Date: 1986-01-01 20:10:01+00:00
Keywords: Ancient; Plays; History & Surveys; Ancient & Classical; Ancient History; Non Fiction; Classics; Philosophy; History
Description: A literal translation, allowing the simplicity and vigor of the Greek diction to shine through.
Publisher: Hackett Publishing

PLATO

CHARMIDES

PLATO

CHARMIDES

Translated, with Introduction, Notes, and Analysis by

Christopher Moore
and

Christopher C. Raymond

Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge

Copyright © 2019 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

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Printed in the United States of America

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Cover design by Deborah Wilkes

Interior design by Elizabeth L. Wilson

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Map by William Nelson, adapted for this volume.

Family tree adapted from Debra Nails, The People of Plato, p. 244. Hackett Publishing, 2002.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Plato, author. | Moore, Christopher, 1981– translator.

Title: Charmides / Plato ; translated, with introduction, notes, and analysis by Christopher Moore and Christopher C. Raymond.

Other titles: Charmides. English

Description: Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2019. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018038700 | ISBN 9781624667787 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781624667794 (cloth)

Subjects: LCSH: Ethics—Early works to 1800. | Knowledge, Theory of—Early works to 1800. | Plato. Charmides. | Ethics—Early works to 1800. | Knowledge, Theory of—Early works to 1800.

Classification: LCC B366.A5 M66 2019 | DDC 184—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038700

ePub3 ISBN: 978-1-62466-795-4

TITLES OF RELATED INTEREST AVAILABLE FROM HACKETT PUBLISHING

Plato, Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper. Associate Editor D. S. Hutchinson.

Plato, Five Dialogues, Second Edition. Translated by G. M. A. Grube. Revised by John M. Cooper.

Plato, A Plato Reader: Eight Essential Dialogues. Edited by C. D. C. Reeve.

{v} Contents

The page numbers in curly braces {} correspond to the print edition of this title.

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

The Charmides in Context

Characters

Sôphrosunê

Self-Knowledge

The Reception of the Charmides

A Note on the Text

Charmides

Analysis

The Charmides in Reflection

Bibliography

Titles of Related Interest Available from Hackett Publishing

{vi} For Elizabeth Belfiore and Paul Woodruff

{vii} Preface

Over the nearly half century since the publication of Rosamond Kent Sprague’s 1973 translation, the Charmides has come to receive the serious and continuous attention it did not receive over the previous 2350 years. Philologists, philosophers, and historians have reflected anew on its language, arguments, purpose, and context, and have made clearer its profound contribution to our understanding of the cardinal virtue sôphrosunê, the meaning of Socratic ignorance and examination, the character of the intellectual and tyrant Critias, and the philosophy of self-knowledge. Several monograph-length studies have treated the Charmides as more than a perplexing or propaedeutic “early Socratic dialogue” and instead as a complex and fruitful meditation on a core theme of moral life and on the promise of Socrates’ epistemic self-awareness in striving for that life.

We have three goals for our translation: readability, argumentative clarity, and descriptive accuracy. The Charmides’ debate about sôphrosunê and self-knowledge concerns familiar issues and confronts straightforward difficulties; we have therefore avoided abstruseness or technicality of expression, which are uncalled for and misleading. We have rendered as clearly as possible the argument’s inferential steps within the limits of fidelity to the Greek. And we have tracked the subtle dramatic play between the characters, which Socrates recreates in his mention of glances, curt words, pauses, and carefully phrased responses.

Our sensibility throughout this volume counts as contextualist. We read the argumentative passages in the context of the more descriptive scenes, and vice versa. We pay close attention to the characters, dramatic setting, historical events, cultural allusions, and, in particular, the contemporary political salience of key terms. Plato in his literary work chose to put Socrates in conversation with real people, in specific locations, and at important moments in late fifth-century Athenian history. We cross-reference a broad range of texts, from Homer and Hesiod (both quoted in Charmides) to Thucydides and Herodotus, and from Aristophanes to Aristotle. We also cross-reference other works in the Platonic corpus. We do not assume anything about the order in which Plato wrote his dialogues or intended them to be read. We are convinced that they should be studied, in the first instance, as unitary literary works; but we also think that one cannot help reading them together and that overlapping discussions can illuminate each other.

The most striking result of the contextualist approach is our translation of the dialogue’s key concept, sôphrosunê, as “discipline” (see Introduction, “Sôphrosunê,” {viii} for discussion). We believe that this word—as opposed to “temperance,” “moderation,” “soundness of mind,” or “self-control”—is today the most accurate, meaningful, and philosophically apt translation for a dialogue set in 429 bce, at the start of the Peloponnesian War, depicting a conversation between a battle-tested Socrates, a Sparta-sympathizing Critias, and a modest and obedient young Charmides. “Discipline” benefits from being a word with enough contemporary salience in reflections on moral education and democratic leadership as to be apt for seminar discussion or personal reflection. If to a reader’s mind “discipline” sounds rather more like an externally imposed stricture than a cultivated virtue, however, we ask that it be considered equivalent to “self-discipline,” a more clunky but less polyvalent term.

We hope this dialogue finds its way onto many ancient philosophy syllabi and reading lists. In a compact frame, it portrays an inimitable Socrates: zealous, erotic, clever, devious, thoughtful, and pedagogic. It places abstract philosophical reflection against the palpably militaristic background of the Peloponnesian War, and with deft strokes adumbrates Athens’ aristocratic self-confidence and anxiety. It takes up epistemic and political problems familiar from the Theaetetus and Republic in provocative ways, and it revels in logical puzzles later addressed by Aristotle. It makes an original contribution to theories of self-knowledge, and it meditates on a virtue, sôphrosunê, that could play a powerful role in contemporary moral reflection.

A note on the use of this volume, which is in three principal parts: Many readers may wish to start with the translation and its footnotes. The Introduction provides fuller background on Plato’s authorship of the Charmides, the dialogue’s literary genre, its historical context, its characters, and the nature of sôphrosunê and our translation of it as “discipline.” The Analysis following the translation outlines the dialogue’s major narrative elements and argumentative progressions, and it suggests thematic connections, questions for investigation, and the shape that answers to some of those questions might take. None of our claims stands as decisive for any particular interpretation or use of the dialogue; our hope is simply to model the kind of reflection the Charmides promotes.

We are grateful to David Murphy for sharing a draft of his critical edition of the Greek text of the Charmides. We also would like to acknowledge Bryan Van Norden, David Reeve, David Riesbeck, Debra Nails, Emilie Houssart, and participants at Vassar College, University of Chicago, and Cornell University workshops, who generously commented on our work at various stages, but to whom no agreement with our results should be attributed. The project was supported in part by the Emily Abbey Fund and the Emily Floyd Fund at Vassar College.

{ix} Abbreviations

Pl.: Plato

Alc.: Alcibiades

Ap.: Apology of Socrates

Chrm.: Charmides

Clt.: Clitophon

Cra.: Cratylus

[Def.]: Definitions

[Ep.]: Letters

Euthd.: Euthydemus

Euthphr.: Euthyphro

Grg.: Gorgias

[Hppr.]: Hipparchus

L. Hp.: Lesser Hippias

La.: Laches

Lys.: Lysis

Mx.: Menexenus

Phd.: Phaedo

Phdr.: Phaedrus

Phlb.: Philebus

Plt.: Statesman

Prm.: Parmenides

Prt.: Protagoras

Rep.: Republic

Riv.: Rival Lovers

Smp.: Symposium

Soph.: Sophist

[Thg.]: Theages

Tht.: Theaetetus

Ti.: Timaeus

{x} Other Ancient Authors

Aesch.: Aeschylus

Ag.: Agamemnon

Ch.: Libation Bearers

Aët.: Aëtius

Andoc.: Andocides

Aristoph.: Aristophanes

Eccl.: Assemblywomen

Eq.: Knights

Plu.: Wealth

Thesm.: Women at the Thesmophoria

Aristot.: Aristotle

[Ath. Pol.]: Constitution of the Athenians

Cat.: Categories

DA: De Anima

EE: Eudemian Ethics

Met.: Metaphysics

NE: Nicomachean Ethics

PA: Posterior Analytics

[Prob.]: Problems

Rhet.: Rhetoric

SE: Sophistical Refutations

Top.: Topics

Eur.: Euripides

Heracl.: Heracles

Hipp.: Hippolytus

Supp.: Suppliants

Gorg.: Gorgias

Hel.: Helen

Hdt.: Herodotus

Hes.: Hesiod

Op.: Works and Days

Hom.: Homer

Il.: Iliad

Od.: Odyssey

Isoc.: Isocrates

Lys.: Lysias

{xi} Plut.: Plutarch

Soph.: Sophocles

Aj.: Ajax

Ant.: Antigone

OT: Oedipus Tyrannus

Thg.: Theognis

Thu.: Thucydides

Xen.: Xenophon

Ap.: Apology of Socrates

[Ath. Pol.]: Constitution of the Athenians

Cyr.: Cyropaedia

Eq.: On Horsemanship

Hell.: Hellenika

Lac.: Constitution of the Spartans

Mem.: Memorabilia

Oec.: Oeconomicus

Smp.: Symposium

References

DK: H. Diels and W. Kranz, eds. 1952. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th ed. Berlin: Weidmann.

IG: Inscriptiones Graecae

LM: A. Laks and G. W. Most, eds. 2016. Early Greek Philosophy. 9 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

LSJ: H. G. Liddel, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, eds. 1940. A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OCD: S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow, eds. 2012. Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PCG: R. Kassel and C. Austin, eds. 1983–1991. Poetai Comici Graeci. Berlin: De Gruyter.

POxy.: Oxyrhynchus Papyri

SSR: G. Giannantoni, ed. 1991. Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae. Naples: Bibliopolis.

TrGF: B. Snell, R. Kannicht, and S. L. Radt, eds. 1971–2004. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. 6 vols. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

W: M. L. West, ed. 1989–1992. Iambi et Elegi Graeci. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

{xii} Athens and Potidaea

{xiii}

{xv} Introduction

The Charmides in Context

Plato of Athens (c. 424–347 bce) was born seven years into the Peloponnesian War and came into political maturity twenty years later, at its disastrous conclusion: Sparta had just won, and a restrictive oligarchy had taken power in Athens.1 A letter attributed to Plato describes the civic turmoil from his perspective:

When I was a young man (neos) I had the same ambition as many others: I thought of entering public life (ta koina tês poleôs) as soon as I came of age. And certain happenings in public affairs favored me, as follows. The constitution we then had, being anathema to many, was overthrown; and a new government was set up consisting of fifty-one men, two groups—one of eleven and another of ten—to police the marketplace and perform other necessary duties in the city and the Piraeus respectively, and above them thirty other officers with absolute powers. Some of these men happened to be relatives and acquaintances of mine, and they invited me to join them at once in what seemed to be a proper undertaking. My attitude toward them is not surprising, because I was young. I thought that they were going to lead the city out of the unjust life she had been living and establish her in the path of justice, so that I watched them eagerly to see what they would do. But as I watched them they showed in a short time that the preceding constitution had been a precious thing. Among their other deeds they named Socrates, an older friend of mine whom I should not hesitate to call the justest man of that time, as one of a group sent to arrest a certain citizen who was to be put to death illegally,2 planning thereby to make Socrates willy-nilly a party to their actions. But he refused, risking the utmost danger rather than be an associate in their impious deeds. When I saw all this and other like things of no little consequence, I was appalled and drew back from that reign of injustice.3 ([Ep.] VII 324b–325a, tr. Morrow in Cooper 1997)

{xvi} These relatives of Plato’s included Charmides (a member of the Ten), who was his mother’s brother, and Critias (a member of the Thirty), who was his mother’s cousin; these are the two main interlocutors in the Charmides. Socrates, who succeeded in keeping himself independent of their devices, was the famous philosopher; he is the narrator of the dialogue. Soon enough, the oligarchic government was overthrown, Charmides and Critias being killed in the process, and Plato’s political ambitions momentarily rekindled; but the restored democracy proved little better (325a–b). Nor could Socrates, again hounded by opportunists, this time walk free: he was tried for impiety, convicted, and executed by the city in 399. “The more I reflected upon what was happening,” the Seventh Letter continues, “upon what kind of men were active in politics, and upon the state of our laws and customs, the more I realized how difficult it is to manage a city’s affairs rightly” (325c).4 Plato thus abandoned any plans for leadership in Athens and set upon a varied life: writing about three dozen dialogues featuring the stars of late fifth-century Athenian culture, Socrates preeminent among them; traveling three times to Sicily, to advise its rulers, mostly unsuccessfully; and founding a school in the Athenian suburbs (the Academy) in the mid-380s, to coordinate research and teaching, thereby instituting the discipline of philosophy.5

All of Plato’s dialogues have survived, and nearly all have a political character. Plato was thought to have perfected an already-existing prose genre, of realistic conversations told in dramatic form. Indeed, other associates of Socrates may have already been writing what were called logoi Sôkratikoi (“Socratic discourses”).6 Their purposes surely varied, and none can be precisely established, but we might imagine them to include publicizing Socrates’ astonishing private remarks; seeking to acquit him of impiety; memorializing him; proselytizing for his mode of philosophy; contrasting his method and way of life with those of other influential people; and provoking discussion about knowledge, virtue, and the soul.

Much scholarship in the twentieth century sought to determine the order in which Plato wrote his dialogues. This was done to help interpret a set of profoundly complex, dialogical, and indeterminate works, in the interest of ascertaining Plato’s own views. (Plato never included himself as a character, in contrast to other dialogue-writers.) Variety across the dialogues could be explained {xvii} as Plato’s response to personal events or contemporary affairs, and patterns of change could be seen as tracking his evolving thought or his orchestrated unfolding of an increasingly advanced curriculum.7 A rough consensus in the scholarship came to group them into three periods: Whereas the earliest included short “Socratic” dialogues, reflecting the commitments of the historical Socrates, the latter two reflected Plato’s own thoughts and eventually his critical responses to those thoughts. Further research sought to establish the precise ordering of dialogues within these three periods.8

In the past few decades, however, scholars have increasingly avoided making strict—or any—chronological claims for all but a group of the last six late dialogues.9 The evidence is too inconclusive, and any inference from stylistic change is confounded by the chance, among other things, that Plato revised his works.10 A more important realization, however, has been that even were we to know in what order Plato composed his dialogues, we would not thereby know how to interpret them. We simply do not know enough about his authorial aims.

The reader may be best off suspending assumptions about Plato’s overall program and first focusing on an individual dialogue, and then making connections after reading others. Plato approaches the same issues from different angles, and of course he never appears as a character and tells us what he thinks. In the end, the question of Plato’s own view may be incidental, to the extent that his dialogues aim to inspire us to do philosophy ourselves.

The Place of the Charmides in the Platonic Corpus

The extant medieval manuscripts of Plato’s works tend to follow the dialogue order of Thrasyllus, an editor from the first century ce, who was inspired to group the dialogues into tetralogies after the fashion of ancient tragedies. The first two groups include dialogues linked dramatically to Socrates’ trial; the Charmides comes only in the fifth tetralogy, after the Theages and before the Laches and Lysis. Like Thrasyllus, other ancient sources show little concern for compositional chronology; but unlike him, they more explicitly categorize on the basis of formal {xviii} criteria. A prominent ancient taxonomy divides the Platonic dialogues into two broad classes: those of instruction (huphêgêtikos) and of inquiry (zêtêtikos).11 The dialogues of inquiry fall in turn into those for training (gumnastikos), presumably in dialectical discussion, and those for skill in competitive debate (agônistikos). The dialogues for training include those of midwifery (maieutikos) and of testing (peirastikos). The Charmides falls into this final category, with the Euthyphro, Meno, Ion, and Theaetetus, though how they differ from the “maieutic” dialogues—the Alcibiades, Theages, Lysis, and Laches—is uncertain. It is hard to see how Aristotle’s definition of “testing” arguments, as those that aim at revealing the ignorance of the interlocutor (SE 169b25; cf. 165a39), would explain it. Appealing to a different criterion, an anonymous sixth-century Neoplatonist names the Charmides, along with the Lysis and the Euthyphro, as a work in which Socrates argues on both sides of an issue (Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 10.18–20). Whatever the cogency of these distinctions, editors had to come up with some explanation for Plato’s writing the Charmides, if they could not see it as presenting Plato’s central doctrines—which they could not. It is unclear even how much experience ancient readers had with the dialogue: despite Plato’s works serving as primary curriculum for centuries of students, the Charmides was perhaps not once assigned.12

Modern scholars have classified the Charmides across more modalities.13 From the perspective of content, many would now call it a dialogue of definition; from the perspective of outcome, aporetic; from the perspective of dramatic form, narrated (by Socrates); and from the perspective of Plato’s supposed doctrinal development, a specifically Socratic (rather than Platonic) dialogue.14

{xix} Dialogue of definition: Most of the conversation of the Charmides involves Critias’ and Charmides’ defenses of their one-word or one-phrase definitions of sôphrosunê (the virtue of “discipline,” traditionally “temperance” or “moderation”). About a third of the Platonic dialogues include Socrates asking “What is x?” (ti esti); among them are the Euthyphro (“piety” or “reverence”), Theaetetus (“knowledge”), Sophist (“the sophist”), Statesman (“the statesman”), Laches (“courage”), Lysis (“friendship”), Greater Hippias (“beauty”), and Republic (“justice”).15 They differ in length, primary speaker, technical complexity, and resolution.

Aporetic: The Charmides ends with explicit remarks about Socrates’ and the interlocutors’ inability to answer the question with which they started (“Does Charmides possess sôphrosunê?”). This state of aporia (“puzzlement” or “perplexity”) characterizes another subset of dialogues—the Euthyphro, Theaetetus, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, and Greater and Lesser Hippias, among others. Yet there may be little value in distinguishing strictly between aporetic and non-aporetic dialogues: the latter contain much that is admittedly or implicitly hypothetical, uncertain, untested, or otherwise imperfectly credible. Further, even if certain characters in a dialogue fail to express incertitude, we cannot thereby assume that Plato expects his readers to accept whatever conclusions the characters draw.16 Nor can we assume that if the sought-after conclusion is uncertain, all else is uncertain; we may be drawn to make other inferences with more confidence.

Narrated: Socrates narrates the Charmides to a silent and anonymous listener (whom he addresses three times), a scenario repeated in the Rival Lovers, Lysis, and Republic; he also narrates the conversations in the Euthydemus and the Protagoras, though there the listeners prompt him and respond.17 The narrated dialogues allow the inclusion of action and emotion, commentary and paraphrase. They set the narration’s content prior to the report itself, inviting readers to wonder why the narrator is retelling the story, with what likely effect. The Charmides’ attention to self-knowledge makes especially provocative Socrates’ reflection, many years later, on his conversation in 429 bce.

{xx} Early Socratic dialogue: The Charmides has often been (and sometimes still is) called an “early” dialogue, in which Socrates does not yet “speak for Plato.” Some scholars have thought that Plato wrote it while Socrates or even Critias was still alive, before 403 bce: given, from their controversial perspective, its gentle treatment of Critias, it may look like an attempt to win him back to a better life.18 Others have suggested pre-393, as a response to accusations of Socrates’ corruption of Critias, which they think would have circulated in the first half decade after the execution.19 A more recent view is that it was written in 382/1.20 Gregory Vlastos, among the twentieth century’s leading interpreters of Plato, eschewed precise datings and instead included the Charmides in Plato’s “first period,” with the Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Lesser Hippias, Ion, Laches, Protagoras, and Book I of the Republic (1991, 46). He took those dialogues not to report Plato’s own epistemological, metaphysical, or methodological views. By contrast with ancient commentators, however, he did think they report the independently interesting ethical views of Socrates. Thus Vlastos, and many of his colleagues and students, found a dichotomy in the Platonic dialogues, rather than a whole to be interpreted together (a view called “developmentalism,” by contrast to “unitarianism”). Among the weaknesses of Vlastos’ view is the fact that nothing about the dialogue itself tells us how Plato imagines the relationship between the character Socrates and the historical man or between the imputed thoughts of that character and his own thoughts. The Charmides also spends more than half its length treating of epistemological and methodological issues, so there is nothing about its subject matter that clearly distinguishes it from reputedly later dialogues such as the Meno and the Theaetetus.21

Dramatic Date and Audience

Though we cannot establish the date of the Charmides’ composition, we do know one of its dramatic dates. The earlier is the date of the conversation that Socrates retells—May 429, shortly after the years-long siege of Potidaea (which began in {xxi} late 432).22 Plato’s dialogues refer to two large-scale battles there. The first battle, in which Socrates and Alcibiades fought together, occurred in the fall of 432, on the Olynthus side of the isthmus (Thu. 1.62–63; Pl. Smp. 219e–220d). The second, following a disbanding of forces, took place near Spartolus, where the Athenians, having defeated a group of Chalcidians, were later driven back to Potidaea with a loss of hundreds of men and all the generals. The year 429 was also the second year of the plague that devastated Athens—it killed Pericles several months later and sent Athenian moral life into wholesale crisis (anomia, “lawlessness”), according to Thucydides, where the lust for pleasure outweighed commitment to any other norm (2.53). This is the plague that Socrates’ Diotima was said to have held off by ten years (Smp. 201d). Also around 429 was the debut of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, a play notably featuring a plague, the hazards of self-knowledge, and the relevance of sôphrosunê to ruling (OT 529). The audience to the conversation between Socrates, Charmides, and Critias in the Charmides is extensive: there are many (153a5) people at the palaestra (“wrestling school”), apparently all of whom are eager to hear the discussion (153c9). The later dramatic date is the date of Socrates’ retelling that conversation to an anonymous listener: as late as 399, but not so close to 429 that Socrates could assume his audience’s knowledge about this major conflict at the start of the war (153b5–6). There are too few clues even to conjecture the identity of that audience or the occasion for Socrates’ retelling.23

Plato has set the main conversation of the Charmides at a specific time and place, with characters who are historical personages, with distinct personalities and careers. The dense network of relations between the topics of conversation—the virtue sôphrosunê, the Delphic maxim “Know yourself,” political utopianism, philosophical investigation—and the known lives and concerns of the dramatis personae strongly suggest that Plato intends for the dialogue’s scene and historical content to influence the way we understand its arguments.

