that man is that which rules the body.

[b] A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, we did agree to that.

S
OCRATES
: Does the body rule itself?

A
LCIBIADES
: It couldn’t.

S
OCRATES
: Because we said it was ruled.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: So
this
can’t be what we’re looking for.

A
LCIBIADES
: Not likely.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, can the two of them together rule the body? Is this what man is?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes, maybe that’s it.

S
OCRATES
: No, that’s the least likely of all. If one of them doesn’t take part in ruling, then surely no combination of the two of them could rule.

A
LCIBIADES
: You’re right.

S
OCRATES
: Since a man is neither his body, nor his body and soul together, [c] what remains, I think, is either that he’s nothing, or else, if he
is
something, he’s nothing other than his soul.

A
LCIBIADES
: Quite so.

S
OCRATES
: Do you need any clearer proof that the soul is the man?

A
LCIBIADES
: No, by Zeus, I think you’ve given ample proof.