# Second Alcibiades explained — Dialogues

> Chapter companion for Dialogues by Plato.

## What happens

Socrates engages Alcibiades in a dialectical examination of the nature of knowledge, ignorance, and the good. He argues that possessing any art or science without knowledge of the best (the good) is more harmful than beneficial, using examples from poetry, prayer, and hypothetical actions. Socrates concludes that the soul must hold firmly to the knowledge of the best to navigate life safely, and that the many fail because they trust in opinion devoid of intelligence.

## Themes in this chapter

### Knowledge and Ignorance

Socrates distinguishes between technical knowledge (arts) and the knowledge of the best, arguing that ignorance of the best can be beneficial in certain cases, while knowledge without it is harmful.

### Education and Virtue

The dialogue emphasizes the need for the soul to acquire the knowledge of the best to act rightly, akin to a patient trusting a physician or a passenger a pilot.

## Character check-ins

### Socrates

Leads the dialogue, questioning Alcibiades about knowledge, ignorance, and the best course of action.

### Alcibiades

The interlocutor who is guided by Socrates to reconsider his assumptions about knowledge and prayer.

### Pericles

Mentioned as Alcibiades' kinsman and guardian in a hypothetical scenario about ignorance.

### Homer

Quoted as the poet who spoke of Margites knowing many things badly, interpreted by Socrates as a riddle.

## Key lines

> Full many a thing he knew; But knew them all badly.

He knew many things, but it was bad for him to know them.

_Socrates interprets Homer's riddle about Margites to mean that knowledge without the knowledge of the best is harmful._

> The Lacedaemonians... are wont to offer the prayer alike in public and private, that the Gods will give unto them the beautiful as well as the good.

The Spartans pray only for what is beautiful and good, trusting the gods to grant what is truly beneficial.

_Socrates uses this as an example of a wise approach to prayer, contrasting with the common tendency to ask for apparent goods that may be harmful._

> The state or the soul, therefore, which wishes to have a right existence must hold firmly to this knowledge, just as the sick man clings to the physician, or the passenger depends for safety on the pilot.

A soul or state that wants to live rightly must cling to the knowledge of the best, like a sick person trusts a doctor or a passenger trusts a pilot.

_Socrates summarizes the necessity of the knowledge of the best for a well-ordered life._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dialogues_se/chapters/second-alcibiades
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dialogues_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dialogues_se/chapters