Geographical Setting

Socrates specifies that he met his friends at the palaestra of Taureas, across from the shrine of Basile.24 Arguing from the principle of dramatic economy, one might {xxii} suppose this is the Taureas who was convicted, with Charmides and Critias among others, of profaning the Mysteries of Eleusis in 415.25 The shrine of Basile (not to be confused with “Basileia”) is the holy site of a (now poorly understood) deity, who may represent Persephone or personify sovereignty.26

Characters

Socrates (469–399)

Socrates was born in Athens and was executed by the Athenian state seventy years later.27 His early years are poorly documented. His parents were a stoneworker and a midwife, but we do not know their socioeconomic status or whether he initially took up his father’s trade. Plato’s Parmenides and Phaedo have Socrates philosophically curious as a young man, and the Protagoras treats him as an intellectual exemplar but outside the highest cultural elite when in his mid-thirties. Fragments of ancient comedy show that he had gained celebrity by the early 420s, after his return from Potidaea that occasions the Charmides.28 His fame could have been related to his military exploits: he acted with valor in saving Alcibiades, perhaps the most famous Athenian of his generation and a ward of Pericles, Athens’ leader, in an early battle (fall of 432), and then demurred from the accolades (Pl. Smp. 220e).29 Alcibiades also testifies to Socrates’ preternatural endurance and meditative reflectiveness while on the Potidaean campaign and his fearsome courage during the retreat from Delium in 424 (Smp. 219e–220b). But it was probably more than that: Aristophanes’ Clouds, first produced in 423, presents Socrates as already a well-known teacher of argument and religious naturalism, and dean of a school of diverse scientific research; already he is associated with the ideas of sôphrosunê, self-knowledge, and interrogative elenchus (“testing,” “refuting”) and {xxiii} with a humble station, wiliness, vulnerability to public hatred, and his friend Chaerephon.30

The Charmides itself presents a wondrously multifaceted portrait of Socrates: successful warrior, social butterfly, erotically primed, pedagogically inspired, argumentatively sophisticated, steeped in poetry, masterful in conversation, and at the same time subtle, circumspect, and anxious about the well-being of his fellow Athenians. He shows an equivocal attitude toward beauty; he spends most of his time evincing his interlocutors’ views; and he repeatedly asserts methodological inadequacy. How Plato’s portrayal of him relates to the dialogue’s central investigation into the nature of sôphrosunê is an open question.

Chaerephon (c. 470–before 399)

Socrates’ first acquaintance to hail him at the palaestra is Chaerephon, elsewhere presented as one of his closest and oldest friends.31 Chaerephon initiates a larger group conversation by seating Socrates next to Critias (153c5–7); in his final remark, he asks Socrates for his appraisal of Charmides’ looks (154d1–2). He plays a similarly introductory role in the Gorgias.32 He is well known now as codirector of Socrates’ school in Aristophanes’ Clouds and for supposedly learning from the Delphic Oracle that nobody surpasses Socrates in wisdom (Pl. Ap. 20e–21a; see also Xen. Ap. 14), which wisdom Socrates interprets as the recognition that he lacks knowledge of the most important matters. As a member of the democratic faction, Chaerephon fled into exile during Critias’ oligarchic government in Athens in 404/3. He returned with Thrasybulus, the leader of the democrats. Whether he fought against the oligarchs and died in battle is unknown, but he bore something of the costs of Critias’ political disaster.

Early in the Charmides, Socrates refers to Chaerephon as a “madman” (manikos, 153b2), which parallels his description of him as “intense” (sphodros) in the Apology (21a3). Since the dialogue seeks the meaning of sôphrosunê, some readers have supposed that Chaerephon exemplifies some version of its opposite.33 This explanation gets at best mixed support from Plato’s dialogues, where manikos has {xxiv} a range of connotations and evaluations.34 The relationship between the virtue and this character trait is again an open question.

Critias (c. 460–403)

Critias, a notable poet and political theorist, traced his ancestry to the early ruling families of Athens and claimed kinship with Solon.35 He was a close associate of Alcibiades, and may have been the lover of Plato’s brother Glaucon, Socrates’ primary interlocutor in the Republic.36 He was appointed his younger cousin Charmides’ guardian after his father’s death. Critias must have spent some time with Socrates (156a8; cf. Prt. 316a, 336e; Critias A1 DK), but the tenure and tenor of this association is disputed. Xenophon, for example, says that people overestimated their connection, wrongly blaming the notorious rule of the Thirty on Socrates’ influence (Mem. 1.2.12, 24–39; Hell. 2.4.19; cf. Aeschines 1.173). In 415, Critias was arrested for, but then exonerated of, the sacrilegious crime of mutilating the herms, statues at the entranceway to Athenian houses, a vandalism related to the impending invasion of Sicily.37 A few years later, there was another accusation (Aristot. Rhet. I 15, 1375b32), this one now lost to history, and for some reason he was exiled. He spent at least part of his exile in Thessaly—a place where Plato’s Socrates does not want to live out his days (Crito 53d–54a)—apparently establishing a democracy (Xen. Hell. 2.3.36).38 In 404, having returned to Athens, he became one of the leaders of the Spartan-backed oligarchy that came to be known as the “Thirty Tyrants” and, according to near-contemporaneous sources, executed some fifteen hundred Athenians without trial and drove more than five thousand others from their homes to the Piraeus (Isoc. 7.67; [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 35.4). Xenophon, {xxv} who presents him as a terrible villain, writes that Critias also took specific aim at Socrates, forbidding the teaching of the “art of words” (Mem. 1.2.31).39 Critias was killed fighting the democrats at the Battle of Munychia in 403. His numerous fragmentary and undatable writings range across several genres.40 Some show Spartan proclivities and the promotion of sôphrosunê and moderate drinking. A number of tragic fragments have a small claim to his authorship; the “Sisyphus fragment” presents a naturalizing view of human belief in the gods.41

Our dialogue is set twenty-five years prior to the rule of the Thirty. Critias is around thirty years old and evidently has established himself as a leading intellectual; the Protagoras, set about four years earlier, presents him as the only Athenian besides Socrates and Alcibiades to play a role in the discussion (316a, 336d–e). In the Charmides, he has his own account of sôphrosunê, “doing one’s own things,” which he has advanced in some public setting (161b5–6). His clever interpretations of Hesiod and the Delphic maxims (whatever their ultimate merit), and his ability to challenge Socrates’ inferences (whether rightly or not), reflect a lively and acute mind. But he is also portrayed as ambitious and contentious (162c2–3), unlike his modest cousin (158c5–7, 159b1–2). He accuses Socrates of trying to score points off him (166c3–6). He gets embarrassed and babbles when he can no longer defend his definition (169d1). The end of the dialogue may even point to an authoritarian streak, when Charmides jokes that he and Critias will use force against Socrates (176b5–d5).

Charmides (c. 446–403)

Our title character is Plato’s maternal uncle and scion of two illustrious Athenian families (157e1–158a7).42 His guardian, Critias, says that people consider him the most outstanding young man of the post-Alcibidian generation, both in attractiveness and sôphrosunê (154a4–6, 157d6–8). The tradition remembered him as, later, a beloved of Socrates’.43 Critias also says that he is philosophical and poetic, at least according to popular reputation, but we have no writings from {xxvi} him, and unlike Critias or Socrates, he seems not to have distinguished himself on either front. The historical record is instead rather sordid. He was convicted, with Alcibiades and others, of defaming the Eleusinian Mysteries in 415 in his house by the Olympieum. He forfeited his property, fled into exile, and was condemned to death. When, apparently, the conviction was overturned, possibly in 407, he returned to Athens, but his property had already been sold off, and for some reason he could not rely on what family members he had (Critias may have still been in exile), and so he lived in poverty.44 He retained some political viability, perhaps because of his connection to Critias: during the oligarchy of 404/3, he was made a member of the Ten, the unit that governed the Piraeus (Athens’ port city). With his cousin he died at Munychia.

In the Charmides, Charmides is no more than seventeen years old.45 This puts him on the threshold of adulthood and adult responsibilities.46 He is still young enough to need a guardian; sexual propriety requires Critias be present when Socrates talks with him (155a4–7). Yet Critias proclaims him able to contribute to discussions in his own right. He knows something of intellectual currents; he follows Socrates’ instructions well, responding appropriately to his questions; he keeps going when his first definitions meet obstacles; and he attentively follows the conversation with Critias and is eager to have further discussions.

When Critias says that Charmides is considered to have the most sôphrosunê of those his age (157d1–8), he does not say on what grounds, or whether he agrees. Doubt that Critias does comes from the fact that, when he rephrases Socrates’ response to the request that he cure Charmides’ morning headaches, he admits that Charmides may have to “improve his mind (dianoia).” All the same, Charmides does exhibit traits connected in the dialogue’s conversation to sôphrosunê: conversationally, he proceeds carefully; he appears modest and blushes when at risk of self-promotion; he tries to do as well as he can; and when instructed by Socrates to study himself, he does. From a more skeptical perspective, however, he may look bashful, passive, and dependent on external marks of value.

After the dramatic date of Charmides, the next we meet with Charmides in extant Greek literature is in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (3.7). There Socrates talks {xxvii} with Charmides as a “man” (anêr), at least twenty and old enough to enter politics.47 Socrates assumes he esteems athletic competition but from “shame” or “reserve” (aidôs) remains hesitant to engage in public politics: he fears being laughed at by the Assembly. Socrates counsels him not to worry about that. He concludes by admonishing Charmides, “Don’t be ignorant of yourself” (mê agnoei seauton), and he makes the general observation that many people who “look into other people’s business” (skopein ta tôn allôn pragmata) neglect to “examine themselves” (exetazein heautous). Charmides seems to risk forgoing self-examination for other reasons, of course; but the implication is that doing one’s own things can lead to political engagement. Socrates’ assumption that Charmides cares about athletics comes up once again in the pseudo-Platonic Theages. Socrates says to his interlocutor,

Surely you know Charmides (son of Glaucon) who’s become so good-looking. He once happened to be consulting with me when he was just about to train for the race at Nemea. As soon as he began to tell me that he was going to train, the voice came and I tried to stop him and said, “As you were speaking, the voice of the spiritual thing [i.e., Socrates’ daimonion] came to me. Don’t train!” “Maybe,” he said, “its significance is that I won’t win; but even if I’m not going to win, I’ll benefit from the exercise I’ll get.” Saying this, he trained; it would be worthwhile to ask him what happened to him as a result of his training. (128d8–129a1, tr. Smith in Cooper 1997)

The meaning of this exchange is uncertain.48

At some point, Charmides no longer associated with Socrates. Plato’s Symposium, which takes place in 415, lists him with Alcibiades and other jilted lovers (222b). Like the Symposium, our dialogue raises—but does not directly answer—questions about Socrates’ responsibility for the young men who were once so eager to spend time with him but ended up pursuing a very different way of life.

{xxviii} Sôphrosunê

Why Sôphrosunê?

Why might Plato have written a dialogue about sôphrosunê (“discipline” in our translation, traditionally “temperance” or “moderation”), other than to write dialogues about all the most important virtues (and thereby canonize them)? Why specifically tell a story about sôphrosunê with Socrates, Critias, and Charmides? The second question is easier to answer. Throughout Socratic literature, Socrates exemplifies sôphrosunê: according to Xenophon, the Delphic Oracle pronounced that no man was more sôphrôn (Ap. 14); in Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades and others testify to his superlative sôphrosunê in war, love, conversation, drink, and much else (219d–220e). The Charmides reflects these characteristics, in its hints at Socrates’ hardiness during the war, equanimity after the tragedy at Potidaea, erotic prepossession around Charmides, and unflappability around an aggravated Critias. Critias belongs in a dialogue about sôphrosunê, too, for he famously theorized and advocated the virtue (cf. Chrm. 161b8, 162b1–c6; Critias B6–7 DK), and his behavior as a member of the Thirty could have caused close scrutiny of his exercise of it. Charmides, for his own part, may historically have been exemplary in self-restraint, sensitivity to shame, and cautious hesitation (cf. Xen. Mem. 3.7)—behaviors and terms Charmides himself links to sôphrosunê in the Charmides, in support of his reputation as the bright star of Athenian sôphrosunê (cf. 157d6–8). Conversations between Socrates, Critias, and even Charmides seem historically probable, given the rhetorical effectiveness of associating Socrates and Critias in later years, and the harm this did to Socrates’ reputation. An author writing in an apologetic key could have thought to repair that reputation by distinguishing the men in particular by their respective attitudes toward and embodiment of sôphrosunê.

We can make sense of the first question—why Plato wrote about sôphrosunê at all—by considering the centrality of sôphrosunê to ethical reflection. Plato’s other dialogues show that it is much more than an aspect of self-possession, to be found not merely on the plane of good manners, elegance, or wit. In the Protagoras, Socrates glosses it as acting “correctly and beneficially” (orthôs kai ôphelimôs, 332a6–7) and tries to get Protagoras to see its similarity to wisdom (332a–e). In the Gorgias, sôphrosunê names the orderliness of soul constituting human virtue; concretely, this means, according to Socrates, acting appropriately toward gods, men, possessions, and pleasures. Socrates argues that the successful life amounts to the pursuit of sôphrosunê, which, in another of his formulations, is steadfast endurance in the proper way of living (506e–507d). This is after having said that rule {xxix} over others requires sôphrosunê and self-control (enkrateia), which is rule over oneself and one’s desires (491d–e). In the Republic, sôphrosunê is an agreement among participants in ruling and being ruled, effecting harmony and flourishing in cities and souls (e.g., 430d–432b)—the opposite condition to tyranny. The Laws even positions sôphrosunê as a prerequisite for justice and stresses its centrality to the life of its city’s citizens (see, e.g., 696b–697c, 711d–e).49

Early Greek Uses of Sôphrosunê

The dialogue’s first two definitions of sôphrosunê, “(a sort of state of) tranquility” (hêsuchiotês tis or hêsuchia) and a “sense of shame” (aidôs), would have topped any Greek’s list for plausible candidates. The third, “doing one’s own things” (to ta heautou prattein), might not have—it was probably Critias’ invention (see “Sôphrosunê in the Charmides” and Analysis §9 below)—but Critias’ two glosses of that definition, “doing good things” and “knowing oneself,” would also have seemed familiar enough. Thus, we need not understand the progression of definitions as an advance from silly to serious, or from superficial to deep, but as through some of the most reasonable and instructive definitions available to Plato.50 A brief survey of early uses of the term sôphrosunê shows this; and the dialogue itself might seem to “save the appearances,” offering to readers the reasonableness of each candidate.

Sôphrosunê and its adjectival form appear four times in Homer. In its only appearance in the Iliad, Apollo says to Poseidon that he would not be sôphrôn were he to contend with him over mere mortals (21.462); he then turns away in shame (21.468). In the Odyssey, Telemachus manifests sôphrosunê throughout the journey he undertakes to learn what happened to his father: when visiting great Menelaus, he is sôphrôn and feels ashamed (nemessatai eni thumôi) lest he speak in an untoward fashion (4.158). He manifests it again on his return, when, recognizing his father, he is able to keep the discovery to himself, so as not to tip off the suitors, just because his thoughts are tempered by sôphrosunê (Od. 23.30). Only a few lines earlier, Penelope’s nurse reports her own realization that Odysseus has returned; but Penelope disbelieves her, thinking the gods made her crazy, as the gods can. Her evidence: they can even do the reverse, instill the “weak-minded” {xxx} (chaliphroneonta) with sôphrosunê (Od. 23.13; both Greek words have the element phrên, connected to “mind”).51

In each case, sôphrosunê counts as “good sense” or “prudence,” but none clarifies whether this is properly an intellectual or moral achievement (however such a distinction might be made). For Apollo to battle Poseidon over a triviality exhibits either too hot a temper or too dull a calculation. For Telemachus to speak rashly to Menelaus exhibits either a childish impetuosity or an inadequate appreciation for social distinctions. Thus, from the Homeric period, the term is ambiguously epistemic and conative. What is clear is that the term is deeply connected to shame, a recognition of propriety, and social comportment.52

In the work of Theognis, a sixth-century aristocratic poet, we see the term sôphrosunê in wider application.53 Over-drinkers lack both it and a sense of shame (467–98, 1326); it represents maturation beyond youthful dalliances (379, 754); and it involves aiming at justice and having good judgment, feeling awe or shame before gods (701, 1138). Pindar, a younger poet commissioned by aristocrats, links sôphrosunê to courage and discretion, connects it with good order and moderation, and associates it with justice (Isthmian 8.26; Paean 52a.10; Partheneia 94b.62). A contemporary, Hipponax (fr. 182 W), and a predecessor, Semonides (7.108 W), both treat sôphrosunê as all-around goodness in the domestic realm.

Thus, by the birth of Socrates in 469, sôphrosunê, still linked frequently with aidôs and its synonyms, means “thoughtful” (i.e., not foolish), “measured” (not impulsive or impetuous), “controlled” (not intemperate or excessive), “principled” (not hubristic or unjust), and “good.” The fragments of fifth-century intellectual reflection on sôphrosunê likewise show a broad semantic range. Heraclitus speaks of sôphrosunê in its verbal form as the “greatest virtue” (aretê megistê) and may connect it with “wisdom (sophiê), speaking and doing what’s true in accordance with nature [and] understanding (epaïontas) it.”54 In Sophocles’ Ajax, it refers to reverence toward the gods (132), respect for patriarchal authority (586) or military leadership (677, 1075, 1259), and good sense (1264). The sophist and political writer Antiphon treats it as control of one’s desires, forbearance, and being well ordered (kosmios), which conduces to one’s own and others’ interests (D55–56 LM). Both Protagoras and Euripides may link it with justice as the prevention {xxxi} of feuds and faction, undergirding civic harmony (Pl. Prt. 322b–323b; Eur. Autolycus fr. 282.25–27 TrGF). Euripides’ Hippolytus, which concerns sôphrosunê (often implying and translated as “chastity”) as a familial and personal ideal, won first prize at the City Dionysia in 428, the year following the Charmides’ dramatic date. Sôphrosunê thus has fundamental political, domestic, and personal value, concerned with order, rationality, and practical success. It has noted application to women, children, and slaves, in praise of their obedience and silence.55

One analysis that seems not to fit this trend comes later, and will have a powerful influence on the subsequent philosophical tradition. Writing in the mid-fourth century, Aristotle defines sôphrosunê as the virtue concerned with moderating bodily appetites, in particular for food, alcoholic drink, and sex (NE III 10–12). Admittedly, earlier usages pertained to alcohol and sex, but Aristotle’s construal does seem rather narrow. We can make some sense of it by looking to a few passages in Plato. In the Republic, Socrates observes that most people think of sôphrosunê as following rulers and ruling themselves in the pleasures of food, drink, and sex (389d; cf. 364a, 389e–391e, 430e–431b). In the Phaedo, the “common conception” of the virtue involves not being excited by desires of the body and instead being orderly and caring little for them (68c, e)—whereas the opposite quality, akolasia (“lack of discipline,” “licentiousness”), involves desires for the sensual pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex (64d). Somehow, the control-of-bodily-appetites aspect of sôphrosunê gained enough salience by the early fourth century for Plato to call it a “common conception” and enough significance in the following decades for Aristotle to treat it as the appropriate conception. This fact seems not, however, to prove that appetite control had always been the core notion of sôphrosunê; indeed, Socrates in the Phaedo appears to think that appetite control is simply an offshoot of what the exercise of sôphrosunê really involves.56

Sôphrosunê in the Charmides

We may now return to the Charmides. It might seem obtuse that none of Plato’s characters defines sôphrosunê as self-control (enkrateia) in matters of pleasure.57 This expectation is somewhat anachronistic, though; that sort of definition gains popularity only several decades after the dialogue’s dramatic date. In Aristophanes, {xxxii} for example, sôphrosunê means orderly behavior and sexual modesty (Clouds, 423 bce), civic stability (Birds, 414 bce), female silence and diffidence (Lysistrata, 411 bce), and lawfulness (Wealth, 388 bce). But Plato is aware of the view, as we saw above, and makes it thematic in the opening drama of the dialogue. As the text reveals, Socrates seems to exemplify self-control in his return from a campaign in which, as we learn from the Symposium, he had already distinguished himself for self-mastery; Charmides joins the palaestra gathering surrounded by rambunctious friends, and we may wonder whether his morning headache, the curing of which provides the occasion for his conversation with Socrates, indicates excesses the night before; and when Socrates apparently feels the pang of lust for Charmides’ good looks, he, unlike the other lovestruck men, keeps himself together. Sôphrosunê does have something to do with self-control; what needs investigation are the nature, source, and value of this self-control.

Before the conversation turns to definitions, Socrates gives a speech about a Thracian doctor he met on campaign in which he glosses sôphrosunê as the health of the soul and the source of all human good (156e6–157b1). This view reflects long-standing traditions about the centrality of sôphrosunê, and stands in stark contrast to Critias’ eventual treatment of sôphrosunê as a very special kind of knowledge (epistêmê).

Socrates directs his first real question about sôphrosunê to Charmides: Is his reputation for sôphrosunê well deserved? Charmides blushes and explains that he can neither deny nor confirm his reputation, since denial would be dismissive of an elder authority figure, and confirmation would be self-aggrandizing. This response, if it reveals Charmides’ sôphrosunê, represents it as the virtue of social propriety, knowing one’s place, revering authorities, and not being too self-congratulatory (cf. Thg. 1142).

Charmides’ first formal definition is hêsuchiotês tis (more commonly hêsuchia), here translated as “a sort of state of tranquility” but also captured with “restraint,” “composure,” “peace,” “calm(ness),” or “quiet(ness).” The connection to sôphrosunê is canonical and emphasizes a state of human maturity.58 Silence is part of it, both verbally and, as it were, bodily. Xenophon describes Spartan sôphrosunê as “walking in the street keeping one’s hands close to one’s body, going in silence, not looking all about” (Lac. 3.4). The Superior Argument in Aristophanes’ Clouds praises attractive young men who take care not to draw attention to their beauty (962–84).59 More generally, hêsuchia/hêsuchiotês is deliberateness and dignity of bearing, and the opposite of (personal or political) rashness (cf. Thu. 3.82.4).

