ALCIBIADES (I) by Plato - Complete text

Page 39

Soc.: Come, now, I beseech you, tell me with whom you are conversing? —with whom but with me?

Alc.: Yes.

Soc.: As I am, with you?

Alc.: Yes.

Soc.: That is to say, I, Socrates, am talking?

Alc.: Yes.

Soc.: And Alcibiades is my hearer?

Alc.: Yes.

Soc.: And I in talking use words?

Alc.: Certainly.

Soc.: And talking and using words have, I suppose, the same meaning?

Alc.: To be sure.

Soc.: And the user is not the same as the thing which he uses?

Alc.: What do you mean?

Soc.: I will explain; the shoemaker, for example, uses a square tool, and a circular tool, and other tools for cutting?

Alc.: Yes.

Soc.: But the tool is not the same as the cutter and user of the tool?

Alc.: Of course not.

Soc.: And in the same way the instrument of the harper is to be distinguished from the harper himself?

Alc.: It is.

Soc.: Now the question which I asked was whether you conceive the user to be always different from that which he uses?

Alc.: I do.

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Plato : ALCIBIADES (I)

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