Platonic Dialectic — its actual effect — its anticipated effect — applicable to the season of youth.
Here we have again, brought into prominent relief, the dialectic method of Plato, under two distinct aspects: 1. Its actual effects, in exposing the false supposition of knowledge, in forcing upon the respondent the humiliating conviction, that he does not know familiar topics which he supposed to be clear both to himself and to others. 2. Its anticipated effects, if continued, in remedying such defect: and in generating out of the mind of the respondent, real and living knowledge. Lastly, it is plainly intimated that this shock of humiliation and mistrust, painful but inevitable, must be undergone in youth.
Know Thyself — Delphian maxim — its urgent importance — What is myself? My mind is myself.
The dialogue continues, in short questions and answers, of which the following is an abstract. Sokr. — What is meant by a man taking care of himself? Before I can take care of myself, I must know what myself is: I must know myself, according to the Delphian motto. I cannot make myself better, without knowing what myself is.[20] That which belongs to me is not myself: my body is not myself, but an instrument governed by myself.[21] My mind or soul only, is myself. To take care of myself is, to take care of my mind. At any rate, if this be not strictly true,[22] my mind is the most important and dominant element within me. The physician who knows his own body, does not for that reason know himself: much less do the husbandman or the tradesman, who know their own properties or crafts, know themselves, or perform what is truly their own business.
[20] Plato, Alkib. i. 129 B. τίν’ ἂν τρόπον εὑρεθείη αὐτὸ τὸ αὐτό;
[21] Plato, Alkib. i. 128-130. All this is greatly expanded in the dialogue — p. 128 D: Οὐκ ἄρα ὄταν τῶν σαυτοῦ ἐπιμελῇ, σαυτοῦ ἐπιμέλει; This same antithesis is employed by Isokrates, De Permutatione, sect. 309, p. 492, Bekker. He recommends αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἢ τῶν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν.
[22] Plato considers this point to be not clearly made out. Alkib. i. 130.
I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind. Self-knowledge is temperance. Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom.
Since temperance consists in self-knowledge, neither of these professional men, as such, is temperate: their professions are of a vulgar cast, and do not belong to the virtuous life.[23] How are we to know our own minds? We know it by looking into another mind, and into the most rational and divine portion thereof: just as the eye can only know itself by looking into another eye, and seeing itself therein reflected.[24] It is only in this way that we can come to know ourselves, or become temperate: and if we do not know ourselves, we cannot even know what belongs to ourselves, or what belongs to others: all these are branches of one and the same cognition. We can have no knowledge of affairs, either public or private: we shall go wrong, and shall be unable to secure happiness either for ourselves or for others. It is not wealth or power which are the conditions of happiness, but justice and temperance. Both for ourselves individually, and for the public collectively, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth and power. The evil and unjust man ought to have no power, but to be the slave of those who are better than himself.[25] He is fit for nothing but to be a slave: none deserve freedom except the virtuous.
[23] Plato, Alkib. i. 131 B.