{xxxiii} Charmides’ second definition is aidôs, here translated as a “sense of shame,” though it also has an overtone of “acute respect.” We have already seen the pervasiveness of archaic connections between aidôs and sôphrosunê; it continues into the fifth and fourth centuries. In an Attic funerary engraving from around the time of Socrates’ death, the goddess Sôphrosunê is the daughter of “great-minded” Aidôs (IG II2 6859); and in a speech in Thucydides, aidôs (meaning “sense of honor”) contributes to sôphrosunê (meaning “being well-organized”) (1.84.3). In the so-called Great Speech in Plato’s Protagoras, Protagoras shifts between aidôs and sôphrosunê with as little fanfare as he does between dikê and dikaiosunê, nouns both meaning “justice” (322b–323a). Aristotle even notes that some of his predecessors assimilated the two (EE III 7, 1234a32–33).60

Charmides’ third definition, “doing one’s own things” (to ta heautou prattein), appears, as we have said, to be Critias’ innovation—a clever and abstract way to weave together various threads of the meaning of sôphrosunê, such as not speaking out of place and acting as befits one’s social role. The basic idea has Homeric credentials: in the Iliad, Hector says to the grieving Andromache, “Go back to the house now and take care of your own work” (eis oikon iousa ta s’ autês erga komizei, 6.490, tr. Lombardo 2000; cf. Od. 1.356)—leaving war-making, and its risks, to men. It also has Socratic-era currency, due either to Critias’ influential formulation or a shared stock of ideas: in Sophocles’ Electra (c. 410 bce), Clytaemnestra tells Electra to “do your own things” (su . . . ta sautês prass’, 678) and stop bemoaning news of her brother’s death; in Thucydides, the Spartans, whose sôphrosunê amounts to a corporate unity, are ignorant about “foreign affairs” or “things beyond themselves” (ta exô pragmata) and so seem only to do their own things (1.68.1); and in Xenophon’s Constitution of the Spartans, Lycurgus forbids free citizens from money-making occupations, arranging for them “to regard as their own work alone” (mona erga hautôn nomizein) efforts toward civic freedom (7.2).61 Critias’ definition appears to recognize the middle ground between polupragmosunê (“doing a lot,” “being a busybody”) and apragmosunê (“quiescence,” “not getting into others’ business”) to be doing something, just not others’ things. But what exactly Critias means by his definition is not clear, as Socrates shows. In the Republic, doing one’s own things can refer both to the division of labor (433a) and to self-sufficiency (369e–370a), revealing as much the phrase’s indeterminacy as its aptness.62

{xxxiv} The subsequent definitions—“doing good things” and “knowing oneself,” as well as the various versions of the latter—are apparently not new definitions (since neither Critias nor Socrates ever rejects the third proposal, as Charmides did his own proposals) but reformulations or alternative versions. We already saw, from the Gorgias, the connection between sôphrosunê and doing what is good; and Heraclitus had, several decades earlier, linked self-knowledge with sôphrosunê: “All human beings have a share in knowing themselves and sôphronein [i.e., being sôphrôn]” (fr. 116). What the “and” signifies is uncertain—does it identify or distinguish them?—but it suggests an important connection.

Translating Sôphrosunê

Ever since Cicero sought Latin equivalents for sôphrosunê, including temperantia, modestia, moderatio, and even frugalitas (e.g., On Duties 1.15, 98; Tusculan Disputations 3.36), translators of Greek have suffered over this word. They have often concluded that nothing fits precisely, or stably, or across all contexts. For example, the most illustrious nineteenth-century translator of Plato into English, Benjamin Jowett, writes that this “peculiarly Greek notion,” which he translates variously as “temperance” or “wisdom,” could also be rendered “modesty” or “discretion.”63 In any event, all translators must compromise between at least four criteria for success in word choice: scope (degree of overlap between the referents of the Greek and the modern term), salience (shared level of gravity and frequency of use), connotation (shared prototypes), and transparency (ease of recognizing the modern term as a translation of the Greek term). They must also track changing meanings of the Greek terms across generations of use, and similarly of the candidate English equivalents. We briefly review the four ways sôphrosunê is rendered in the in-print English translations of the Charmides before explaining our own choice.

“Sound-mindedness” (see West and West 1986) scores high on legibility, improved upon only by direct transliteration. Etymologically sôphrosunê looks decomposable into sô- (“preserve,” “keep safe”) and phro- (“mind”).64 It has the further advantages of making sense of two of the adjective sôphrôn’s familiar opposites, “mad” (manikos) and “foolish” (aphrôn), emphasizing the mental, intellectual, {xxxv} or cognitive aspects of sôphrosunê, and preserving the breadth of application with the vague prefix “sound-.” Unfortunately, the term lacks salience, as befits a term apparently invented as a translation.65 It has no colloquial role in English, and so it cannot capture the profundity of calling Charmides sôphrôn. It has no prototypes, and so the reader cannot do philosophy with it: it yields little to conceptual analysis, anecdotal reminiscence, or self-inspection. A more salient English word would help readers approximate the experience of Plato’s characters and original audience: being puzzled by a familiar term whose meaning they thought they wholly understood. Furthermore, “sound-mindedness” seems more like a default condition than an impressive achievement: in a legal context, being “of sound mind” characterizes anyone who can make a binding contract. Finally, it has few associations with the bodily, behavioral, and affective aspects of sôphrosunê, especially its connection to appetite, posture, and comportment.

“Moderation” (see Watt in Saunders 1987) has a traditional place in popular morality: bromides, maxims, and difficult injunctions calling for “nothing in excess.” But as the space between two extremes, moderation captures too much of laudatory activity. It also captures too little, disconnected from the tranquility, sense of shame, and knowing oneself that pertain to sôphrosunê. It makes sôphrosunê seem too little an achievement; it is hard to imagine admiring, praising, and emulating a young man for his extraordinary moderation. Perhaps the call to moderation is occasioned only by the systematically immoderate. “Moderation” is not transparent, since the Greeks used the adjective metrios (nominalized as metriotês) to refer to being in a state that avoids extremes.

“Self-control” (see Waterfield 2005) has a modern ring to it, with obvious moral-psychological importance, and covers both mental and physical efforts. But English-language ancient philosophy generally deploys it for enkrateia (“internal force”) in the writings of both Xenophon and Aristotle, both of whom strictly differentiate it from sôphrosunê. For both, enkrateia is the power to withstand the force of desire, whereas sôphrosunê, for Aristotle, is the state of having already moderated those desires and, for Xenophon, is the sensitivity to authoritative judgments (irrespective of one’s facility with counteracting desires).66 “Self-control” has the sense of an internal compromise that appears not to be present in sôphrosunê. A further problem comes from the prefix “self-.” It implies reflexivity {xxxvi} and inward-directedness, whereas sôphrosunê is not more obviously self-oriented or concerned with self-overcoming than other virtues (for example, wisdom or courage).67 Indeed, since Critias introduces a reflexive aspect (“knowing oneself”) only with the dialogue’s fifth formulation, any “self-” prefix term for sôphrosunê will make this move seem less surprising and less of an advancement than it is.

“Temperance” (see Jowett [1953, 1st ed. 1871] in Hamilton and Cairns 1961; Lamb 1927; Sprague [1973] in Cooper 1997), the most common translation in both Plato and Aristotle from the nineteenth century on, stems from the Latin verb temperare, originally meaning “mix in due proportion” and “observe proper measure,” its nominal form coming to mean “self-restraint,” “abstention,” and “sobriety.” Probably following Cicero and Aquinas, temperantia became the Christian and Scholastic translation of sôphrosunê, and so in turn did “temperance” (which then became an Elizabethan virtue). But after the nineteenth century, during which time it came to refer specifically to abstention from alcohol, the term fell out of common English usage. By the early twenty-first century, few if any students or scholars have substantive preconceptions about it; for those who do, their notions are usually too weighted in favor of control of one’s temper or Aristotle’s bodily-desire analysis, one that (as we have argued) misrepresents fifth-century sôphrosunê. In either case, using “temperance” makes it practically impossible to judge for ourselves the plausibility of the Charmides’ argumentative turns, or to think for ourselves what sôphrosunê might mean.

Sôphrosunê as “Discipline”

In our view, the most creditable translation of sôphrosunê for the Charmides, taking into account its dramatic date of 429, is “discipline.”68 It fits remarkably well the four translation criteria adumbrated above. Discipline and sôphrosunê have equivalent salience, since both are common terms that at the same time convey a serious, respect-worthy attainment. They have a shared scope, ranging from the focused student and the dedicated athlete to the prudent politician and the unyielding soldier. Their connotations are similar. “Discipline” reflects sôphrosunê’s ambiguous status as intellectual or moral: it can amount to diligent and rigorous thinking, {xxxvii} keeping one’s eye on the relevant values; but it can also amount to control of one’s wayward impulses and avoidance of reproach. Just as we strongly associate “discipline” with success, as the Greeks did sôphrosunê, both can be censoriously linked to non-spontaneity, risk aversion, and social conformity. Both can have a martial flavor pertinent to the Charmides’ military context, as Socrates has just returned from a drawn-out siege. Finally, while “discipline” is not as transparent as “temperance” or “moderation” as a translation of sôphrosunê for frequent readers of English translations of Greek philosophy, it is not unknown either, found often enough as a gloss or in the longer form “self-discipline” (which is synonymous with “discipline” in many contexts). Other familiar translation choices point in its direction too. A related verb, sôphronizein, means “to instill discipline.” The adjective akolastos, “undisciplined,” is a common antonym of sôphrôn. No other Greek term is regularly translated as “discipline,” excepting perhaps eutaxia, which does not appear in our dialogue and at any rate is closely linked to sôphrosunê (cf. Aristoph. Clouds 963–65; [Demosthenes] 25.24; [Pl.] Def. 411e).69

Some readers may hear “discipline” as rather more a matter of external conformity than of aspirational internal comportment. But we suspect that some Greeks doubted whether sôphrosunê should count as a virtue for exactly this reason.70 In any event, this apparent ambivalence, between socially imposed regularity and internally generated norm-following, is not unique to sôphrosunê; dikaiosunê (“justice”) suffers from the same vulnerability, as the cynicism of a Thrasymachus or Callicles shows: it, too, can seem a perniciously self-abnegating character trait masquerading as a personally and socially valuable virtue. Thus, the very frisson in the term “discipline” replicates, to some extent, that found in the Greek term sôphrosunê.

Self-Knowledge

Critias spends the latter half of the Charmides defending “knowing oneself” as a reformulation of his original definition of discipline, having been unable or unwilling to sustain it or his first modification of it, “doing good things.” He has realized that he believes, almost more strongly than anything else, that having discipline involves knowing that one is disciplined—and thus, apparently generalizing, that one knows oneself. He corroborates this view by saying that the imperative inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, “Know yourself” (gnôthi {xxxviii} sauton), actually means “Be disciplined” said as a greeting (see Analysis §12 for details). His interpretation of the inscription fails on its own to convince Socrates that discipline is knowing oneself, so they go on, in question-answer exchange, to develop the precise way in which Critias understands knowing oneself. They test different reformulations of “knowing oneself” against the assumption that discipline, whatever it is, is both possible and beneficial.

Critias, Socrates, Plato, and Greek readers in general have reason to see “knowing oneself” as a serious candidate for the definition of discipline. Socrates as narrator and character in the Charmides makes self-knowledge thematic: he reports on his erotic self-recognition, and he gives Charmides various ways to investigate his own possession of discipline. Across the Platonic dialogues, Socrates’ vaunted self-awareness—as ignorant of the greatest matters, including about death—seems decisive for his composure, integrity, and goodness in trying situations. And as we saw in the previous section, Heraclitus had already explicitly linked sôphrosunê with self-knowledge, a view that resonates with the “mindfulness” attributed to discipline throughout Greek thought. But this last issue deserves a little context.

The Delphic Gnôthi Sauton

By Socrates’ time, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi had “Know yourself” inscribed on its entrance (Chrm. 164d5). Yet we know surprisingly little else about the inscription: its dedication date, precise architectural location, source, or purpose. Some scholars have thought it had ritual purposes, others, a connection to Apolline wisdom—for example, about avoiding hubris or appreciating human limitations and mortality. But these views rest on almost no information, and we know that by the fifth and fourth centuries, the Greeks themselves did not share either assumption. Indeed, given that in his analysis of the maxim Critias does not have to reject these views, and can assert that even the maxim-inscribers at Delphi who followed the first one did not understand its purpose, perhaps the Greeks were as ignorant of the maxim’s original meaning as we are.

Heraclitus, despite saying that “all human beings have a share in knowing themselves and being disciplined (sôphronein)” (D30 LM), does not explain what knowing oneself amounts to, or why he connects it to sôphrosunê.71 Elsewhere, and quite famously, Heraclitus says, “I searched for myself” (D36 LM); while the connection to the “Know yourself” maxim is uncertain, the fragment’s importance is not. Throughout his fragments, Heraclitus admonishes people for failures to {xxxix} “recognize” (gignôskein, the verb in gnôthi sauton), in particular, their epistemic failures (e.g., D3, D19, D22, D25, D43 LM).

The gnôthi sauton appears four times in extant drama before Plato’s dialogues. In the Prometheus Bound (c. mid-fifth century bce, ascribed to Aeschylus), Oceanus gives Prometheus some advice: stop fighting against the ascendant Zeus; you’re already nailed down, and there’s nothing you can do: “Know yourself and adopt new habits” (gignôske sauton kai metharmosai tropous neous, 309–10). Prometheus is to recognize the situation he is in, temper his outrage, and deal reasonably with his condition. In a lost tragedy by Ion of Chios, somebody observes that while “knowing yourself” is a short phrase (and by implication nothing too difficult), in fact only the highest of the gods can understand it (fr. 55 TrGF). In Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus (c. 429 bce, also the dramatic date of the Charmides), Oedipus’ mother moans, “Oh ill-fated one, may you never come to know who you are (gnoiês hos ei)” (1068). And in Aristophanes’ Clouds (423 bce), a character says that spending time with Socrates teaches you to know yourself (gnôsei de sauton)—how ignorant and thickheaded you really are (841–42).

In the Platonic corpus, self-knowledge comes up repeatedly. Throughout the Apology, Socrates says that whatever human wisdom he has comes from recognizing that he does not know anything especially important (23a–b), and that he spends his whole life examining himself (28e, 29c–d, 38a). In the Phaedrus, Socrates says he must still work to obey the Delphic maxim; he has as yet no time to try to know anything besides himself. In the Protagoras (343b), after mentioning the Delphic inscription as a sage maxim, Socrates exhorts his interlocutors to test their own views. In Republic 7, the cave analogy helps Glaucon and Adeimantus see themselves in a new way. In the Philebus, Socrates says that the failure to obey the Delphic inscription is what makes people ridiculous (48c), and his interlocutor appreciates that the next best thing to knowing everything is not being mistaken about oneself (19c). Two dialogues whose authenticity has been questioned take up self-knowledge quite directly, the Alcibiades (124a, 129a, 132c–d) and the Rival Lovers (138a).72 As central a concern as self-knowledge is for Plato, however, the Charmides gives by far the longest analysis.

Self-Knowledge and the Charmides

This dialogue provides the most sustained reflection on self-knowledge of any extant Classical or Hellenistic work (indeed, there is no record even of lost Classical texts dedicated to the topic). Some of that reflection is implicit, or indirect. For {xl} example, Socrates wants Charmides to speak to his possession of discipline, first by having him assess himself (158c2–4); then by having him articulate his opinion about discipline based on the awareness he has of its presence (158e6–159a10); then by having him infer from his conception of himself the sort of thing discipline would have to be to make him that way (160d5–e1); and then by examining the meaning of his cousin’s definition, to which he seems at least minimally committed (161b4–c7). Plato leaves it up to us to assess the plausibility, reliability, and target of any of these routes to self-knowledge.73 Another example of indirect reflection on self-knowledge is Socrates’ recurrent avowal to check what he is inclined to believe, rather than simply assume that he knows something.

Some of that reflection, by contrast, is explicit. We see Critias finding “knowing oneself” a more promising, defensible, or illuminating formulation of his original idea—that discipline is “doing one’s own things”—than “doing good things”; and from there, he transforms it into “knowledge of oneself,” “knowledge of all the kinds of knowledge and of itself,” “knowledge of knowledge,” “knowledge of knowledge and ignorance,” and “knowing what one knows and does not know, that one knows the former and does not know the latter.” These last two formulations are often called in scholarship the “Critian” and “Socratic” formulations, respectively, but Socrates may simply aim to personalize Critias’ formulation, to make it at all plausible as a definition of the personal virtue sôphrosunê. The reader’s task is to make sense of these transformations: what they depend on, what they clarify, what they make salient, what they obscure, and what they leave out. In particular, readers might ask themselves whether “knowing oneself” could have been glossed, understood, or elaborated differently than Critias allowed, and if so, whether the definition might then have been sustained.

The Reception of the Charmides

The Charmides gets no explicit mention by Aristotle or Xenophon, even if implicit reliance seems probable.74 The dialogue was known in antiquity, but primarily for a few remarkable scenes and some unusual words: it played effectively no role in philosophical instruction or the commentary tradition. In the Renaissance, it was {xli} first translated into Latin by Ficino (drafted 1464–1466, revised and published with an epitome in the 1484 edition of Plato’s complete works), at least partially translated by Poliziano (probably in the early 1470s), and rendered into Italian by Tarquinia Molza (1542–1617).75 It was cited in Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), referenced in Erasmus’ Adagia (1500, 2nd ed. 1508), and twice quoted from in Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), though these authors may have relied on ancient intermediary sources. Its first translation into English, by Thomas Taylor, appeared in 1804, with a number of additional translations and paraphrases, mostly as parts of complete Plato editions, over the next hundred years.76 Dedicated scholarship has occurred infrequently until the last fifty years, during which time there have been many articles, dissertations, and monographs, though still no complete commentary has been published in any language.77

1. The primary ancient sources on this oligarchy, called the “Thirty” (or “Thirty Tyrants”), are [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 34–40; Xen. Hell. 2.3–4; Lys. 12; for a concise overview, see Nails 2002, 111–13.

2. The “certain citizen” is Leon of Salamis; Socrates describes the incident in Pl. Ap. 32c–e.

3. Translations of longer passages from Platonic texts, other than the Charmides, reproduce (sometimes with minor changes, set off in square brackets) those in Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), which collects all dialogues and other writings attributed to Plato.

4. On the letter’s authenticity and content, see Burnyeat and Frede 2015; neither believes Plato wrote it, though many scholars think he did, and there is general consensus about its basic historical reliability.

5. For Plato’s life and career, see Nails 2002, 243–50, and 2006.

6. Whereas Plato wrote almost only dialogues featuring Socrates (excepting the Laws), Xenophon and Antisthenes, among others, wrote much else besides. See, e.g., Sider 1980; Clay 1994; Nails 1995; Ford 2008; Stavru and Moore 2018.

7. For speculation about the place of the Charmides in the intended “reading order” of Plato’s dialogues, see Altman 2010.

8. For two perspectives on Plato’s literary motivations and his use of Socrates, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries “Plato” (Kraut 2017) and “Socrates” (Nails 2018).

9. Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and Laws, with Brandwood 1990. See the efficient discussions in Cooper 1997, xii–xviii; Nails 2006; Gonzalez 2015; Press 2015; and a recent scholarship review in Press 2018.

10. See Thesleff 2009, 230–35 [1982, 83–87].

11. This classification is found in Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Plato (3.49), from the third century ce. Diogenes acknowledges that others classify the dialogues by their literary form—dramatic, narrative, or mixed—but judges this a “tragic” rather than a “philosophical” categorization. The dialogues of instruction divide into theoretical (physical and logical) and practical (ethical and political) types.

12. See, e.g., Tarrant 2000b, 99–122, on the (minimal) use of Plato’s shorter works. The Charmides is mentioned only four times by Neoplatonist commentators (Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades 185.14 and Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus 82.5–17; Olympiodorus Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades 117.8–10, 214.9–10).

13. Some Renaissance translators and editors invented their own orderings. Ficino (1484) placed the Charmides twentieth, after the Euthydemus and the Lesser Hippias, before the Laches and the Clitophon. Stephanus (1578) placed it in volume two, part two (“specific virtues”), with the Second Alcibiades, Laches, Lysis, and Hipparchus.

14. Several skeptical German philologists of the nineteenth century (Ast, Schaarschmidt, Socher, and Troost) believed Plato did not write the Charmides at all, given its purported inconsistencies with the Republic and supposedly crude humor, but these views rightly never took hold (see Murphy 1986, 11–13).

15. One might also include parts of the Gorgias (“rhetoric”) and the Meno (“virtue”), and dialogues of dubious authenticity, including the Rival Lovers (“philosophy”) and the Hipparchus (“greed”).

16. See Corlett 2005 and 2009; on the issue of inferring Plato’s views from his characters’ words, see the essays in Press 2000.

17. Dialogues with non-Socratic narrators: the Phaedo (within a dramatic frame), Parmenides, Symposium (within a dramatic frame). On Socrates as narrator, see Schofield 2013 and Schultz 2013 (esp. ch. 3 on the Charmides); for contrasting views about the chronological place of this literary form in Plato’s career, see Taylor 1927, 46; Thesleff 2009, 199–213 [1982, 53–67]; and the useful summary at Thesleff 1989, 10, 18.

18. E.g., Schleiermacher 1818, 7–8; Whewell 1859, 45; Hyland 1981, 42; see further Murphy 1986, 14n4.

19. E.g., Newhall 1900, xi, xxvii; Tuckey 1951, 3 (399–387 bce).

20. Dušanić 2000. Kahn 1988, 541n1, proposes 386–380 bce, as after the “Socratic” dialogues (the Ion, Lesser Hippias, Gorgias, Menexenus) and during the establishment of the Academy (and thus as a “threshold dialogue,” “proleptic” for or oriented toward later dialogues, such as the Republic; cf. Kahn 1996).

21. Indeed, Vlastos seems to have devoted scant attention to the Charmides (Schofield 2006, 186n26; cf. Barker 1995). According to one stylometric analysis (Ledger 1989), its nearest kin is the Republic (followed by the Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Theaetetus); cf. Nails 1994. See further Luz 2001 for the Charmides’ connections with so-called “middle-period” dialogues.

22. Luckhurst 1934, 208; Planeaux 1999; Nails 2002, 311; Lampert 2010, 237–40. Many scholars assert a dramatic date of 432.

23. Lampert 2010, 235–37, suggests understanding the anonymous listener to be Plato, but we might then expect references to “your cousin,” etc.; the fact that Socrates seems to treat Chaerephon as known to his auditor but gives Critias’ patronymic muddies the water further.

24. On the ancient Greek palaestra (often part of a larger complex, the gumnasion) and its broader cultural and educational function, see Miller 2004, ch. 11. Compare the settings of the Theaetetus (a gymnasium in Athens), Lysis (a newly opened palaestra), and Euthydemus (the Lyceum, a gymnasium outside the city walls; cf. Pl. Euthphr. 2a; Smp. 223d; Lys. 203a).

