Complete Works (136 page)

A
LCIBIADES
: Absolutely.

[b] S
OCRATES
: Well then, if you went inside and saw Pericles, but did not recognize him and thought he was someone else, would you still go on to kill him?

A
LCIBIADES
: I should think not, in God’s name.

S
OCRATES
: For your intention surely was to kill not just anyone you came across, but only that particular person. Isn’t that right?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And if, having tried several times, you always failed, when it came to the point, to recognize Pericles, you would never lay a hand on him.

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, do you think that Orestes would ever have laid a hand on his mother if he had failed to recognize her?

A
LCIBIADES
: I don’t think so. [c]

S
OCRATES
: For presumably he too had no intention of killing the first woman he came across, or killing just anyone’s mother, but only his own.

A
LCIBIADES
: That’s right.

S
OCRATES
: Then for those in that state, with such intentions, these are things which it is better not to know.

A
LCIBIADES
: Very likely.

S
OCRATES
: So you see that there are some things which, for certain people in certain states, it is better not to know than to know.

A
LCIBIADES
: So it seems.

S
OCRATES
: Now if you care to look at what follows from this, you may [d] find that you’re in for a surprise.

A
LCIBIADES
: What surprise, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: I mean that, in general, it seems that if someone lacks knowledge of what is best, the possession of other skills will only rarely help, but in most cases will harm, their possessor. Consider it this way. When we are about to say or do something, mustn’t we first of all know, or at least believe we know, what we are so keen to say and do? [e]

A
LCIBIADES
: I believe so.

S
OCRATES
: Orators, for instance, are bound to know, or at least to think they know, how to give us advice on various topics—whether it is about war and peace, or about the construction of walls or the equipment of harbors. Altogether, whatever a state does in foreign or domestic matters
[145]
is done on the advice of the orators.

A
LCIBIADES
: As you say.

S
OCRATES
: See then what follows.

A
LCIBIADES
: If I can.

S
OCRATES
: You call some people wise and others stupid?

A
LCIBIADES
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: And you call most people stupid, and a few wise?

A
LCIBIADES
: Exactly.

S
OCRATES
: In each case you make use of a criterion?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well, do you call a man wise who knows how to give advice, [b] but not what advice is best to give or when it is best to give it?

A
LCIBIADES
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: Nor, I imagine, a man who knows how to make war, without knowing when or for how long war should best be made? Isn’t that right?

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Nor again a man who knows how to kill or steal or banish people without knowing when it is better to do this, or to whom?

A
LCIBIADES
: No.

[c] S
OCRATES
: So what we want is the person who knows one or other of these things but also has the knowledge of what is best—which no doubt is the same as knowledge of utility.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And this is the person whom we shall call wise, a reliable counsellor for himself and for the state. But someone who is not like this we shall call the opposite. What do you think?

A
LCIBIADES
: I agree.

S
OCRATES
: Now suppose we have a person who knows how to ride or [d] shoot, or box, or wrestle, or compete in any other sport or exhibit any other skill. What do you call the person who knows how best to exercise a particular skill? If it is the skill of riding, I expect you will call him a good rider.

A
LCIBIADES
: I will.

S
OCRATES
: And if it is boxing, you will call him a good boxer, and if it is flute-playing you will call him a good flute-player, and so in other cases. Or do you disagree?

A
LCIBIADES
: No, not at all.

S
OCRATES
: Now do you think that knowing about these things suffices [e] to make a person wise, or is more needed?

A
LCIBIADES
: Much more, upon my life.

S
OCRATES
: Suppose there were a state in which there were good archers and flute-players, good athletes and craftsmen, and among them the kind of people we have been talking about, who know only how to make war and only how to kill, and also fine orators who know how to sound off about politics, but none of them had the knowledge of what is best, and
[146]
none of them knew when or on whom it was better for them to exercise their skills—what sort of state do you think that would be?

A
LCIBIADES
: A miserable one, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: I’m sure you would if you saw them all competing with each other for honors, “each one assigning precedence in political matters to his own sphere of excellence”
⁶
—I mean, what is best according to the scope of his own skill—while he may be much mistaken about what is best for the state and for himself, since he has not used his intelligence [b] but put his trust in mere seeming. If that’s the situation, wouldn’t we be right to describe such a state as a hotbed of dissension and lawlessness?

A
LCIBIADES
: Indeed we would.

S
OCRATES
: Did we not think that if you are on the point of saying or doing something, you must first know, or at least think you know what you are doing or saying?

A
LCIBIADES
: We did.

S
OCRATES
: So if someone does what he knows, or thinks he knows, and [c] has in addition knowledge of utility, we will judge him a boon both to the state and to himself?

A
LCIBIADES
: Absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: But if he does the contrary, he will be no good to the state or to himself?

A
LCIBIADES
: No good.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then: are you still of the same mind, or have you changed it?

A
LCIBIADES
: Still the same.

S
OCRATES
: You said that you called most people stupid, and only a few wise?

A
LCIBIADES
: I did.

S
OCRATES
: So, to repeat, most people have been mistaken about what is best because they have not used their intelligence but put their trust in mere seeming.