25. Andoc. 1.16, 47 (On the Mysteries). Taureas may in addition have had rough dealings with Alcibiades; see Andoc. 4.20–22 (Against Alcibiades). See further Murphy 1986, 28; Wallace 1992; Nails 2002, 17–20, 91–92.

26. Cf. Wycherley 1960 and Shapiro 1986; for the relevance to the Charmides, see Witte 1970, 40–42; Murphy 1990, 335, and 2002, 133–34.

27. For a full assessment of the biographical evidence, see Nails 2002, 263–69.

28. Frr. 1 A 1–14 SSR; see also Bromberg 2018.

29. On Socrates’ military service, see also Ap. 28e. For discussion, see Anderson 2005; Monoson 2014 and 2016.

30. For Socrates in the Clouds, see Moore 2015b.

31. Chaerephon died c. 403–399; for details of his life, see Nails 2002, 86–87; Moore 2013.

32. Moore 2012a, 195–203.

33. E.g., Brann 2004, 73 (an “immoderate innocent, harmlessly unsound of mind”); Press 2012, 43.

34. In the Republic, being manikos characterizes vicious tyranny (577d) and disordered sexual desire (403a), definitely incompatible with sôphrosunê. But elsewhere it refers more mildly to a speed and vigor of action that in one context counts as courage but in another conflicts with sôphrosunê (Plt. 307b–308b). It can indicate the making of contradictory speeches (Soph. 242a; Prt. 343c), or the frenetic movements of the youth, the drunk, and dancers (Laws 672b, 791a). Finally, there are the views that most people who are “acute and keen and retentive” tend to rush around, manikoi rather than calm and collected (Tht. 144b), and that mania might provide the passion appropriate to philosophizing (Phdr. 244a).

35. For a full assessment of the biographical evidence, see Nails 2002, 108–11. On the life and works of the historical Critias, see Centanni 1997; Bultrighini 1999; Iannucci 2002. For Solon, see [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 5–13; cf. Noussia-Fantuzzi 2010; Flores 2013.

36. On Critias and Alcibiades, see Bultrighini 1999, ch. 3; for Glaucon, see Critias B75 DK, as interpreted by Schleiermacher.

37. See Nails 2002, 17–20, 109.

38. Xenophon says that when Critias was away from Socrates in Thessaly, he lost his sôphrosunê (Mem. 1.2.24–26).

39. There is debate about the accuracy of Xenophon’s portrayal; for an example of skepticism, see Danzig 2014.

40. These may be found in Diels and Kranz 1952, 2.371–99; Dillon and Gergel 2003, 217–65; Morison 2018.

41. On the tragic fragments, which ancient sources also attribute to Euripides, see Collard and Cropp 2008, 629–77; Wright 2016, 50–58.

42. For a full assessment of the biographical evidence, see Nails 2002, 90–94. It is not altogether certain whether the dialogue titles originate with Plato.

43. Maximus of Tyre Oration 18.4–5, 32.8, 38.4; Themistius Eroticus 177b; Theodoret Cure for Greek Maladies 12.58.4; cf. Pl. Smp. 222b; Xen. Mem. 3.6.1.

44. See Nails 2002, 91. In Xenophon’s Symposium (4.31), Charmides jokes about the benefits of this reversal of fortune; among other things, he says that, when he was rich, he was vilified for consorting with Socrates, but now no one bothers him about that.

45. See Nails 2002, 91; cf. Bloch 1973, 17n4, arguing that he is about fourteen.

46. In Prodicus’ famous “Heracles at the Crossroads,” the life of Virtue or Vice is chosen once a person has left behind childhood for adolescence (ek paidôn eis hêben, Xen. Mem. 2.1.21).

47. In the previous chapter (Mem. 3.6), Charmides’ relative Glaucon is mocked for speaking in the Assembly when he is not yet twenty. This sequence of exchanges was famous enough to be digested by Diogenes Laertius (2.29). Diogenes also records an undated story (2.31) that implies a continuing friendship between Charmides and Socrates: Charmides offers Socrates slaves, or at least the income from them, and Socrates rejects the offer, since only the leisure to acquire knowledge is worth owning.

48. Charmides may have spent too much time training and stopped associating with Socrates; or he actually won the race at Nemea, and it went to his head, and he stopped associating with Socrates; or he trained with Taureas (whose palaestra provides the location of the Charmides), who was implicated in the profanation of the Mysteries (Andoc. 1.47). Bailly 2004, 227, allows that the author may have intended this uncertainty.

49. See Annas 2017, 152–57, for discussion of sôphrosunê’s importance in Plato’s scheme in the Laws.

50. Scholars commonly suggest such a progression, e.g., North 1966, 156; Dorion 2004, 41, 53; Press 2012, 42. Still, there may be some forward movement; we wonder whether it is from “most distinctive about sôphrosunê vis-à-vis the other virtues” to “most explanatory of its being a virtue.”

51. These binary contrasts between being mindless and sôphrôn recur at Thg. 429–38, 454, 665.

52. See North 1966, 2–8; Rademaker 2005, 41–50, 54–61, for further context.

53. See Rademaker 2005, 75–88, for its connection to justice and peacefulness, and claims about its ideological use; cf. North 1966, 17–20.

54. Stobaeus 3.1.178 (= B112 DK) has recently been conjectured to be two independent fragments, D114a and b LM, such that “wisdom” is not connected to “sôphrosunê,” but there is not strong evidence in favor of this view.

55. See, e.g., Pomeroy 2013, 19–20, 28. Because of the term’s association with subaltern classes and with self-limitation, the virtue could sometimes be treated as of dubious value; see esp. North 1947.

56. Cf. North 1966, 197–211 (on Aristotle) and 150–95 (on Plato).

57. Dorion 2004, 37–41, puzzles over this issue.

58. Cf. Epicharmus fr. 101 PCG.

59. In the fourth century, the “Erotic Essay” attributed to Demosthenes celebrates the sôphrosunê of the ideal beloved.

60. See also Aristoph. Clouds 992–1006; Isoc. 7.48; Xen. Mem. 1.2.26; Cyr. 1.2.8–9; cf. Pl. Phdr. 253d–e.

61. See also, in the fourth century, Lys. 19.18, 26.3; Pl. Ap. 33a; Plt. 307e; Phdr. 247a; Alc. 107c–d, 127a–c; Grg. 526c; Rep. 496d6 (hêsuchian echôn kai ta hautou prattôn).

62. On the radical ambiguity of the definition, see Donovan 2003; Herrmann 2018, 105–10.

63. Jowett 1892, 1.3. Grote 1865, 1.482, also chooses “temperance” despite its being “very inadequate,” judging it better than the alternatives, “sobriety, moderation.” More recently, Malcolm Schofield calls sôphrosunê “a truly untranslatable word” before opting for “measured judgment” (2006, 147), while Christopher Rowe deems it “virtually untranslatable” before choosing “sound-mindedness” (2010, 206n13).

64. Cf. Pl. Cra. 411e4–412a1: sôteria (“preservation”) + phronêsis (“thoughtfulness”); Aristot. NE VI 5, 1140b11.

65. We have both often run classroom exercises where we ask students to list every virtue term they know; en masse, classes have come up with more than one hundred, and “sound-mindedness” has not once been mentioned. The noun does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary or the American Heritage Dictionary, though the OED does include “sound-minded” as an adjective from 1826.

66. On Xenophon’s conception of sôphrosunê, see Moore 2018b, 501–7.

67. See Kosman 1983, 213–15, and 2014b, 237–42, for a related argument, considering the term “self-mastery.”

68. In his Greek Popular Morality, K. J. Dover (1974, 118–19) translates sôphrosunê’s appearance in Thucydides—in speeches set a few years on either side of 429—as “discipline.” The popular Republic translation by Tom Griffith (Ferrari and Griffith 2000) uses “self-discipline”; for reasons we set out in discussing “self-control,” we find the prefix misleading. On the centrality of discipline to sôphrosunê in Plato’s Laws, see Annas 2017, 153–54.

69. See also Whitehead 1993, 70–72.

70. See Aristoph. Clouds 1060–73; Pl. Grg. 491e–492c; cf. North 1947.

71. See Moore 2018a.

72. See Moore 2015a for full discussion of the details in this and the previous paragraph.

73. See Moore 2015a, 71–84, for details.

74. Aristotle seems indifferent to the Charmides’ wide-ranging analysis of the virtue sôphrosunê and shows little concern with self-knowledge (except as discussed in Shields 2017). In Xenophon, the discussions of self-knowledge in Mem. 3.7 (regarding Charmides) and 4.2 are provocative but not obviously reliant on the Charmides.

75. On the dating of and sources for Ficino’s translation, see Murphy 2002, 150–51; the bulk of the epitome appears in English translation in Arthos 1959 (266–68). The manuscript of Poliziano’s translation, which is accompanied by a letter of dedication to Lorenzo de’ Medici, breaks off at 155e8; whether the remainder was lost or never made is uncertain (see further Gentile 1998; Murphy 2002, 153–54).

76. Taylor 1804; Mill (1828?) in Robson 1978; Burges 1851; Whewell 1859; Grote 1865; Mason 1891; Jowett (1953, 1st ed. 1871) in Hamilton and Cairns 1961; Wright 1900.

77. See, e.g., Hyland 1981; Schmid 1998; Tuozzo 2011; Levine 2016. Tsouna 2017, 36–42, provides an excellent review of recent scholarship; Bloch 1973 contains ample discussion of earlier scholarship. For more details of the dialogue’s publication history, in Greek, Latin, and several modern languages, see Reale 2015, 255–57.

{xlii} A Note on the Text

Modern editions of Plato’s Greek texts derive primarily from a handful of Byzantine manuscripts (dated from the late ninth to the thirteenth centuries), supplemented by quotations in ancient authors, the odd papyrus fragment, and the corrections and conjectures of scholars. Our translation of the Charmides and its line numbering are based on the Oxford Classical Text edited by John Burnet (1903), with the below emendations supported by David J. Murphy’s recent textual studies (see Bibliography). The standard marginal page numbers and section letters (“Stephanus numbers”) derive from Henri Estienne’s 1578 edition of the complete works of Plato. (In this ebook, the Stephanus numbers are enclosed in square brackets and embedded in the text in approximate locations.)

153a2: For ἀσμένως read ἀσμένος (Murphy 2007, 214)

153c5: For τί read τοί (Murphy 2007, 214)

156e4: For τοῦ ὅλου ἀμελοῖεν read τὸ ὅλον ἀγνοοῖεν (Murphy 2007, 217)

157b6–7: Seclude σωφροσύνης τε καὶ ὑγιείας (Murphy 2007, 217; cf. Slings 1988, 410–11)

157d6: For πάνυ πολὺ δοκεῖ read πάντων δοκεῖ πολὺ (Murphy 2007, 217)

160d6: For ἐμβλέψας read ἀποβλέψας (Murphy 2007, 220)

161d2: For λέγων read ὁ λέγων (Murphy 1990, 336)

163a10–12: For που . . . ὡμολόγησα. read ποῦ . . . ὡμολόγησα; (Murphy 2007, 220–22)

164e5: For μοι read ἐμοὶ (Murphy 2014, 1002)

167a4: For τί αὖ οἴεται read τί αὖ τις οἴεται (Murphy 2007, 222–23; cf. Slings 1988, 413)

167b10–11: For ὅπερ read ὅ (Murphy 2002, 135)

168b2: For αὕτη read αὐτὴ (Murphy 2002, 133; cf. Shorey 1907, 340)

171a4: For δέον δὲ read ἐπιχειρῶν δὲ δὴ (Murphy 1990, 336)

171c1: For οὔτε read οὐδὲ (Wilamowitz 1920, 2.366)

174d3: Seclude ἀλλ’ (Murphy 2007, 228–30)

{1} CHARMIDES

{3} We had returned the previous evening from our encampment at Potidaea,1 [153a] and since I’d been away for some time, I was keen to revisit my old haunts. So I went to the palaestra of Taureas, the one right across from the shrine of Basile,2 and I found quite a lot of people there—some of whom I didn’t even know, though most were familiar. My [b] entrance took them by surprise, and they shouted their welcomes from all sides. But Chaerephon, that madman, sprang up from their midst and ran toward me. He grabbed me by the hand and said, “Socrates! How did you survive the battle?” Shortly before we left there’d been a battle in Potidaea, and those back home had only just heard about it.

“Like this, as you see me,” I replied.

“Well, the word here,” he said, “is that the battle was pretty tough and a [c] lot of notable men were killed.”3

“That’s a fairly accurate report,” I said.

“So you were actually there,” he said, “in the battle?”

“I was there.”

“Then come over here,” he said, “and sit down and take us through it. As you can tell, we don’t have the whole picture yet.” And as he spoke, he led me to a seat next to Critias, the son of Callaeschrus.

Taking my seat, I greeted Critias and the others around him, and told them the news from the encampment, whatever they asked about—everyone [d] had his own question.

When we’d had enough of this sort of talk, I asked them about things at home, how philosophy was going these days, and about the young, whether any had come to stand out from the rest in wisdom or beauty, or in both.4 Then Critias looked toward the door and, seeing some youths coming in, [154a] {4} hurling insults at one another, with a second crowd following behind, said, “As for the beauties, Socrates, I think you’ll know any moment. For here come the advance guard of the one who, these days, is considered the most beautiful, and a group of his admirers.5 And it looks to me as if he himself is about to arrive.”

“But who is he, and who is his father?” I said.

“I’m pretty sure you know him,” he said, “though he wasn’t grown up yet when you went abroad. [b] He’s my cousin Charmides, the son of my uncle Glaucon.”6

“I do know him, by Zeus!” I said. “Even as a boy, he wasn’t at all bad-looking; and by now, I’d imagine, he’s become quite the young man.”

“Any moment,” he said, “you’ll know just how much he’s grown and how he’s turned out.” And as he was saying this, Charmides came in.

Now, I’m nothing to go by, my friend: I’m simply chalk on white stone when it comes to beauties.7 Just about everyone that age is a beauty in my eyes. [c] This one, however, struck me as wondrously tall and beautiful, and it seemed that everyone else was in love with him, seeing how dazzled and thrown into confusion they were by his entrance—and there were even more admirers following behind. It’s no surprise that we older men reacted this way, but I was paying attention to the boys, too, and I noticed that not one of them—not even the littlest—was looking anywhere else: they were all gazing at him as if he were a statue.8 Then [d] Chaerephon called to me and said, “How does the young man strike you, Socrates? Isn’t he good-looking?”

“Extraordinarily,” I said.

“Well, if he were willing to undress,” he said, “you wouldn’t even notice his face,9 he’s so perfectly formed.”10

{5} The others seconded Chaerephon. “Heracles!” I said.11 “What an irresistible man you’re describing—if he happens to have just one small thing in addition.”

“What thing is that?” asked Critias.

“If [e] he happens to have a naturally good soul,” I replied.12 “But I suppose it’s only fitting that he would, Critias, seeing as he belongs to your family.”

“Well, he is quite exceptional in that respect too,” he said.13

“Then why don’t we undress that part of him,” I said, “and gaze at it before we gaze at his form? Surely now that he’s so grown up, he’ll be willing to have a conversation.”14

“Very much so,” said Critias, “since as a matter of fact, he’s not only practiced in philosophy, [155a] but also, it seems to others and to himself, quite skilled in poetry.”15

“This fine trait, Critias my friend, does go all the way back to your ancestor Solon,” I said.16 “But why don’t you call the young man over here and show him off to me? I’m sure that even if he were younger, there’d be no shame in his having a conversation with us—at least not in your presence, since you’re both his guardian and his cousin.”17

{6} “You’re right,” he said. “We’ll call him over.” [b] And he turned to his attendant: “Boy,18 call Charmides over, and tell him that I’d like him to consult a doctor about the ailment he was complaining of yesterday.” Then Critias said to me, “You see, just lately he said he’s been a bit heavy-headed when he gets up in the morning. Why don’t you pretend to know a cure for his head?”19

“Why not?” I said. “Just have him come over.”

“He will come,” he said.

That is exactly what happened; and when he came, he caused a great deal of laughter. [c] We were all sitting in a row, and each of us started shoving his neighbor in the hope that Charmides would sit down beside him, until we forced whoever was at the end of the row to stand up, and toppled the man next to him right over. But he came and sat down between Critias and me. And that was the moment, my dear friend, when I found myself at a loss,20 and my earlier boldness—thinking I’d have no trouble holding a conversation with him—was knocked right out of me: when Critias told him that I was the one who knew the cure, he turned to me with an indescribable look [d] in his eyes as he prepared to ask a question, and everyone in the palaestra swirled around us; it was then, my noble friend, that I saw what was under his clothing,21 and I caught fire and was no longer in my right mind—and I judged Cydias to be wisest in matters of love, who warned someone about a beautiful boy: “Beware lest a fawn, coming face-to-face with a lion, be snatched as a portion [e] of meat.”22 For I thought that I myself had been seized by such a creature. Nonetheless, when he asked whether I knew the cure for his head, I somehow managed to answer that I did.

“So what is it?” he asked.

{7} I told him that it was a certain herb, but that the cure involved a kind of incantation.23 If someone sang it while using the herb, the cure would make him completely healthy; but without the incantation, the herb would have no benefit.

“Then [156a] I’ll take down the incantation from you,” he said.

“If you persuade me,” I asked, “or even if you don’t?”

“If I persuade you, Socrates,” he laughed.

“Very well,” I said. “And are you sure that’s my name?”

“I really ought to be,” he said, “since you come up a lot among those my age, and I remember your spending time with Critias when I was a boy.”

“That’s good of you,” I said. “Now I can be more frank with you [b] about the nature of the incantation. A moment ago I was at a loss about how to acquaint you with its powers. You see, Charmides, it’s the kind that can’t bring health to your head alone. But as maybe you too have heard good doctors say—when someone comes to them with an eye problem, they tell him they can’t try to heal just his eyes, but that they have to treat his head at the same time, if [c] his eyes are going to improve; and likewise, that it would be utterly foolish to consider treating the head on its own, apart from the whole body. On this principle, they direct their regimens at the entire body, attempting to treat and heal the part together with the whole.24 You are aware that this is how they talk and what they do?”

“I certainly am,” he said.

“Then do you think they are right, and do you accept their principle?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

When [d] I heard that he approved, I was heartened: my boldness returned bit by bit, and I flickered back to life. And I continued, “Now that’s also how it is with this incantation, Charmides. When I was abroad with the army, I learned it from one of the Thracian doctors of Zalmoxis, who are even said to make people immortal.25 This Thracian said that the Greeks are right to say the things I just mentioned. ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘our king Zalmoxis, who is a god, says [e] that just as one should not try to heal the eyes apart from the head, nor the head apart from the body, one also should not try to heal the body apart from the soul. And this explains why so many diseases get away {8} from doctors who practice in Greece: they fail to recognize the whole that should be the object of their care—but unless the whole is in a fine state, no part of it can possibly be in good condition.’ He said that everything that is bad or good for the body and the entire human being starts from the soul and flows on from there, just as from the head to [157a] the eyes. And so one ought to treat that first and foremost, if one intends the head and the rest of the body to be in a fine state. He said that the soul, my blessed friend, is treated with certain incantations, and that these incantations consist of beautiful words.26 It is from words such as these that discipline is engendered in souls; and once that is present, it is easy to provide health to the head and the rest of the [b] body.27 And so, when he taught me the cure and the incantations, he said, ‘Do not let anyone persuade you to use this cure to treat his head unless he first submits his soul to you to be treated with the incantation. For this is the error people make these days when treating human beings,’ he said, ‘that some try to be doctors of the one apart from the other.’ And he gave me a strict command that nobody—no matter how wealthy, wellborn, or beautiful—is [c] to persuade me to do otherwise. And I will obey—I’ve sworn an oath to him, so I must obey—and if you’re willing, in keeping with the foreigner’s command, to first submit your soul to the Thracian’s incantations, then I will administer the cure to your head. But if not, there’s nothing we can do for you, my dear Charmides.”

When he heard me say this, Critias said, “What a godsend this headache might turn out to be for the youth, Socrates, if for the sake of his [d] head he’ll be forced to improve his mind.28 But I have to tell you that Charmides is thought to stand out among his peers not only in his looks, but also in the very thing for which you say you have an incantation. You say it’s for discipline, right?”

“That’s right,” I replied.

“Then you really should know,” he said, “that he’s thought to be by far the most disciplined of anyone around, and second to none in all other respects, among those his age.”

{9} “It’s only right, Charmides,” I said, “that you’d stand out from [e] the others in all these ways. I can’t imagine that anyone here could readily show us two families in all of Athens that, joined together, could be expected to produce a more beautiful and excellent son than your families. For we have heard how Anacreon and Solon and a number of other poets celebrated your paternal family, that of Critias, son of Dropides, for being outstanding in beauty [158a] and virtue and the rest of what is called happiness.29 The same goes for your mother’s side: they say that there is no man in Asia considered greater or more beautiful than your uncle Pyrilampes, so often did he serve as ambassador to the Great King and other sovereigns there, and that this entire family is in no way beneath the other.30 Coming from families such as these, it’s to be expected that you’d rank first in everything. Now, as far as looks go, [b] dear son of Glaucon, I suspect that none of your forebears surpassed you in any way. But if you’ve also been adequately endowed with discipline and those other qualities, as this man claims,” I said, “then your mother bore a blessed child in you,31 my dear Charmides. So, this is how things stand: If discipline is already in you, as Critias here says, and you are adequately disciplined, then you have no need of any incantations, whether they’re from Zalmoxis or Abaris the Hyperborean,32 and you should be given the [c] cure for your head straight away. But if you seem to be in need of these things, you must listen to the incantation before receiving the cure. So, tell me yourself: Do you agree with this man and claim that you already have an adequate share of discipline, or would you say that you’re lacking in it?”

{10} At first Charmides blushed and looked even more beautiful than before—even his modesty was becoming at his age—and then he replied in a way that was not ignoble. He said that it wasn’t easy, in the present circumstances, to answer either way. [d] “You see, if I say that I’m not disciplined,” he said, “not only is that an odd thing for someone to say about himself, but I’ll make Critias seem like a liar, as well as the many others who, according to him, think that I am disciplined. Then again, if I say that I am and I sing my own praises, it might sound obnoxious. And so I’m unable to give you an answer.”

Then I said, “What you’re saying sounds reasonable to me, Charmides. I think we should look into the matter together, to see whether you possess [e] the thing I’m asking about. That way, you won’t have to say anything you don’t want to, and I won’t practice the art of medicine negligently.33 So if you’d like, I’d be glad to look into it with you; but if not, I’m happy to drop it.”

“I’d like that more than anything,” he said, “so please do look into it in whatever way seems best to you.”

“In that case,” I said, “here’s how I think the investigation ought to proceed. It’s obvious that if discipline is present in you, [159a] you’re able to form an opinion about it.34 For it’s necessary, I suppose, that its presence inside you—if it is really in you—would provide some awareness of it,35 on the basis of which you’d have some opinion about it—about what discipline is and what qualities it has. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” he said, “I do think so.”

“Well, in that case,” I said, “since you know how to speak Greek,36 presumably you could also tell us how it strikes you?”

“Maybe so,” he said.

“Well, to help us figure out whether it’s inside you or not,” I said, “tell us what you say discipline is, in your opinion.”

{11} At [b] first he held back and was quite reluctant to answer. But then he said that he thought that discipline was doing everything in an orderly way, and with tranquility—walking in the streets, having conversations—and going about everything else in the same manner. “And it seems to me,” he said, “that what you’re asking about, in a word, is a sort of state of tranquility.”37

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” I said. “They do say, Charmides, that tranquil people are disciplined. But let’s see if there’s anything to it. [c] Tell me: Isn’t discipline one of the admirable things?”

“It certainly is,” he said.

“So, at the writing teacher’s, which is the more admirable way to write the same letters: quickly or with tranquility?”38

“Quickly.”

“What about reading? Quickly or slowly?”

“Quickly.”

“And isn’t it far more admirable to play the cithara quickly and to wrestle nimbly than to do either of them with tranquility and slowly?”39

“Yes, it is.”

“What about boxing and the pankration?40 It’s the same there, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is.”

“And in the case of running and jumping and every other kind of bodily activity, [d] aren’t they admirable when they happen nimbly and quickly, but shameful when they happen with effort and tranquility?”

“Apparently.”

“Then it’s apparent to us,” I said, “that with respect to the body, at least, it isn’t the more tranquil but rather the quickest and nimblest that is most admirable. Isn’t that the case?”

“It certainly is.”

“And discipline was something admirable?”

{12} “Yes.”

“Well then, at least in the case of the body it isn’t a state of tranquility but rather quickness that would be more disciplined, given that discipline is an admirable thing.”

“It seems so,” he said.

“Then [e] what about this?” I asked. “Is it more admirable to be gifted or dull-witted?”41

“Gifted.”

“And is being gifted a matter of learning quickly,” I said, “while being dull-witted is a matter of learning slowly and with tranquility?”

“Yes.”

“And when you’re teaching someone else, isn’t it more admirable to do so quickly and vigorously rather than slowly and with tranquility?”

“That’s right.”

“What about recollecting and remembering?42 Is it more admirable to do them with tranquility and slowly or vigorously and quickly?”

“Vigorously and quickly,” he said.

“And [160a] isn’t mental acuity a sort of nimbleness of the soul, and not a matter of tranquility?”

“That’s true.”

“So then, understanding your lessons—at the writing teacher’s, the cithara teacher’s, or anywhere else—is most admirable not when it’s done in the most tranquil way, but when it’s done in the quickest way possible?”

“Yes.”

“And when it comes to the soul’s investigations and deliberations, I would imagine, it isn’t the most tranquil person—the one deliberating and discovering with considerable effort—whom we’d deem worthy of praise, [b] but the one who does this as easily and quickly as possible.”

“That’s right,” he said.

“So then, with everything that concerns us, Charmides,” I said, “that is, both in our souls and in our bodies, whatever occurs with quickness and {13} nimbleness is apparently more admirable than what occurs with slowness and in a state of tranquility?”

“It’s looking that way,” he said.

“Then discipline would not be a sort of state of tranquility, nor the disciplined life a tranquil one—at least not according to this argument—since a disciplined life must be something admirable. There are really two possibilities: either none [c] of the tranquil actions in our lives appeared more admirable than the quick and intense ones, or only very few of them did. But even if the tranquil ones, my friend, should prove just as admirable as the quick and vigorous actions, not even then would discipline be a matter of acting with tranquility, any more than it would be acting quickly and vigorously—whether we’re walking or talking or doing anything else. Nor would the tranquil life be [d] more disciplined than one that isn’t tranquil, since in this argument we assumed discipline to be something admirable, and quick actions have appeared no less admirable than tranquil ones.”

“What you’ve said seems right to me, Socrates,” he said.

“Then start over again, Charmides,” I said, “and this time pay closer attention and look at yourself: Think about what sort of person the presence of discipline makes you and what kind of thing would produce someone like that. Once you’ve reasoned all this out, be [e] brave and tell us what it appears to you to be.”

He paused and examined himself through and through, like a real man, before saying, “Well, I think that discipline makes a person feel shame and be modest, so discipline would just be a sense of shame.”43

“Very well,” I said, “but weren’t you just agreeing that discipline is an admirable thing?”

“I certainly was,” he said.

“Then are they also good men, the disciplined ones?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Now, can a thing be good if it doesn’t produce good men?”44

“Of course not.”

{14} “So then, it’s not only an admirable thing but also a good thing.”

“That’s [161a] what I think.”

“Well now,” I said, “don’t you trust Homer to be making a fine point when he says that ‘a sense of shame is no good for a man in need’?”45

“I do,” he said.

“So it would seem that a sense of shame is both a good thing and not a good thing.”

“Apparently.”

“Discipline, however, is a good thing—if it really makes people good when it’s present in them, and makes them bad when it’s not.”

“Well yes, I think it’s exactly as you say.”

“Then discipline would not be a sense of shame, if it is indeed a good thing, [b] while a sense of shame is no more a good than a bad thing.”

“That seems right to me,” he said. “But tell me what you think about this other account of discipline. I’ve just recollected something I heard someone say—that discipline is ‘doing one’s own things.’46 See if you think the person who said this was right.”

“You rogue,”47 I said, “you heard this from Critias here—or [c] from some other wise man.”

“It appears he heard it from someone else,” said Critias. “He certainly didn’t get it from me.”

“What difference does it make where I heard it, Socrates?” said Charmides.

“None at all,” I said. “Surely we shouldn’t be looking into who said it, but into whether or not it’s true.”

“Precisely,” he said.

“By Zeus!” I said. “I’d be amazed if we could even discover that—for it seems to be some sort of riddle.”48

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

{15} “Presumably,” [d] I said, “he didn’t mean what the words suggest when he said that discipline is doing one’s own things. Or do you take your writing teacher to be doing nothing when he writes or reads?”

“Of course I don’t,” he said.

“So do you think it’s only his own name that your writing teacher reads and writes, or teaches to you boys—or did you write your rivals’ names no less than your friends’ names and your own?”

“Theirs no less.”

“So were you being busybodies and not being disciplined [e] when you did this?”49

“Not at all.”

“And yet you weren’t doing your own things, if writing is really a case of doing something, and reading, too.”

“Well, they are.”

“And also practicing medicine, my friend, and house-building and weaving and accomplishing the work of any art whatsoever are presumably cases of doing something.”

“They certainly are.”

“Well now,” I said, “do you think a city would be well run under this law that orders each person to weave and wash his own clothing, fashion his own sandals, make his own oil flask and strigil, and do everything else according to the same principle: [162a] that no one avails himself of others’ things, but each works on and does his own things?”50

“No, I don’t think it would,” he said.

“And yet,” I said, “running a city in a disciplined way would be running it well?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Then discipline wouldn’t be doing one’s own things in those kinds of cases and in that way,” I said.

“Apparently not.”

“Then it seems this person was riddling, as I was saying a moment ago, the one who said that discipline is doing one’s own things. Otherwise, he {16} would have to be a rather [b] simple fellow. Or was it some fool you heard saying this, Charmides?”

“Hardly,” he said. “As a matter of fact, he seemed to be pretty wise.”

“In that case, I think he must have offered it as a riddle, since it’s hard to know what this ‘doing one’s own things’ could mean.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

“So what on earth does it mean, this ‘doing one’s own things’? Can you tell me?”

“I have no idea, by Zeus!” he said. “But it may well be that even the person who said it has no idea what he meant.” And as he said this he smiled and glanced at Critias.

It [c] was clear that Critias had been getting worked up for quite some time, keen as he was to impress Charmides and the others present.51 Until that point, he’d managed to hold himself back, but now he could no longer take it. You see, I think my suspicion had been entirely right: Charmides had heard this last response about discipline from Critias. And since Charmides didn’t want to defend the claim himself, wanting its author to do so instead, [d] he was trying to provoke him, pointing out that he had been refuted. But Critias wouldn’t stand for it: he seemed to get angry with him in exactly the way a poet gets with an actor who botches his lines. So he looked right at him and said, “Is that what you think, Charmides? Do you really imagine that just because you have no idea what this person meant when he said that discipline is doing one’s own things, then he doesn’t either?”

“But Critias, my good man,” I said, “it’s no [e] surprise that someone so young would be in the dark about this. I’d expect you to understand it, though, since you’re older and are concerned about such things. So if you accept what he says about discipline, and take over the argument, I’d much more gladly look into it with you, to see whether the claim is true or not.”

“Well, I certainly do accept it,” he said, “and I will take over the argument.”

“That’s very good of you,” I said. “So, tell me, do you also accept what I was asking about just now, that all craftsmen make something?”52

“I do.”

{17} “And [163a] do you think they make only their own things, or other people’s things as well?”

“Others’ as well.”

“So are they being disciplined when they’re not making only their own things?”

“Why wouldn’t they be?” he said.

“No reason, as far as I’m concerned,” I said. “But ask the person who takes discipline to be doing one’s own things, and then says there’s no reason why even those who do others’ things couldn’t be disciplined.”

“And where,” he said, “have I agreed that those who do others’ things are being disciplined, if I agreed that those who make others’ things are?”

“You mean you don’t treat ‘making’ and ‘doing’ as synonyms?” I asked. [b]

“I certainly don’t,” he said. “Nor ‘working’ and ‘making’ either.53 And I learned this from Hesiod, who said that ‘work is no disgrace.’54 Now, do you really believe he would say that there’s no disgrace at all in being a shoemaker or a salt-fish seller or a prostitute? That’s what he would be saying if he used ‘working’ and ‘doing’ to refer to the kind of work you were talking about just now. But we ought not to imagine that, Socrates. Instead, I believe that he, too, deemed making to be something different from doing and working, and that while a [c] thing which is made becomes a disgrace whenever it’s devoid of anything admirable, work is never a disgrace at all. You see, things which are made both admirably and beneficially he referred to as ‘works,’ and this kind of making he referred to as ‘working’ and ‘doing.’ What we ought to say, at any rate, is that he considered only things of that kind to be what belongs to oneself, and anything harmful to be what belongs to others. And so we should suppose that Hesiod, and anyone else who is thoughtful, calls the person who does his own things disciplined.”

“As [d] soon as you started talking, Critias, I pretty much got your point,” I said. “Things that belong to oneself and are one’s own you call ‘good,’ and the making of good things you call ‘doing.’ I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to Prodicus draw distinctions like this.55 But I’ll let you assign {18} to each thing whatever name you want, as long as you make it explicit what you’re referring to with that name. So now start over again from the beginning, and this time be really clear: [e] The doing of good things or the making of them or whatever you prefer to call it—is that how you define discipline?”

“It is,” he said.

“So the person who does bad things isn’t being disciplined; it’s the one who does good things?”

“Do you have a different opinion, my good man?” he said.

“Never mind that,” I said. “Let’s not look into my opinions just yet but into what you are saying right now.”

“All right, then,” he said, “I deny that the person who makes bad things rather than good things is being disciplined; instead, it’s the person who makes good things and not bad things who is being disciplined. There, I am defining discipline clearly for you as the doing of good things.”

“It [164a] may very well be that what you say is true. But I’m surprised,” I said, “if you believe that people who are being disciplined don’t know they are being disciplined.”

“But I don’t believe that,” he said.

“Didn’t I hear you say a little while ago,” I replied, “that there’s no reason why craftsmen, even as they make others’ things, couldn’t be disciplined?”

“You did hear me say that,” he said. “What about it?”

“Oh, nothing. But tell me this: Do you think that a doctor, when he’s making someone healthy, [b] is making something beneficial both for himself and for the person he’s healing?”

“I do think that.”

“And someone who does these things does what he ought?”

“Yes.”

“And someone who does what he ought is being disciplined, is he not?”

“He certainly is being disciplined.”

“Now then, does a doctor necessarily know when his treatment is beneficial and when it’s not? And does every craftsman necessarily know when he’s going to profit from the work he’s doing and when he won’t?”

“Maybe not.”

“So sometimes,” I said, “when a doctor has acted, whether beneficially or harmfully, [c] he fails to know himself—the way he has acted. And yet, according to your account, when he has acted beneficially, he has acted in a disciplined way. Or is that not what you were saying?”

{19} “That is what I was saying.”

“Then doesn’t it seem that on some occasions, when he acts beneficially, he is acting in a disciplined way and being disciplined, even though he is ignorant of himself—of the fact that he is being disciplined?”

“But that could never happen, Socrates,” he said. “And if you think this follows out of necessity from something I agreed to earlier, then I for one [d] would rather make a retraction, being unashamed to admit I’d spoken incorrectly, than ever allow that a person who was ignorant of himself could be disciplined.56 After all, this is basically what I’m claiming discipline to be—knowing oneself—and I’m of one mind with whoever put up the inscription to that effect at Delphi.57 In fact, I think that this is why the inscription was put up: to serve as the god’s greeting to those coming in, as an alternative to ‘Cheers.’58 [e] The idea is that ‘Cheers’ is the incorrect greeting, and that instead of urging each other to be cheerful, we should urge each other to be disciplined. Thus, the god addresses those who come into his temple in a different way than people normally do—which, in my opinion, is what the inscriber had in mind when he put up his inscription. He is claiming that what the god says to everyone who comes in is ‘Be disciplined.’ But he says this quite enigmatically, in the way a seer would. For ‘Know yourself’ and ‘Be disciplined’ mean [165a] the very same thing, as the inscription claims and as I do, too. But perhaps someone thought they were different, which is in fact what I think happened to whoever it was who put up the later inscriptions, ‘Nothing in excess’ and ‘A pledge, and ruin is at hand.’59 They assumed that ‘Know yourself’ was a piece of advice, not a greeting by the god to those coming in. Since they wanted to put up pieces of advice that would be just as useful, they wrote those inscriptions and put {20} them up. Now, here is the reason I say all this, Socrates: [b] I’ll grant you all the earlier points—maybe you were speaking a bit more correctly about them; maybe I was; in any case, nothing we were saying was especially clear—but now I’m prepared to give a defense,60 if you don’t agree that discipline is knowing oneself.”

“But Critias,” I said, “you’re treating me as if I claim to know the answers to my own questions, and could agree with you if I were so inclined. But it isn’t like that—you see, the reason I’m always inquiring with you into the proposal at hand is that I myself don’t [c] know the answers. So first I’ll look into it, and then I’ll be willing to say whether I agree or not. But wait until I’ve looked into it.”

“Look into it, then,” he said.

“I am looking into it,” I said. “Now, if discipline really is a matter of knowing something, obviously it would be a certain kind of knowledge, and it would be of something, right?”61

“Right,” he said, “of oneself.”62

“And medicine, too, is a kind of knowledge,” I said, “namely of health?”

“It certainly is.”

“Now then,” I said, “if you were to ask me, ‘Since medicine is the knowledge of health, how is it useful to us, and what does it produce?,’ [d] I’d say that it has quite a large benefit, if you accept that its product, health, is a fine thing for us.”

“I do accept that.”

{21} “And now if you were to ask me about architecture, the knowledge of house-building, what product I claim it produces, I would say houses. And so on for the other arts.63 Now it’s your turn to answer about discipline, since you claim it’s the knowledge of oneself. Say you were asked, ‘Well, Critias, what about discipline? [e] If it’s a knowledge of oneself, what fine thing does it produce for us that makes it worthy of the name?’ Go ahead and answer.”

“But Socrates,” he said, “you’re not inquiring in the right way. By its very nature this one isn’t like the other kinds of knowledge—and they’re not even like one another. But you’re conducting the inquiry as though they’re all alike. Tell me about the arts of arithmetic or geometry: What sort of thing do they produce, in the way architecture produces a house, weaving produces a piece of clothing, and so on for any number of other arts? [166a] Can you show me what sort of product they have? You won’t be able to.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But I am able to show you what each of these kinds of knowledge is a knowledge of, where what it’s of is distinct from the knowledge itself. For example, arithmetic, I take it, is of the even and the odd—how quantities of each kind relate to their own kind and to the other.64 Right?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“And since it’s of the odd and the even, it’s of something different from arithmetic itself?”

“Of course.”

“Take [b] another case: the art of weighing is a matter of weighing heavier and lighter weights, but the heavy and the light are different from the art of weighing itself.65 Would you agree?”

“I would.”

“Then tell me this: What is discipline the knowledge of, where what it’s of is different from discipline itself?”

{22} “That’s just it, Socrates,” he said. “Your questions get at the way discipline differs from every other kind of knowledge, but you’re looking for some way they’re alike. But it isn’t there: [c] every other kind of knowledge is of something else and not of itself; discipline alone, however, is the knowledge of all those other kinds of knowledge and also of itself. You could hardly have failed to notice that—but I suppose you’re doing exactly what you just denied doing: you’re trying to refute me, while ignoring the focus of the argument.”66

“What a thing to say!” I replied. “Do you really suppose that if I am indeed refuting you, it’s for any reason other than the one for which [d] I interrogate myself about my own statements: the fear that someday I’ll fail to notice that I think I know something when I don’t actually know it?67 In fact, that is what I contend that I’m doing right now—looking into the argument mostly for my own sake, though maybe also for the sake of my friends. Or don’t you think it’s in the shared interest of virtually all human beings for the way each thing is to become clear?”68

“I most certainly do, Socrates,” he said.

“Then be bold, my blessed friend,” I said, “and respond to what’s being asked in the way that seems best to you, leaving aside whether Critias [e] or Socrates is the one being refuted. Pay attention to the argument itself, and see what results from its being put to the test.”

“All right,” he said, “I’ll do that; I think what you’ve said is fair.”

“Now tell me,” I said, “what is it you’re saying about discipline?”

“What I am saying,” he said, “is that of all the kinds of knowledge, it alone is the knowledge both of itself and of the other kinds of knowledge.”

“So would it be the knowledge of ignorance, too,” I said, “if it were really the knowledge of knowledge?”69

“Of course,” he said.

{23} “Then [167a] the disciplined person alone will know himself and will be able to examine what he knows and what he doesn’t; and likewise, he’ll be able to assess others—what a person knows and thinks he knows, when that person knows it, and also what a person thinks he knows when he doesn’t actually know it.70 There’s nobody else who can do this. And this is just what being disciplined or discipline itself or someone knowing himself is: knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t know. Is that what you’re saying?”

“That is what I’m saying,” he said.

“Then once again from the beginning,” I said, “‘a third to the Savior,’ as they say71—let’s [b] start by considering whether it’s even possible, this knowing that one knows and doesn’t know what one knows and doesn’t know; and then, if it is indeed possible, what benefit we’d get from having this knowledge.”

“Yes, we ought to look into that,” he said.

“Go on then, Critias,” I said, “you start looking into it—if you can prove any more resourceful in these matters than I am. I’m puzzled, you see. Shall I tell you why I’m puzzled?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Now, if what you were just describing exists,” I said, “wouldn’t it all constitute a single knowledge—the knowledge of nothing [c] except itself and the other kinds of knowledge, where this same knowledge is also of ignorance?”

“It certainly would.”

“Then notice what a strange thing it is we’re trying to say, my friend. Because if you look for a parallel in other cases, I suspect you’ll find the same thing impossible.”

“How so? In what other cases?”

“In these ones. Do you think there’s a case of seeing that’s not of what the other cases of seeing are of, but is a seeing of itself and of the other cases of seeing and not-seeing—that [d] is, although it’s a case of seeing, it doesn’t see any color but rather itself and the other cases of seeing? Do you think there is such a thing?”

“No, by Zeus, I do not!”

{24} “What about a case of hearing that hears no sound but hears itself and the other cases of hearing and not-hearing?”

“Not that either.”

“Then take all the senses together, and see if you think any is a perception of the cases of that perception and of itself, which perceives none of the things that the other cases of that perception perceive.”

“I do not think that.”

“But do [e] you think there’s some desire that’s a desire not for any pleasure but for itself and the other desires?”

“Certainly not.”

“Nor indeed, I’d imagine, some wish that wishes for nothing good but rather for itself and the other wishes.”

“Not a chance.”

“Would you say there was some love that is a love not of anything beautiful but rather of itself and the other loves?”

“No, I would not,” he said.

“And have you ever observed some fear that fears itself and the [168a] other fears but fears nothing frightening?”

“I have not observed that,” he said.

“And what about a belief, a belief about beliefs and itself that is not a belief about the things other beliefs are about?”72

“Never.”

“But we seem to be claiming that there’s a kind of knowledge that is of this sort, that isn’t a knowledge of any subject, but is the knowledge of itself and of the other kinds of knowledge?”

“That’s our claim.”

“Then isn’t it strange if there really is such a thing? But rather than state definitively that there isn’t, let’s look further into the matter.”

“Good idea.” [ b]

“Come on, then. Knowledge as such is the knowledge of something73—it has some sort of power that makes it be of something, right?”74

“Of course.”

{25} “And do we say that what’s larger has a power that makes it be larger than something?”75

“Yes, it does.”

“And if it’s going to be larger, it’ll be larger than something smaller.”

“Necessarily.”

“So if we should find something larger, which is larger than the larger things and itself, but isn’t larger than anything the other larger things are larger than, [c] then surely, I suppose, it would have to be in the following condition: If it were in fact larger than itself, it would also be smaller than itself—no?”

“That’s absolutely necessary, Socrates,” he said.

“And if something is double the other doubles and itself, presumably it would also be a half, being the double of itself and the others—since a double, I take it, is of nothing other than a half.”

“That’s true.”

“Won’t something that is more than itself also be less than itself, and what is heavier also lighter, and what is older also younger, [d] and so on with everything else—so that whatever has its own power in relation to itself will also have the very essence that its power relates to? I mean this sort of thing: We say, for instance, that hearing is of nothing other than sound, right?”

“Right.”

“Then if hearing is going to hear itself, it will have to make a sound; otherwise, it would have nothing to hear.”