A
LCIBIADES
: Yes. [d]

S
OCRATES
: For most people, then, it is an advantage neither to know nor to think they know anything, if they are going to do themselves more harm than good by rushing to do what they know or think they know.

A
LCIBIADES
: Very true.

S
OCRATES
: So you see it seems that I was quite right when I said that it looked as if other skills, if not combined with the knowledge of what is [e] best, are more often than not harmful to their possessors.

A
LCIBIADES
: I may not have thought so then, but I do now, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: So if the life of a soul or a state is to go aright, this knowledge of what is best must be embraced with exactly the kind of trust a patient has in his doctor or a seafarer in his good ship’s captain. For without this, the stronger the winds of fortune blow towards the acquisition of wealth
[147]
or health and strength or anything else of that kind, the greater the errors to which these things will necessarily lead. Someone may have acquired so many skills as to deserve the name of polymath, but if he lets himself be led by one or other of these skills and lacks this true knowledge he will, as he indeed deserves, run into very rough weather, “alone on the [b] high seas with no helmsman and with not long to live.” There is a verse which fits his case, where the poet complains of someone that “he knew a lot of things but knew them all wrong.”
⁷

A
LCIBIADES
: Whatever has that verse got to do with the matter, Socrates? It does not seem at all to the point.

S
OCRATES
: It is very much to the point; but you are right that he speaks enigmatically, just like a poet. All poetry, by its nature, is enigmatic, and not everyone can take it in; but when, in addition, it is housed in a poet [c] who is miserly and wishes so far as possible to conceal rather than exhibit his wisdom, it may be quite remarkably difficult to find out what each of them might mean. For you don’t think that Homer, the divinest and wisest of poets—for it is he who says that Margites knew a lot of things but knew [d] them all wrong—didn’t know that it was impossible to know a thing wrong. He is riddling, I think; he meant “wrong” as an adjective, not as an adverb; and he meant “to know” rather than “knew.” So, if we forget about the original meter we can put together his meaning as this: he knew a lot of things, but it was wrong for him to know them all. Clearly, if it was wrong for him to know a lot of things, he must have been a bad man, if we are to trust our previous arguments.

[e] A
LCIBIADES
: I agree Socrates; if we cannot trust these arguments I really don’t know which ones we can trust.

S
OCRATES
: You are right to think so.

A
LCIBIADES
: But perhaps I should think again.

S
OCRATES
: Oh, for God’s sake! You see what a terrible great muddle we are in, and it is partly your fault; for you change incessantly from side to side. No sooner are you convinced of something than you give it up again
[148]
and change your mind. Well, if the god to whom you are on your way should appear to you at this very moment, before you start praying, and ask whether you would be happy to get one of the things we spoke of earlier, or whether he should leave the choice of prayer to you, which do you think offers the best prospect: accepting his offers or making your own prayer?

A
LCIBIADES
: By the gods, Socrates, I would have to take time to answer [b] your question; an impromptu response would be folly. You really have to take a great deal of care to make sure that you are not, all unawares, praying for evil in the belief that it is good, and that after a little while you won’t, as you said a moment ago, change your tune and call back all your prayers.

S
OCRATES
: That poet I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, who told us to pray to be saved from the evils we pray for—he was wiser than us, wasn’t he?

A
LCIBIADES
: I guess so.

S
OCRATES
: Whether in admiration of this poet, or because they have [c] worked it out for themselves, the Spartans take the same course in their public and private prayers. They pray the gods to give them first what is good and then what is noble; no one ever hears them asking anything more. They have not, so far, been any less fortunate in consequence than any other people; and even if they have not invariably enjoyed good [d] fortune it has not been because of their prayers. Whether we are given what we pray for or the reverse is in the lap of the gods.

I would like to tell you another story which I once heard from some of my elders. There was a quarrel between the Athenians and the Spartans, and whenever there was a battle, whether by land or sea, our city always came off worse and could never win a victory. The Athenians took this [e] hard, and cast about to discover how they could find relief from their troubles. After discussion they decided to send a delegation to consult Ammon,
⁸
to ask in particular why the gods granted victory to the Spartans rather than themselves. “We” they said “offer more and finer sacrifices than the rest of the Greeks, and we surpass all others in adorning the temples with emblems, and every year we organize for the gods’ benefit the most solemn and sumptuous processions, spending more money than
[149]
all the other Greeks put together. But the Spartans have never taken any such pains, and they are so mean to the gods that they regularly sacrifice blemished animals and fall well behind us in the quality of their worship, in spite of being no less wealthy than ourselves.” Having said that, they also asked what they should do to be relieved from the evils that beset them. The prophet, no doubt under divine instruction, called them to him [b] and said simply this. “Thus saith Ammon to the Athenians: I prefer the terse Laconic utterance to all the sacrifices of the Greeks.” That was all he said; not a word more. By their “terse utterance” I expect the god meant their prayer, for it is indeed very different from other prayers. Other Greeks [c] offer bulls with gilded horns, and others present the gods with votive emblems, and pray for whatever comes into their heads, good or bad. But when the gods hear their profanities they scorn these magnificent processions and sacrifices. We should, I believe, be very careful and cautious when we consider what should be said and what should not.