“That’s entirely necessary.”

“And I take it the same goes for seeing, my good man: If it’s going to see itself, it will have to have some color; for seeing [e] could never see anything colorless.”

“No, it could not.”

“Do you see then, Critias, now that we’ve gone through so many cases, that some of them strike us as completely impossible, while others raise serious doubts as to whether they could ever have their own power in relation to themselves? In the cases of size and quantity and so forth, it’s completely impossible, no?”

“It certainly is.”

“But when it comes to hearing and seeing and—to add some more cases—motion moving itself, and heat burning itself, and everything else {26} like that, [169a] they’d raise doubts in some people but maybe not in others. What we need, my friend, is some great man who will be up to the task of determining fully whether nothing has its own power in relation to itself rather than to something else, or whether some things do but not others.76 And if there are some things that have their powers in relation to themselves, is knowledge one of them? That is, after all, what we’re claiming discipline to be. Now, I don’t trust myself to be up to the task of determining this. And that’s why [b] I can’t say definitively whether it’s possible for there to be a knowledge of knowledge. Even if it is perfectly possible, I can’t accept that this is discipline until I’ve considered whether such a thing would benefit us in any way or not. Now, I have a hunch that discipline is something beneficial and good.77 So then, son of Callaeschrus, since you proposed discipline to be this—a knowledge of both knowledge and ignorance—first show that what I was just describing is possible; and then, beyond its being possible, that [c] it’s beneficial as well. Maybe then you’d satisfy me that you’re right about what discipline is.”

When Critias heard this and saw that I was at a loss, it seemed he couldn’t help being seized by puzzlement himself—just like when you see someone across from you yawn, and you’re afflicted by the very same thing. Now, being a man with a reputation to uphold, he felt embarrassed before his audience, and refused to admit that he was incapable of resolving the challenge I had set [d] him. Instead, he just started rambling, in an attempt to hide his puzzlement. And so, to get our discussion moving forward again, I said, “Well, if it’s all right with you, Critias, let’s concede for the moment that there could be a knowledge of knowledge. We’ll consider again later whether or not this is so. Go on, then: Assuming that this is perfectly possible, would a person be any more able to know what he knows and doesn’t know? For that is in fact what we said knowing oneself or being disciplined was, right?”78

“That’s right, Socrates,” he said, “and surely it must follow that he would. [e] After all, if someone has a knowledge that knows itself, he himself would {27} have the same quality—just as anyone who has quickness is quick, and anyone who has beauty is beautiful, and anyone who has knowledge is knowing, anyone who has knowledge that knows itself, I take it, will be a person who knows himself.”79

“I’m not disputing this,” I said, “that someone who has a knowledge that knows itself will know himself. I’m asking why someone who has this will necessarily know what he knows and what he doesn’t know.”

“Because [170a] the two things are the same, Socrates.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But I worry that I’m being my same old self, because I still don’t understand how having a knowledge that knows itself is the same as knowing what one knows and knowing what one doesn’t know.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean this,” I said. “Supposing there is such a thing as knowledge of knowledge, could it determine anything besides this: that one thing is a case of knowledge and another is not?”80

“No, only that.”

“And is that the same as the knowledge and ignorance of what’s healthy or [b] the knowledge and ignorance of what’s just?”81

“Not at all.”

“No, I’d imagine that the first is medical knowledge, the second is political knowledge, but that one is simply knowledge.”

“Of course.”

“So if someone doesn’t know in addition what’s healthy and what’s just, but knows only knowledge—since the knowledge he has is of this alone—we would expect him to know, of himself or others, that he knows something and that he has some kind of knowledge. Right?”

“Right.”

“But as for what he knows, how is he going to know that with this knowledge? [c] I mean, it’s because of medical knowledge, not discipline, that {28} he knows what’s healthy; and it’s because of musical knowledge, not discipline, that he knows what’s harmonious; and it’s because of architectural knowledge, not discipline, that he knows about building houses—and likewise in every other case, right?”

“Apparently.”

“But if discipline is only the knowledge of cases of knowledge,82 how will he know by it that he knows health or that he knows house-building?”

“He won’t.”

“So a person who’s ignorant in this respect will know only that he knows, but not what he knows?”

“It seems so.”

“Then [d] knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t know would not be the same as being disciplined. Instead, it seems that discipline would be knowing only that one knows and that one doesn’t know.”

“It’s looking that way.”

“Then he won’t be able to examine someone else who claims to know something, to see whether he knows or doesn’t know what he claims to know. The only thing this person will know, it seems, is that he has some knowledge—but as for what it’s of, discipline won’t cause him to know that.”

“Apparently not.”

“Then [e] he won’t be able to distinguish the pretend from the real doctor or any other expert from someone who isn’t one. But let’s look at it from this angle: If a disciplined person, or anyone at all, is going to discern whether someone is a genuine doctor or not, won’t he go about it in the following way? Presumably he won’t have a conversation with him about medicine––because, as we were saying, a doctor is expert in nothing but health and disease. Isn’t that right?”83

“Yes, that’s right.”

{29} “But about knowledge, he doesn’t know anything, since we assigned that to discipline alone.”

“Right.”

“Then the medical expert doesn’t know about medicine, since [171a] medicine is a kind of knowledge.”

“That’s true.”

“The disciplined person, then, will know that the doctor has some kind of knowledge; but when he’s trying to grasp what kind it is, will he consider anything apart from what it’s of? Isn’t each kind of knowledge defined not only by its being knowledge but also by its being a particular kind—the knowledge of certain things?”

“Yes, by that.”

“And medicine was defined as distinct from the other kinds of knowledge by being the knowledge of health and disease.”

“It was.”

“So anyone who wishes to consider a case of [b] medical knowledge will have to look into what’s within its proper domain. Presumably he wouldn’t look into what’s outside its proper domain?”

“Of course not.”

“So anyone who looks into things correctly will assess the doctor on matters of health and disease, to see in what way he is a medical expert.”

“It seems so.”

“And so that will be his focus—matters of health and disease—when he looks into the truth of that person’s words and the correctness of his actions?”

“Necessarily.”

“Well, could someone even follow his words or his actions if he didn’t have medical knowledge?”

“Certainly not.”

“No, [c] it seems that no one but a doctor could, and certainly not the disciplined person—unless he were a doctor in addition to having discipline.”

“That’s right.”

“Then it really is the case that, if discipline is knowledge of knowledge and ignorance alone, the disciplined person won’t be able to distinguish a doctor, who actually knows the subject matter of his art, from a person who doesn’t know but pretends or believes that he knows; nor will he be able to identify any expert whatsoever except the one who shares his art, as it is with the other craftsmen.”

“Apparently,” he said.

{30} “Then [d] what benefit, Critias,” I said, “would we be getting from discipline, were it that sort of thing? If instead, as we assumed from the beginning,84 the disciplined person were to know what he knows and what he doesn’t know—that he knows the former and doesn’t know the latter—and could assess this condition in someone else, we’d say it would be highly beneficial for us to have discipline. We would live our lives free from error, both we ourselves, the ones who had discipline, and anyone under our rule. [e] We would never attempt to do anything that we didn’t know how to do; we would instead find those who did know and hand the task over to them. And as for those under our rule, we wouldn’t entrust to them any tasks but the ones they would do correctly—the tasks for which they possessed the relevant knowledge. In this way, thanks to discipline, a household would be admirably run, a city well governed, and so too everything else that was under the rule of discipline. With error [172a] uprooted and correctness in command, people in that situation would be bound to succeed in everything they did—and those who succeed are happy. Isn’t that what we were saying about discipline, Critias, when we said how good it would be to know what one knows and what one doesn’t know?”

“It most certainly was,” he said.

“But now you see,” I said, “that no such knowledge has turned up.”

“I see that,” he said.

“Well [b] then,” I said, “is this what’s good about the thing we’re discovering discipline to be—knowing knowledge and ignorance—namely, that whenever a person who has discipline is learning something new, he’ll learn it more easily and whatever it is will present itself to him more vividly, since he keeps knowledge in view while learning it? And when it comes to other people, he’ll examine them more effectively about what he has learned himself, whereas those who try to examine without it will do so poorly at best? Is this the sort of [c] advantage we’ll derive from discipline, my friend, and have we been picturing and searching for something greater than what it actually is?”

“Perhaps that’s how it is,” he said.85

“Maybe so,” I said. “Though maybe even the thing we had been seeking is of no use at all. I’m getting the distinct sense that there’s something {31} strange about it, if discipline is as we imagined. Let’s take a look, if you don’t mind. We’ve conceded that it’s possible to have knowledge of knowledge; let’s also grant that discipline is knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t know, as we proposed from the beginning—let’s not [d] withdraw that either. With all of that granted, let’s consider more carefully whether, if it is like that, it will benefit us in any way. We were just saying that if discipline were like that, it would be a great good, when it’s guiding the management of households and cities.86 But I don’t think we were right to agree to that, Critias.”

“Why is that?” he said.

“Because,” I said, “we were too quick to agree that it would be a great good for human beings if each of us did what he knew how to do, and when he didn’t know how to do something, he handed the task over to others who did know.”87

“You [e] mean we weren’t right to agree to that?” he said.

“I don’t think we were,” I said.

“You’re saying some truly strange things, Socrates,” he said.

“By the dog,” I said, “it seems that way to me too. It was when I looked at it square on just now that I said I was having some strange impressions, and that I feared we hadn’t looked into it in the right way. The truth is, if discipline really is as we imagined, it doesn’t [173a] seem at all clear to me that it produces any good for us.”

“How so?” he said. “Tell us, so that the rest of us can know what you’re talking about.”

“I suppose I’m being foolish,” I said. “All the same, a person must look into the impressions he has and not just let them pass by, if he cares for himself even a little.”

“You’re right,” he said.

“Then listen to my dream,” I said, “whether it has come through horn or through ivory.88 For if discipline really were to rule over us, and it were as we’ve just defined it, wouldn’t everything have to be done in accordance with [b] knowledge, and no one who claimed to be a ship’s captain but {32} wasn’t would deceive us, and no doctor or general or anyone else would get away with pretending to know something he didn’t know? If that were the case, wouldn’t the result have to be that we’d have healthier bodies than we do now, and when in danger at sea or in battle, we’d be kept safe, and our tools, all our clothing and footwear, [c] and all our belongings would be skillfully produced, as would so much else, seeing that we’d be employing genuine craftsmen? And if you like, let’s also accept that divination is the knowledge of the future, and that discipline, presiding over it, turns away charlatans and appoints genuine seers as our prophets of what’s to come. Now, if the human race were thus equipped, [d] I accept that we would live and act with knowledge—after all, discipline, serving as a guardian, would prevent ignorance from intruding into our work. But the further claim—that by acting with knowledge, we would succeed and be happy—that conclusion, my dear Critias, we aren’t yet able to reach.”

“All the same,” he said, “you won’t easily find another way of achieving success, if you reject acting with knowledge.”

“Then explain one other small thing to me,” I said. “With what knowledge do you mean? How to cut leather for sandals?”

“God no!” [e]

“How to work with bronze, then?”

“Not at all.”

“Then how to work with wool or wood or some other such thing?”

“Certainly not.”

“In that case,” I said, “we’re no longer abiding by the claim that the person who lives with knowledge is happy. For those people are living with knowledge, yet you deny that they are happy. But I imagine you define the happy person instead as someone living with knowledge of certain things. Maybe you mean the person I mentioned just now, who [174a] knows the entire future—the seer. Or do you mean some other type?”

“I mean both him,” he said, “and another type.”

“Well, whom do you mean?” I asked. “You don’t mean this sort of person, do you—someone who knew not only the future but also the entire past and present, and was ignorant of nothing? Let’s suppose that there is such a person. I don’t imagine you’d say that anyone lives with greater knowledge than he does.”

“Certainly not.”

“Then it’s this that I am after: Which kind of knowledge is it that makes him happy? Or is it all of them alike?”

“All of them alike? Not at all,” he said.

{33} “But [b] which kind matters most? It’s the kind that allows him to know what exactly, with regard to the present, the past, and the future? The one that allows him to know checkers?”

“What do you mean, checkers?” he said.

“The one that allows him to know arithmetic, then?”

“Not at all.”

“The one that allows him to know what’s healthy, then?”

“This more than the others,” he said.

“But the one I mean,” I said, “is the one that matters most to his happiness—which one is that?”

“The one,” he said, “that allows him to know what’s good and what’s bad.”

“You rogue,” I said, “you’ve been dragging me around in circles, hiding the fact that it isn’t living with knowledge that brings us success [c] and happiness, nor with the knowledge of every single kind of knowledge, but with the knowledge of this one thing alone—what’s good and bad. Think about it, Critias: If you decide to take this knowledge away from the other kinds of knowledge, will medicine serve any less to keep us healthy, shoemaking to put shoes on our feet, weaving to put clothes on our backs, helmsmanship to prevent us from dying at sea, and generalship from dying in battle?”

“No less than before,” he said.

“But, my dear Critias, in the absence of that knowledge, there’s no chance that any of these things will turn out well or [d] benefit us.”

“That’s true.”

“Then it seems that discipline isn’t the knowledge whose work it is to benefit us. For this latter knowledge isn’t of cases of knowledge and ignorance, but of good and bad—which means that if this is beneficial, discipline would be something else for us.”

“But why wouldn’t it be beneficial?” he said. “For if discipline really is a knowledge of the kinds of knowledge, and it presides over [e] all of them, then presumably in ruling over this, too––the knowledge concerning what’s good––it would benefit us.”

“And so would it, and not medicine, keep us healthy?” I asked. “And would it do the work of the other arts, instead of them? Or haven’t we been declaring for a long time that it is knowledge of knowledge and ignorance alone, and not of anything else?”

“Apparently we have.”

“Then it won’t be a craftsman of health?”

“Certainly not.”

{34} “Because [175a] health belonged to another art, right?”

“Right, to another.”

“Nor then will it be a craftsman of benefit, my friend. We assigned this work to another art just now, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“So how will discipline be beneficial if it’s a craftsman of no benefit?”

“It seems that it won’t be, Socrates.”

“Do you see then, Critias, that what I feared a while back has come true, and that I was right to accuse myself of having nothing useful come out of my inquiry into discipline?89 Had I been at all helpful in making our search go well, I really doubt that what is agreed to be the most admirable thing of all [b] would appear to us to have no benefit. But now we’re being overwhelmed in every direction and can’t find the thing that the lawgiver called ‘discipline.’90 And that’s despite our having conceded a number of points that didn’t follow from our argument. We even conceded that there is a knowledge of knowledge, though the argument didn’t allow us to make that claim. And again, we conceded that this knowledge knows what the other kinds of knowledge know, [c] though the argument didn’t allow that either, so that our disciplined person would know that he knows the things he knows, and that he doesn’t know the things he doesn’t know. How extremely generous of us to concede that, when we hadn’t even considered the impossibility of someone knowing, somehow or other, the things he doesn’t know at all—for we agreed that he knows that he doesn’t know them—and yet what could appear more absurd than that?91 But, while our search is proving us to be simple-hearted and easy-going, [d] it isn’t any more capable of discovering the truth; in fact, it has made such a mockery of the truth that it states, {35} quite outrageously,92 that on the definition we’ve arrived at through a long series of agreements, discipline has no benefit.

“Now, I’m not so annoyed on my own behalf. But for your sake, Charmides, I really am quite annoyed if, with looks like yours as well as a soul that’s [e] supremely disciplined, you won’t profit at all from your discipline or derive any benefit from its presence in your life. But I’m even more annoyed about the incantation that I learned from the Thracian—that a thing I made great efforts to learn may be worthless. Now, I really don’t believe that any of this is the case, but instead that I’m a bad inquirer: since discipline is a great good, and if you really do have it, [176a] you are blessed. Now, look and see whether you do have it and don’t need the incantation. Because if you do have it, I would advise you rather to consider me a fool who can’t search for anything through discussion; but as for you, consider yourself as happy as you are disciplined.”

Then Charmides said, “By Zeus, Socrates! I don’t know whether I have it or not.93 How am I supposed to know, when you’re claiming that even the two of you can’t discover what it is? [b] But you don’t altogether convince me; and I really do believe, Socrates, that I need the incantation. And for my part, there’s nothing to stop me receiving the incantation from you until the day you say it’s enough.”

“Very well,” said Critias. “But if you do that, Charmides, it’ll be a sure sign to me that you are disciplined––if you submit to Socrates’ incantation and don’t desert him for any reason, great or small.”94

“Then I’ll stay by his side and I won’t desert him,” he said. “It would be awful [c] of me to disobey my guardian and refuse to do what you order.”

“All right, then, it’s an order,” he said.

“Then I will follow it,” he said, “from this day forward.”

“What are you two planning to do?” I said.

“Nothing,” said Charmides. “We’ve made our plan.”

{36} “So are you going to use force,” I asked, “and not even grant me a hearing?”95

“I am going to use force,” he said, “since that’s what he commands. Now it’s your turn to plan what to do.”

“It’s [d] too late for a plan,” I said. “For when you attempt to do anything by force, what human being could resist you?”

“Then don’t resist,” he said.

“I will not resist,” I said.

1. Socrates narrates the Charmides to a silent and anonymous friend (154b8, 155c5, 155d3) at an indeterminate time after the conversation reported (reading hêkomen at 153a1 as a past perfect). On the Athenian campaign in Potidaea (432–429 bce) and the Battle of Spartolus (May 429), at which Athens lost all three generals and 430 (out of 2000) others, see Analysis §1 (with the map on p. xii).

2. On the palaestra (“wrestling school”) of Taureas and the shrine of Basile, see “Geographical Setting” in the Introduction.

3. “Notable men” translates gnôrimoi (see LSJ s.v. II). Though Socrates uses the same adjective above to refer to those with whom he was “familiar” (153a6), a reference to the deaths of the socially prominent, including generals, better fits the historical evidence (see Analysis §1) and emphasizes the catastrophe for Athens.

4. This is one of two references to “philosophy” (philosophia) in the dialogue; below at 154e8, “practiced in philosophy” translates the adjective philosophos. “Wisdom” in the subsequent clause translates sophia; below at 155d4, 161c1, 162b3, “wise” translates the adjective sophos.

5. “Admirers” translates erastai. Greek society distinguished between the typically older “admirer” or “lover” and his “beloved” (erômenos), who ideally would have reached puberty but not yet have grown a beard. Below (154b4–5), Socrates says that Charmides is no longer a “boy” (pais) but is still a “young man” (meirakion), no more than seventeen, and thus at the conventionally most attractive age (see Analysis §2).

6. This Glaucon was Plato’s maternal grandfather (after whom one of Plato’s brothers was named); see the family tree on p. xiii.

7. The full expression: “a white line (leukê stathmê) on white stone.” The Greeks would mark their measurements with a (red) chalk stathmê before cutting stone and timber, but white chalk on marble would be no use at all.

8. “Statue” translates agalma, typically an image of a god.

9. More literally, “he would seem faceless (aprosôpos) to you,” a term found only here in Classical Greek, and possibly used for unfinished or unadorned heads of statues (see Hyperides 4.25). Greek men exercised naked.

10. “Perfectly formed” translates to eidos pankalos (more literally, “entirely beautiful in form”).

11. Characters in Socratic-era comic drama frequently call on Heracles for assistance when faced with strange or otherwise threatening creatures.

12. “Naturally good” translates eu pephukôs; Theaetetus is described this way at Tht. 144a.

13. “Exceptional” translates kalos kai agathos (more literally, “beautiful and good”; cf. 157e4–158a3), the ideal of aristocratic excellence. The common adjective kalos on its own is translated as “beautiful,” “admirable,” and (on a few occasions) “fine” or “good,” depending on context; it is later glossed as “worthy of praise” (160a10).

14. “Have a conversation” translates dialegesthai, from which the word “dialectic” (dialektikê) is derived.

15. “Skilled in poetry” translates poiêtikos, which here may refer both to analyzing and evaluating poetry (cf. Ion 532c)—a skill that Plato’s Protagoras calls “the greatest part of a man’s education” (Prt. 338e7) and that features often in Socratic conversation (cf. 161a below, Rep. 331d–332d)—and to producing verses and stories (cf. Rep. 393d).

16. Solon (c. 638–558) was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, a poet, and Athens’ most famous legislator.

17. Since Charmides’ father is deceased, his cousin Critias acts as his legal guardian (epitropos). Socrates implies that were Critias not present, onlookers might see the conversation as an attempt at seduction; cf. Smp. 183c–d, 217a–b; Xen. Lac. 2.12 (where in some cities, to have a conversation with a “beloved” is forbidden to “admirers,” but not in Sparta, as long as the interest is in his “soul” rather than his “body”).

18. Critias calls to his slave; cf. Prt. 310c; Meno 82b; Rep. 327b. “Boy” (pais) here need not imply youth.

19. “Know” here translates epistasthai, the verbal form of epistêmê (a key term in the dialogue’s second half); for other Greek verbs of knowing, see nn. 61 and 67.

20. “Found myself at a loss” translates aporein, the verbal form of aporia (“puzzlement”); cf. 156b2, 167b7–8, 169c3–d1.

21. “Clothing” translates himation, “the characteristic garment of freeborn citizens . . . a rectangle, measuring approximately 9 × 6 ft, which could be draped in various ways but which was usually supported on the left arm, leaving the right arm free” (OCD s.v. “dress”), by some translators rendered “light cloak” or similar.

22. This provides the only extant fragment of the popular Athenian poet Cydias (cf. Plut. Moralia 931e).

23. Socrates’ “cure” (pharmakon, sometimes “drug”) consists of an “herb” (phullon) and an “incantation” (epôidê).

24. “Regimens” translates diaitai, suggesting a prolonged course of treatment rather than an instantaneous cure; cf. [Hippocrates] Regimen 1.2.

25. “Make people immortal” translates the rare verb apathanatizein. For the legendary Zalmoxis and the connection to immortality, see Hdt. 4.94–96 and Analysis §4.

26. “Words” translates logoi; cf. Eur. Hipp. 478. The noun logos can refer to a broad range of articulate speech, and is elsewhere translated as “principle” (156c3–8, 161e13), “claim” (158b3, 162c7, 173e6), “argument” (160b8, d11, 162e3, 166c5–e2, 175b5–7), etc.

27. “Discipline” translates sôphrosunê, the key term of the dialogue; see “Sôphrosunê as ‘Discipline’” in the Introduction for our defense of “discipline” over alternative translations.

28. “Godsend” translates hermaion (more literally, “gift of Hermes”); cf. Grg. 486d–e, spoken of Callicles’ being found as an excellent “touchstone” for Socrates’ commitments. “Mind” translates dianoia, alternatively “thought” or “understanding.”

29. Anacreon (c. 575–c. 490), a native of Teos, joined the court of the tyrant Hipparchus in Athens around 520. The Critias mentioned here is likely the great-great-grandfather of our Critias; see again the family tree on p. xiii for the lineage. A late source says that Anacreon stayed in Attica “from love for Critias” (Kritiou erôn), though it is not certain which Critias is meant (A2 DK). For the phrase “what is called happiness” (legomenê eudaimonia), see also Rep. 612a (cf. 491c and 495a).

30. Pyrilampes (c. 480–c. 413; also mentioned at Prm. 126b–c; Grg. 481e, 513b) married Plato’s mother, Perictione (his niece and Charmides’ sister), shortly after Plato’s birth; see again the family tree on p. xiii. Artaxerxes had been Great King of Persia since 465.

31. Socrates adapts Telemachus’ twice-made remark about his father Odysseus: “His mother bore him to sorrow beyond measure” (Hom. Od. 3.95, 4.325).

32. Abaris was a legendary seer and miracle-worker associated with Apollo and then with Pythagoreanism. Herodotus (4.36.1) records skeptically the tales of an ascetic Abaris who traveled the whole world fasting while carrying an arrow, which may have been a cure for disease (OCD s.v. “Abaris”). Hyperborea, “the land beyond the north wind [Boreas],” was indeterminately and marvelously beyond Thrace (Hdt. 4.32.1–36.1).

33. “Art of medicine” translates iatrikê (sc. technê, alternatively “craft”; see n. 63 below).

34. On the various puzzling aspects of Socrates’ diagnostic method, see Analysis §6.

35. “Awareness” translates aisthêsis (following Taylor 1927, 50), later “perception” (in the context of the sensory faculties, 167d7–9).

36. “Know how to speak Greek” translates epistasthai hellênizein. The phrase probably implies not just basic competence in the language but a highly developed facility (contrast Meno 82a). On the ideological implications of the verb hellênizein (“speak Greek”), see Denyer 2001, 121–22. Aristotle uses the verb to mean “speak Greek well” (Rhet. III 5, 1407a19)—i.e., using very specific language and avoiding ambiguity. Charmides apparently answers the call by offering an extremely rare Greek word as his first definition (see the next note).

37. “State of tranquility” translates hêsuchiotês, a word that occurs in only one other place in Classical Greek, in a speech by Lysias (26.5 [382 bce]), where it is connected to sôphrosunê. In his refutation, Socrates uses the more common term, hêsuchia (as at 160a1), alternatively “quietness” or “peacefulness” (cf. Rep. 496d). “Orderly” translates kosmiôs.

38. Writing “the same letters” could mean either imitating precisely what the teacher has written (cf. Prt. 326d), repeating precisely a sequence of the same letter, or writing what other students are writing.

39. Plato’s Protagoras claims that the cithara teachers especially are concerned to foster sôphrosunê in their Athenian pupils (Prt. 326a–b); cf. Alc. 106e; Rep. 399d–e.

40. Competition in pankration (“every force”) combined boxing, wrestling, and other forms of fighting; Socrates compares it to freewheeling argumentative battle at Euthd. 271c–272a.

41. “Gifted” translates eumathês (more literally, “good at learning”), and “dull-witted” translates dusmathês (“bad at learning”). In the Republic, Socrates describes the philosophical nature as “gifted” (486c, 490c) and remarks on the importance but difficulty of finding this and related qualities (good memory, mental acuity and nimbleness) combined with the desire to live orderly, tranquil, and stable lives (503c; cf. 535a–c, 618d).

42. “Recollecting” translates the verb anamimnêiskesthai (cf. 161b5), “remembering” translates the verb memnêsthai (cf. 156a7). Aristotle distinguishes the two in De Memoria, stating that those with good memories (mnêmonikoi) are “slow,” while those with good powers of recollection (anamnêstikoi) are “quick” and “gifted” (449b6–8).

43. “Sense of shame” translates aidôs, an older term closely related to the verb aischunesthai (“to feel shame”) and the adjective aischuntêlos (“modest”; cf. 158c6 above), and traditionally linked to sôphrosunê.

44. The Greek text here, which our translation follows, leads to a logical invalidity. Socrates should have instead asked, “Now, can a thing fail to be good if it produces good men?” To save the argument, scholars have proposed various emendations to the text, assuming faulty manuscripts, but none is fully convincing. In any case, the fallacy is avoided when Socrates reiterates this part of the argument at 161a8–9 below. See Murphy 2014, 1000–1002.

45. Od. 17.347: aidôs d’ ouk agathê kechrêmenôi andri pareinai (cf. Hes. Op. 317), also quoted at Pl. La. 201b2–3.

46. “Doing one’s own things” translates to ta heautou prattein, alternatively “minding one’s own business.” In the Republic, this definition is applied instead to justice (dikaiosunê). For discussion, see “Sôphrosunê in the Charmides” in the Introduction and Analysis §9.

47. “Rogue” here and at 174b11 translates the vocative form of miaros, alternatively “polluted” or “defiled.”

48. “Riddle” translates ainigma, paradigmatically an oracular utterance in need of skillful interpretation; see below, of the Delphic inscription as spoken “enigmatically” (164e6).

49. “Being busybodies” translates polupragmoneuein (more literally, “doing a lot”), which is opposed to “doing one’s own things” at Rep. 433a. “Being disciplined” here and below translates the active verb sôphronein.

50. Young men (or their attendant slaves) in the palaestra would have used the strigil, a metal tool, for scraping off oil, dirt, and sweat after exercising. Hippias of Elea, a younger contemporary of Socrates, was famous for making all his own things: his own clothes, shoes, and personal equipment—even his own oil flask and strigil (L. Hp. 368b–c).

51. “Keen . . . to impress” translates the participial phrase philotimôs echôn. In contrast to the modest and self-effacing Charmides, Critias is characterized by philotimia, “love of honor” or “ambition” (cf. 169c3–d1).

52. “Craftsmen” translates dêmiourgoi and may refer to any skilled producers of goods; cf. Pl. Ap. 22d–e.

53. “Doing” here translates the verbal noun to prattein, “making” to poiein, and “working” to ergazesthai.

54. Op. 311: “Work is no disgrace, but idleness is a disgrace” (ergon d’ ouden oneidos, aergiê de t’ oneidos); cf. Rep. 590c; Xen. Mem. 1.2.56–57. After Homer, Hesiod (c. 700) is the poet alluded to most often in Plato’s work.

55. Prodicus of Ceos was known for making distinctions among apparent synonyms (cf. Prt. 337a–c, 340b–341c); elsewhere Socrates claims to have been his student (Meno 96d) and to have matched up his own associates with the Sophist (Tht. 151b).

56. Critias seems to be rejecting only the untoward consequences of his original definition, “doing one’s own things,” which he appears to go on to defend, in the next sentence, by saying that it basically amounts to “knowing oneself.”

57. By early in the fifth century, the maxim “Know yourself” (Gnôthi sauton) had been inscribed somewhere near the entrance to the Temple of Apollo; by late in that century, the Greeks puzzled over this and other maxims’ sources and meanings. “Put up” translates anatithesthai, which can mean either “dedicate”—e.g., sayings or votive offerings to a god—or “inscribe,” which lacks a necessary connection to piety.

58. “Cheers” translates the imperative form of chairein, a standard greeting; it was also addressed to gods by visitors to their sanctuaries (such as Delphi), requesting that they take pleasure in one’s visit or offerings. A version of Critias’ reasoning is spelled out at the opening of the pseudo-Platonic Third Letter (315a–c).

59. The first, Mêden agan, advocates moderation; the second, Egguê para d’ atê, refers to contracts, alliances, marriages, or other binding commitments.

60. “Give a defense” translates didonai logon, which in Plato often refers to answering questions about one’s claims. At Meno 75d1–4, Socrates contrasts the contentious demand that an interlocutor “take an account and refute it” (lambanein logon kai elenchein) with conversation (dialegesthai) between friends, which is gentler and aims at shared understanding; see also Rep. 454a.

61. “Knowing something” translates gignôskein ti (using the verb in Gnôthi sauton); “certain kind of knowledge . . . of something” translates epistêmê tis kai tinos (the first of many uses of the noun epistêmê in this dialogue). Socrates seeks Critias’ agreement that the knowing that is supposed to constitute discipline is a branch of knowledge distinguished from other (expert) epistêmai (“kinds of knowledge”) by its specific domain (what it is “of”).

62. Critias initially claims that discipline has a particular object, “oneself,” but this conflicts with the thought that any branch of expert knowledge has a general object (e.g., health, as opposed to the health of this person). It may be the pressure of the other examples of epistêmai (e.g., medicine, architecture, geometry) that leads Critias, at 166b7–c3, to revise his claim about the object of discipline (“other kinds of knowledge and also [knowledge] itself”).

63. “Arts” translates technai. The term technê is not evidently distinguished from epistêmê in this dialogue.

64. “Arithmetic” translates logistikê: often “calculation,” here it is a theoretical art (see Tht. 145a; Xen. Mem. 1.1.7; cf. Grg. 451b–c; L. Hp. 366c–367a; Rep. 525a), which an ancient commentator calls “the study of what’s countable,” and thus related to number theory. Greek mathematics often dealt with numbers as comprising two series, the odd and the even, as salient to questions about divisibility and ratio.

65. “Art of weighing” translates statikê; it concerns standardized “weights” (stathmai), and thus conduces to precision and determinacy (cf. Phlb. 55e), perhaps involving calibration and, again, ratios.

66. “Refute” translates elenchein (likewise exelenchein at 162d1–2). Here Socrates (with c8, e2 below) does not accede to the charge that he “refutes” unqualifiedly; he portrays refuting as a side effect of “interrogating” (diereunan) his and others’ opinions (as part of avoiding self-deception). Compare Rep. 336c (cf. 337e, 349a), where Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of refuting him from “love of honor” (philotimia; see n. 51 above).

67. “Know” translates eidenai; this formulation is generalized in Socrates’ gloss at 167a2–7, 170a2–3, etc. “Interrogate” translates diereunan, a verb that intensifies the root “seek” and that Socrates elsewhere uses for discovering a person like himself (Phd. 78a; cf. Soph. 241b).

68. “Shared interest” translates koinon agathon, alternatively “common good.”

69. “Ignorance” translates anepistêmosunê. An expert in some area (e.g., health) is presumed to have expertise in its relevant opposite (e.g., disease); see Rep. 333d–334a.

70. “Examine” translates exetazein, Socrates’ favored verb in the Apology for his philosophical activity; see, e.g., 22e6 (exetasis), 23c4, 28e5, 29e5, 38a5. On verbs of interrogation in the Charmides, see Tarrant 2000a; across the corpus, Tarrant 2002.

71. At symposia, each round of drinking would begin with a libation (a pour of wine); the third would be to Zeus the Savior. The earlier beginnings were at 165c4 and at 166b5 or e4.

72. “The things” translates hôn, an indefinite relative; it is the only object of an intentional state in this list that is not specified.

73. “Knowledge as such” translates autê hê epistêmê.

74. “Power” translates dunamis; here it means only an essential relative property, which cannot exist on its own (as a sister needs a sibling to be such).

75. Whereas English uses “than” in comparative relations (x is heavier than y) and “of” in objective relations (x is the sister of y), Greek uses the genitive, without a preposition, for both.

76. “Great man” translates megas anêr, a description in Homer with heroic connotations, and later identifying (practical and moral) exemplars.

77. “Have a hunch” translates manteuesthai (cf. Rep. 506a6, 523a8); this verb is related to mantikê (“divination,” 173c3) and mantis (“seer,” 164e7, 173c6, 174a1). The goodness of discipline is proclaimed by the Thracian doctor at 156e6–157b1; Socrates implies it at 158b2–4; Charmides accepts it at 160e6–13; Critias and Socrates seem jointly to accept it at 172b1–c3; Socrates directly asserts it at 175e6–176a5.

78. 167a5–7, b2–3.

79. Here Critias reverses the inference—from knowing oneself to having knowledge that knows itself—that Socrates reports at 165c4–6, 166b5–c3. While “knowledge” at the start of this sentence translates epistêmê, every further knowledge term here and in the next sentence translates a form of gignôskein or gnôsis. In the subsequent phrase, “will necessarily know. . . ,” Socrates uses forms of the verb eidenai; and then he returns to forms of epistêmê.

80. “One thing is a case of knowledge” translates tode epistêmê, by which Socrates means a case of someone’s knowing.

81. “That” refers to the object of the proposed knowledge of knowledge (namely, bare knowledge), which Socrates asks Critias to compare to specific kinds of knowledge; in Socrates’ next statement, “that one” refers to the same thing.

82. “Cases of knowledge” translates epistêmai without a definite article. This remark refers back to 170a7, where knowledge of knowledge determines whether something counts as knowledge. Following Critias’ lead, the interlocutors had earlier spoken of tôn allôn epistêmôn, “the other kinds of knowledge” (166c1–2, e5–6, 167c1, 168a8). The precise relation between knowing what counts as (a case of) knowledge and knowing the various kinds of knowledge is an open question.

83. This was said at 165c10–11 and 170a10. The point is that since “medicine” is a kind of knowledge, the doctor’s expertise does not include it.

84. 167a5–7, b2–3, and again at 169d6–7.

85. Critias tentatively agrees to Socrates’ conclusion that they have been assuming discipline would be more exalted than it really is; he is not expressing doubt about that conclusion, as the Greek might seem to suggest (see Murphy 2014, 1003–4, against van der Ben 1985, 78–80, and Tuozzo 2011, 263–64).

86. 172a4–5.

87. 171d5–172a3.

88. Socrates paraphrases Od. 19.563–67, where Penelope says that deceptive dreams come through gates of ivory, true ones through gates of horn; the dream she describes augurs Odysseus’ return to bring order to his kingdom, Ithaca (535–53). Elsewhere Socrates couches as dreams impressive but as-yet-untested proposals (Cra. 439c–d; Tht. 201d–202e; Phlb. 20b–c).

89. Referring to 172c4–5. “Nothing useful” translates ouden chrêston, which is ambiguous between the object of the inquiry (“what I sought turned out to be useless”) and its manner (“I sought in a useless way”).

90. Socrates calls the coiner of words the “lawgiver” (nomothetês) throughout the Cratylus (see esp. 388d–389a).

91. The absurdity is due to an ambiguity in the sentence “Socrates knows the things he doesn’t know.” On one reading, which has been in focus for much of the dialogue, the claim is that Socrates knows, of the things he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t know them. On another reading, the claim is that Socrates knows and doesn’t know the very same things (in the same respect, etc.), which is a contradiction. Here Socrates echoes related arguments that trade on ambiguities; see especially Meno 80d (searching for what one doesn’t know “at all”).

92. “Quite outrageously” translates panu hubristikôs; the implication may be that the conclusion somehow lacks sôphrosunê (hubris’ traditional opposite).

93. Compare 158c2–d6, the earlier instance of this question.

94. “Desert,” with a military connotation, translates apoleipein. Compare Ap. 28d–29a: for Socrates to desert (leipein) his god-granted posting to philosophize, examining himself and others, would be as bad as deserting his military posting at Potidaea. The ensuing language of ordering (keleuein), planning (bouleuein), using force (biazesthai), and resisting (enantiousthai) has a similarly martial tenor.

95. “Hearing” translates anakrisis, a preliminary trial. Standard judicial procedures were arbitrarily restricted during the oligarchic reign of the Thirty (404/3 bce), led by Critias, that supplanted Athens’ democracy at the end of the Peloponnesian War.

{37} Analysis

Our analysis, which seeks to track the dialogue’s narrative and argument, has twenty-four sections grouped into nine clusters; these reflect neither Plato’s nor earlier editors’ decisions. We focus on interpretative difficulties, provide relevant ancient evidence and recent scholarship, and suggest questions raised by Plato’s literary-philosophical project as well as some avenues for responding to them. A concluding section of this book, “The Charmides in Reflection,” adumbrates our view of the dialogue’s upshot.

Socrates Meets Charmides (§§1–3)

The first three sections of the dialogue (in our division) introduce the relationships between Critias, Charmides, and Socrates, and present the stakes for the conversation about discipline (sôphrosunê) occasioned here: the state of philosophy in Athens, and, more broadly, Athens itself. We also learn about Socrates’ character and commitments.

1. Socrates returns home from war (153a1–154b7)

The conversation that Socrates recounts in the dialogue takes place the morning after his return from the siege of Potidaea in Thrace—one of the precipitating actions of the Peloponnesian War.1 After an initial success against the rebelling city in the fall of 432, the Athenian army began a blockade that would last a full two years, the starving Potidaeans finally capitulating in the winter of 430/29. The Thracian campaign continued until the following May, when a band of two thousand Athenians attacked the town of Spartolus and were overwhelmed by cavalry and peltasts from nearby Olynthus.2 According to Thucydides’ History of {38} the Peloponnesian War (2.79.7), the Athenians lost over a quarter of their hoplite forces (430 men) and all three generals. The survivors—Socrates among them—retreated to the camp at Potidaea before disbanding and returning home. The Charmides thus depicts Socrates’ reintroduction to Athens after a nearly three-year absence, spent fighting on behalf of a democracy that, three decades later, would put him to death.

The city to which Socrates returns is not the one he left behind. The previous spring, Athens had been struck by plague, which would wipe out as much as a quarter of the population within four years, including a large percentage of the citizen army.3 Thucydides recounts the Athenians’ futile efforts to intervene:

Doctors, not knowing what to do, were unable to cope with it at first, and no other human knowledge was any use either. The doctors themselves died fastest, as they came to the sick most often. Prayers in temples, questions to oracles—all practices of that kind turned out to be useless also, and in the end people gave them up, defeated by the evil of the disease. (2.47.4, tr. Woodruff 1993)

The plague even infected the camp at Potidaea, killing 1050 of the 4000 men involved in the siege.4 It also claimed Athens’ leading statesman, Pericles, in the late summer of 429. Thucydides describes the “great lawlessness that grew everywhere in the city” (2.53.1) in those years:

No one was held back in awe, either by fear of the gods or by the laws of men: not by the gods, because men concluded it was all the same whether they worshipped or not, seeing that they all perished alike; and not by the laws, because no one expected to live till he was tried and punished for his crimes. But they thought that a far greater sentence hung over their heads now, and that before this fell they had a reason to get some pleasure in life. (2.53.4)

Meanwhile, there had been growing discontent about the war effort, as the Athenians’ far-flung campaigns drained the treasury, the surrounding countryside was laid waste by two Spartan invasions, and the city became crowded with refugees, contributing to the spread of disease.5 Against Athens’ imperial policy, some {39} were advocating apragmosunê (“inaction”) and hêsuchia (“tranquility” or “peace”), values closely associated with sôphrosunê and the Spartan oligarchy.6

If Athens was changed by the early war years, Socrates apparently was not. He returns from the disaster at Spartolus unscathed—his friend Chaerephon doubts he could even have been in the battle—and steadfast in his devotion to philosophia, the dynamic circle of its discussants, and the promising youths of Athens. In the Symposium, an inebriated Alcibiades, who fought side by side with Socrates in Thrace, praises him as a paragon of “discipline and courage” (sôphrosunên kai andreian, 219d5; cf. 216d7)—not least for having resisted his own youthful charms—and recalls his extraordinary exploits at Potidaea:

“Now, first, he took the hardships of the campaign much better than I ever did—much better, in fact, than anyone in the whole army. When we were cut off from our supplies, as often happens in the field, no one else stood up to hunger as well as he did. And yet he was the one man who could really enjoy a feast; and though he didn’t much want to drink, when he had to, he could drink the best of us under the table. Still, and most amazingly, no one ever saw him drunk. . . .

“Add to this his amazing resistance to the cold—and, let me tell you, the winter there is something awful. Once, I remember, it was frightfully cold; no one so much as stuck his nose outside. If we absolutely had to leave our tent, we wrapped ourselves in anything we could lay our hands on and tied extra pieces of felt or sheepskin over our boots. Well, Socrates went out in that weather wearing nothing but this same old light cloak, and even in bare feet he made better progress on the ice than the other soldiers did in their boots. . . .

“And if you would like to know what he was like in battle—this is a tribute he really deserves. You know that I was decorated for bravery during that campaign: well, during that very battle [probably in the fall of 432], Socrates single-handedly saved my life! He absolutely did! He just refused to leave me behind when I was wounded, and he rescued not only me but my armor as well. For my part, Socrates, I told them right then that the decoration really belonged to you, and you can blame me neither for doing so then nor for saying so now. But the generals, who seemed much more concerned with my social position, insisted on giving the decoration to me, and, I must say, you were more eager {40} than the generals themselves for me to have it.” (219e7–220e7, tr. Nehamas and Woodruff in Cooper 1997)

In light of his heroic feats—perhaps a popular conversation topic among the city’s youths (see Chrm. 156a6–7)—Socrates’ reticence on returning from Potidaea is all the more striking: three years of fighting have made him no less indifferent to glory, and we are prepared to see where his real interests lie.7

Socrates goes as soon as he can to a local palaestra (“wrestling school”), a training ground for the next generation of fighters and favorite hangout of leisured gentlemen. After fielding his friends’ questions about the battle, Socrates asks about things at home: the current state of philosophia, and whether any young man has come to distinguish himself through his mental or physical excellence or both qualities at once. Critias thinks he will have part of his question answered right away, since the one considered the most beautiful is about to come into view.8 Before Charmides enters the palaestra, we learn some important details about the youth and his connection to the older Critias. When Socrates left Athens, Charmides was still a “boy” (pais, 154b4); now he is a “young man” (meirakion, 154b5), in his mid-teens—physically developed and mature enough to join in discussions, but not yet ready to engage in politics or run a household.9 This casts him as the ideal beloved (erômenos), the younger, subordinate partner in male-male relationships, who might be expected to grant limited sexual favors in return for cultural instruction and social access.10 Charmides has already attracted a large band of “admirers” (erastai, 154a5; cf. c2–5), who boisterously herald his entrance. Socrates uses the term ochlos, “crowd” or “mob” (154a2), perhaps hinting that Charmides’ erotic charms could lead to political power.11 Critias refers to the group in front as his “advance guard” (prodromoi, 154a4), a term typically used for horsemen at the head of an army battalion. The implication may be that Charmides’ beauty forebodes an outsized influence on his fellow Athenians, whether or not he is prepared to use that influence justly.

{41} Charmides is the scion of two of the most illustrious families in Athens. His father is deceased, and Critias, who is about thirty, has been appointed his legal guardian (epitropos).12 In addition to controlling Charmides’ inheritance, Critias would have been responsible for introducing him to the norms of aristocratic society and protecting him from sexual impropriety (see 155a4–7). As a leading thinker of his day, Critias would likely have taken an interest in his cousin’s intellectual development. We soon learn that, surely thanks to Critias, Charmides is versed in the conventions of question-and-answer conversation and the discussion of ethical definitions (161b5–6). At this point, however, the focus is squarely on Charmides’ visible qualities, as Critias insists that Socrates will know presently—apparently just by looking at him—what sort of person the young man has become. How quickly Socrates intuits or learns about Charmides’ character is among the puzzles of the dialogue.

For Plato’s original audience, the opening of the Charmides could have recalled another famous homecoming: Odysseus’ return to Ithaca twenty years after the expedition to Troy. The Charmides intersects with Homer’s Odyssey at several points; besides the direct quotation at 161a4 (Od. 17.347, see §8 below), it teems with verbal allusions and dramatic echoes.13 It is tempting to read Socrates as a latter-day Odysseus, returning home to reclaim his true love, philosophia, from her unworthy suitors—Critias chief among them.14 Plato’s portrait of Charmides, moreover, appears to be modeled on Homer’s Telemachus, the noble but diffident youth who must embark on a search for knowledge of his father’s fate.15 How far to take the parallels, and their import for the dialogue’s overall meaning, is another key puzzle.

2. Seeing Charmides from a distance (154b8–155b8)

Charmides enters the palaestra, and Socrates describes his first impression of the young man’s beauty.16 He recalls it with a certain wry distance: he claims to have {42} been wonderstruck by Charmides’ appearance, but shows more interest in its effect on the others in the palaestra, who were “dazzled and thrown into confusion” (ekpeplêgmenoi te kai tethorubêmenoi, 154c3).17 While Socrates includes himself among the “older men” who reacted this way, he had the self-possession to observe how the boys were affected: “I noticed that not one of them—not even the littlest—was looking anywhere else: they were all gazing at him as if he were a statue” (154c5–8). Socrates is apparently the only one in the room not in thrall to Charmides’ beauty. The word translated as “statue” (agalma) is typically used for an image of a god.18 Charmides is regarded almost as a divine being, an object of reverence and worship, with the power to bless or destroy. It will be up to Socrates to expose Charmides’ basic humanity and lack of self-sufficiency—so long as he can resist the young man’s charms.

Chaerephon jokes that were Charmides willing to undress—Athenians wrestled naked at the palaestra—his face would pale in comparison to the beauty of his body.

The others seconded Chaerephon. “Heracles!” I replied. “What an irresistible man you’re describing—if he happens to have just one small thing in addition.”

“What thing is that?” asked Critias.

“If he happens to have a naturally good soul,” I replied. “But I suppose it’s only fitting that he would, Critias, seeing as he belongs to your family.”

“Well, he is quite exceptional in that respect too,” he said.

“Then why don’t we undress that part of him,” I said, “and gaze at it before we gaze at his form? Surely now that he’s so grown up, he’ll be willing to have a conversation.” (154d6–e7)

This playful exchange brings into focus some of the dialogue’s central questions: What makes a person truly beautiful (kalos, also “admirable”)?19 Socrates suggests {43} it is having a beautiful soul (psuchê)—but what is the soul, and what constitutes its beauty? And how does one know whether a particular soul—one’s own or another’s—is beautiful? Is beauty of soul, like a person’s facial features, inherited at birth, as Socrates’ remark about Charmides’ kinship to Critias seems to imply? Critias does not dispute the suggestion, and avows that his cousin is “exceptional”—kalos kai agathos, more literally “beautiful and good”—in his soul as well as his body.20 This phrase was something of an aristocratic watchword, tying noble birth and landed wealth to physical strength and beauty, virtuous character, and the right to rule.21 But Socrates hesitates to draw conclusions from Charmides’ genealogy; instead, he recommends they “undress” his soul by engaging him in a discussion.22 This points to a preliminary answer to the questions raised so far: the soul’s beauty is revealed, and perhaps even heightened, through conversation of some kind.23

Socrates invites Critias to call over his cousin (who may be occupied with his friends or too modest to interrupt) in order to show him off (epideiknunai, 155a4)—to display his family’s good breeding and his own abilities as a mentor. The ensuing examination of Charmides proves also to be a test of Critias, who is responsible for his upbringing, and who purports to know what it takes to be kalos kai agathos. Curiously, Critias uses a ruse to get the young man to join them: he sends a slave to tell Charmides he has a doctor with him to consult about his morning headaches, and then asks Socrates to pretend to know a cure. Presumably, the only headaches Socrates could be imagined to alleviate are hangovers—Socrates is famous for avoiding them (see Smp. 176a–e, 225b–d); and moderate drinking was a characteristic component of discipline (see Rep. 398e, 403e; Laws I), encouraged by the historical Critias (B6, B33 DK).24 There may be more than a little irony in Critias’ later assurance that Charmides is reputed to be the “most disciplined” (sôphronestatos, 157d6) young man in Athens. At any rate, Socrates will make the most of the role in which Critias has cast him, and in an important sense, he may not be pretending at all.

{44} 3. Face-to-face with Charmides (155b9–156a8)

But first Socrates himself will be put to the test. In the dialogue’s most sensational episode,25 he recalls being nearly overwhelmed with passion on meeting Charmides face-to-face (cf. Phdr. 250a–b, 251a–b). As Charmides approaches, the men on Socrates’ bench prove no more self-composed than the rowdy youths who entered with him. Their jostling is to no avail, however, as he sits down between Socrates and Critias—perhaps representing two choices of life—where he will remain for the rest of the dialogue. Socrates describes what happens next, in a single sinuous sentence punctuated by two direct addresses to his listener:

And that was the moment, my dear friend, when I found myself at a loss, and my earlier boldness—thinking I’d have no trouble holding a conversation with him—was knocked right out of me: when Critias told him that I was the one who knew the cure, he turned to me with an indescribable look in his eyes as he prepared to ask a question, and everyone in the palaestra swirled around us; it was then, my noble friend, that I saw what was under his clothing, and I caught fire and was no longer in my right mind—and I judged Cydias to be wisest in matters of love, who warned someone about a beautiful boy: “Beware lest a fawn, coming face-to-face with a lion, be snatched as a portion of meat.” (155c5–e1)

Heeding the poet’s warning,26 he manages to collect himself and continue with the ruse.27 The passage depicts Socrates as a paragon of self-control in the face of erotic temptation—reflecting the popular view of discipline.28 His presence of mind appears all the more heroic given the intensity of his desire, which almost renders him speechless.

But what exactly does Socrates see? The Greek says only ta entos tou himatiou (more literally, “the things inside of his himation”); as M. M. McCabe has pointed out, the referent of the euphemistic phrase is indeterminate: “It includes not only the most exciting part of Charmides’ anatomy, but his soul too, the part that {45} Socrates says he is interested in.”29 The way the sentence is structured, moreover, it seems that Socrates is looking into Charmides’ eyes at the very moment he sees inside his himation (cf. Phdr. 225a–e). If Charmides’ gaze was as fascinating and “indescribable” (amêchanon, 155d1) as Socrates claims, it would be surprising if he was then distracted by another, more alluring, part of his body.30 So, perhaps there was something about the look in his eyes, as Charmides got ready to ask his question, that revealed some beautiful aspect of his soul.31 We still would not know what Socrates found so disarming—maybe it was the natural modesty that Charmides will display further on (see 158c5–7).32 Whatever the root of his attraction, Socrates is aware that he risks falling under Charmides’ sway and losing the critical distance he needs to carry out the examination.

Already we have been invited to view the conversation between Socrates and Charmides in light of two patterns of human interaction: the erotic model of lover and beloved, and the medical model of doctor and patient. Both assume a strict division of roles, active and passive. The lover pursues the object of his desirous gaze, while the beloved is supposed to act demure and feel no lust himself; the doctor examines and works on his patient’s flesh, while the patient submits to his procedures and instructions. Both kinds of relationship are transactional, the lover receiving gratification in exchange for social benefits, the doctor receiving payment for his services. After Socrates says that the cure consists of an herb (phullon) and an incantation (epôidê), Charmides says he will write down the incantation’s words (155e5–156a2). “If you persuade me,” Socrates asks, “or even if you {46} don’t?” (156a3). A doctor expects to derive some benefit from his craft, financial or otherwise (see 164a9–b1). “If I persuade you, Socrates,” Charmides says with a laugh (156a4). Socrates famously refused to accept payment from his associates (cf. Pl. Ap. 19e; Xen. Mem. 1.6), despite the good he thought his conversations could do them. Charmides seems to know full well that this exchange will not be the kind he imagined when Critias called him over.33 Socratic conversation, this passage suggests, involves a different sort of reciprocity than either the erotic or the medical model, one that contributes to the common good of both parties (cf. 166d4–5).

Diagnosing Charmides’ Discipline (§§4–6)

Over the next three sections, Socrates presents his therapeutic task, healing Charmides’ morning headaches, as a psychosomatic one: the goodness or health of the body comes from the goodness or health of the soul. The curative method he claims to have learned from a Thracian doctor requires, however, that he first diagnose his patient’s psychic goodness, which is his “discipline” (sôphrosunê), a term introduced for the first time in the dialogue here. At the end of this part, Socrates recommends an introspective diagnostic approach that may recall medical practice; he will subsequently adopt several others. In each case, Charmides will be expected to present a definition of sôphrosunê for the interlocutors to test; if Charmides cannot sustain the definition, he cannot be said to possess the virtue.

4. Zalmoxian medicine (156a9–157c6)

In this section, Socrates explains the nature of the headache cure and brings the dialogue’s main theme—discipline—into explicit focus. He first asks Charmides whether he is familiar with the practices of “good” or serious doctors in Greece: they consider it foolish to treat any part of the body in isolation, instead directing their regimens at the entire body, healing the part along with the whole.34 When Charmides says he approves of their methods, Socrates goes on to relate what {47} he learned on campaign, from a Thracian doctor of the cult of Zalmoxis.35 The Zalmoxians carry the Greeks’ holistic principle further, refusing to treat the body apart from the soul, which, in their view, is the source of all that is “bad or good for the body and the entire human being” (156e7–8).36 The soul, they say, is treated with certain incantations, whose “beautiful words” (logous . . . kalous; cf. Smp. 221e–222a) engender discipline in the souls of those who hear them (157a4–6).37 The Thracian taught Socrates the headache cure, but made him swear an oath that he would not use it on anyone who had not been treated with the incantations—no matter how “wealthy, wellborn, or beautiful” he happened to be (157b7–8).38 So, if Charmides is willing to let his soul be healed, Socrates will administer the cure for his head. What Socrates has to offer, however, is neither a rare herb nor a Thracian charm—which he may have mentioned largely to capture Charmides’ attention, as he mentions the priestess Diotima to Agathon in the Symposium and the Egyptian god Theuth to Phaedrus in the Phaedrus—but his usual searching conversation.

Socrates says that he was initially “at a loss” (êporoun, 156b2) about the best way to acquaint Charmides with the powers of Zalmoxian medicine. It is only once {48} he confirms that Charmides recognizes him, and the two establish rapport, that Socrates is prepared to “be more frank” (mallon . . . parrhêsiasomai, 156a9) about the incantation. Why does he register the dismissal of his hesitation? Socrates frames his Thracian tale as an instance of parrhêsia (“frank speech”), which paradigmatically involves a subordinate offering blunt advice to a leader, telling him what he needs but may not want to hear.39 Such speech is likely to cause offense unless the speaker has already established trust or can convince his listener that he has his best interest at heart. In the present case, Socrates is in effect telling Charmides that in order to cure his headache, Charmides will have to change his life. Learning that Charmides remembers him from boyhood, Socrates need no longer fear that he will react badly to his advice—Charmides should realize that Socrates apparently does nothing but try to persuade others to care for their souls.40 Socrates receives further assurance when he asks about the “good” doctors in Greece, not only because Charmides embraces their holistic principle but because he accepts the value of “regimens” (diaitais, 156c4). The word diaita (also “way of life,” and the source of the English word “diet”) suggests not a one-time cure but a prolonged treatment requiring active commitment from the patient—for example, to take medicine regularly, abstain from certain foods, adopt a course of exercise, or travel to a different climate.41

Socrates’ Thracian speech may appear to adumbrate a novel analysis of the soul-body relationship, with soul not as complement of body but somehow as its container.42 The analogy of eye to head, head to body, and body to soul may seem to imply that the body is part of the soul (156e1–2), which may in turn seem to imply that the soul itself is somehow corporeal. Yet, given both the lack of parallels {49} elsewhere in the Platonic corpus and the indeterminacy of the present passage, the analogy should be read differently. Socrates’ point concerns causal dependence, not relative location: the health of the eyes depends on that of the head; their position in it is incidental. Whatever the precise physiology or metaphysics, it is attention to the causal priority of the soul (rather than dependence on or independence from the body) that distinguishes Zalmoxian medicine.43 The real puzzle is the nature of that causal priority, which is simply asserted. The claim that the body’s good derives from the soul is ambiguous.

On one reading of the soul-body relationship, the Zalmoxian view might amount to discipline (and discipline alone?) causing bodily health.44 This reading is suggested by the head-eye analogy and by Socrates’ remark at 157a5–b1. This reading has, in turn, a stronger and a weaker version. On the stronger version, discipline (alone) is sufficient for bodily health, so that the presence of disease indicates an undisciplined soul. An implication would be that a person, insofar as she is responsible for the state of her soul, is responsible for the condition of her body. On the weaker reading, by contrast, discipline is necessary for bodily health, perhaps even the leading cause, so that an undisciplined person cannot maintain a healthy body. A disciplined person could still be beset with illness, through no fault of her own, but a person’s state of health is largely her own responsibility. Her choices—what and how much to eat and drink, whether and how much to exercise—are the major determinant of bodily health. Drugs and surgeries, even if they restore the body to normal functioning, will have no lasting effect absent behavioral reform (cf. Rep. 403d–408b). Charmides may be able to learn a good headache remedy from the Greeks, but only Zalmoxian medicine will stop him from needing treatment in the first place. The text appears to support the weaker reading: the Thracian says that, when discipline is present, it is “easy to provide health to the head and the rest of the body” (157a7–b1)—discipline is not alone sufficient.

On another reading of the body-soul relationship, whatever discipline’s effect on the presence of health, its importance is causing health to be good.45 A person’s {50} healthy body will not benefit her unless she has a healthy soul to guide it. The Thracian’s complaint about Greek doctors, that “they fail to recognize the whole that should be the object of their care (tên epimeleian poieisthai)” (156e4–5), echoes Socrates’ exhortation to his fellow Athenians, in the Apology, to “care” (epimelesthai) for the state of their souls above everything else—it is not just imprudent but pointless to do otherwise:

I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: wealth does not bring about [virtue], but [virtue] makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.46 (30a–b, tr. Grube in Cooper 1997)

The idea of bodily health as a mere conditional good reappears late in the Charmides (173b4–175a8) and recurs in other Socratic dialogues (e.g., Euthd. 281a–b; Meno 87e–88a). In the present context, Socrates seems to be hinting to Charmides that he has his priorities backward: without (the virtue of) discipline, his health, strength, beauty, culture, wealth, and family connections will do him no good. While the first reading (discipline is the source of health) has more textual support and relevance to Socrates’ treating a headache by working to instill discipline, the second reading (discipline is the source of health’s being good) gives philosophical vindication to the otherwise digressive Zalmoxis passage and fits well the ultimate course of the dialogue.

A further interpretative puzzle concerns Socrates’ remark, presented as an aside, that the doctors of Zalmoxis are said to “make people immortal” (apathanatizein, 156d6). The meaning and purport of this verb, very rare in Classical Greek, are uncertain. The verb could simply refer to believing in one’s own immortality, as a related verb (without the prefix ap-) might mean in Herodotus’ account of the Thracian tribe of the Getae: its members believe that “when a person departs this life he goes to Zalmoxis, a god” (4.94.1, tr. Mensch in Romm and Mensch 2014).47 But who cares about those doctors’ beliefs? Socrates seems to be saying {51} instead that the Thracian doctors are reputed to make human beings immortal.48 How so? If discipline causes health, perhaps their permanent instilling of discipline makes their patients’ (and their own) bodies indestructible.49 But more plausibly, their power might be thought instead to make the soul survive the death of the body: the virtue of discipline might, along with providing health to the mortal body (or making that health good), purify the soul of its earthly attachments and prepare it for another world.50 This Pythagorean view, well known from the Phaedo, might be apt given Zalmoxis’ purported connection to Pythagoreanism. But on yet another interpretation of the verb apathanatizein, the Zalmoxians could be reputed to make human beings “immortals,” that is, like gods, to the extent possible for a mortal creature.51 The ideal of “becoming like god insofar as possible” (homoiôsis theôi kata to dunaton), endorsed or not by Plato’s Socrates,52 shows up in several dialogues and was taken by later Platonists to provide the key to Platonic ethics.53 In the Charmides, the thought could be that discipline—knowing what {52} one does and does not know (as it is later understood)—makes a person as godlike as possible, while remaining utterly human. Indeed, Socrates thought he was working on behalf of the god in helping the Athenians see their own ignorance (Ap. 23b). It seems possible that with this unusual verb Plato is keeping all these possibilities in view.

What Socrates’ speech does state clearly is that the “beautiful words” of the incantation will engender discipline in a receptive soul. But rather than intone the Thracian’s song, Socrates asks Charmides whether his soul is already disciplined. This, in turn, prompts his question about (and a complicated inquiry into) the nature of discipline. By the dialogue’s end, neither question has been answered to Socrates’ satisfaction, and so we never get to hear the esoteric wisdom that he claims to have picked up in Thrace. Or do we? There comes to be good reason to suppose—as Charmides himself seems to confirm (176b2–4)—that the “beautiful words” are nothing apart from the inquiry itself, with all its many twists and turns.54 The implication is that the conversation somehow engenders discipline in the participants in their very act of seeking its account.

5. Putting Charmides on the spot (157c7–158d6)

Before Charmides can say whether he is willing to receive the incantation, Critias interjects: it is lucky for his cousin if, to cure his headache, he will have to improve his mind (dianoia). And yet, he informs Socrates, the young man already has a reputation for having far more discipline than anyone his age, and being unsurpassed in all other virtues. (This universal excellence—“unity of the virtues”—is as we might expect, if the cause of any one virtue is the same as the cause of all the others.) Here, as elsewhere, however, Critias reveals a certain ambivalence toward his cousin and protégé, in that he couches his praise in terms of what others think about him (see also 154a5, 155a1). When Critias, anticipating Charmides’ arrival at the palaestra, tells Socrates that his question about the beauties of Athens is about to be answered, he says nothing about his cousin’s “wisdom” {53} (sophia) (154a3–6). He is also careful to relativize Charmides’ impressiveness to his specific generation and stage of life (154a5–6, 157d6–8), which allows that a broader comparison class might diminish his star. At the same time, Critias is quick to avow that his cousin is “quite exceptional” (panu kalos kai agathos, 154e4) in his soul and sufficiently cultured to engage in discussion with grown men (154e8–155a1). Still, the phrase kalos kai agathos, with its aristocratic tinge, may imply only that Charmides is polite and well bred, saying nothing about his creative or intellectual qualities (see §2 above). Likewise, the term philosophos may imply only that he is well versed in the norms of conversation on serious topics, not that he has sophisticated views or ambitions toward theoretical system-building.55 Critias’ ambivalence is explained by his defining psychological trait: his philotimia, or “love of honor” (see 162c1–3; discussed in §10 below). Charmides’ outstanding qualities are a source of pride for his guardian, mentor, and kin; yet Critias evidently also feels rivalrous toward Charmides.56 Critias is caught between the desire to show off his young protégé and the need to put him in his place.

Socrates responds to Critias’ claims by turning again to Charmides’ ancestry. Given his descent from two of the leading families in Athens, it is only “to be expected” (eikos, 158a7; cf. ek tôn eikotôn, 157e3) that Charmides would stand out from his peers. But Socrates is unwilling to draw any conclusions about Charmides’ soul on the basis of genealogy.57 Instead, he asks the young man to give his own opinion about his nature: Is he adequately endowed with discipline already, or does he need to hear the incantation that will engender it in his soul?58

Socrates’ question provokes a striking response: “At first Charmides blushed and looked even more beautiful than before—even his modesty was becoming at his age—and then he replied in a way that was not ignoble” (158c5–7). Charmides’ blushing makes him appear “even more beautiful” in Socrates’ eyes—more beautiful than when the young man first came into view, and more beautiful even than when Socrates caught a glimpse inside his himation and burned with desire. What Socrates sees is not just the flush of Charmides’ cheek but an aspect of his soul—the very thing he wanted to “undress” and “gaze at” before admiring his figure (154e5–6). More specifically, Charmides reveals his “modesty” or “sense of shame” (to aischuntêlon), the quality he will soon propose to be the source of his {54} discipline (160e2–5; the second definition, aidôs, is treated as synonymous with to aischuntêlon). But why does Socrates find this part of his character so strikingly beautiful? Charmides’ modesty resembles his own self-critical disposition—the ability to examine his opinions, desires, and actions from an external point of view.59 This reflective tendency is also revealed in Charmides’ verbal response, which Socrates describes as “not ignoble” (ouk agennôs). After calmly explaining why either way of answering would be inappropriate (cf. Prt. 323b–c), he comes to a remarkably Socratic conclusion: “And so I’m unable to give you an answer” (158d5–6). Charmides finds himself in a state of aporia or “puzzlement”: he is aware that he does not know how to proceed.60 Charmides’ plaudits for unusual discipline therefore do not appear baseless.

At the same time, however, Socrates links the beauty of Charmides’ modesty to his youth (158c6), implying that his boyish blushing will not be attractive for long. The resemblance between Charmides’ sense of shame and Socrates’ disposition may be only superficial. Notice that Charmides explains his difficulties wholly in terms of the impression he would make were he to affirm or deny having discipline. We might say that he is in a state of merely “social” aporia: his incapacity to respond is the result not of any genuine puzzlement with regard to the question at hand, but of his audience’s (and his own) conflicting views about what it would be appropriate for him to say in the presence of others. That state is compatible with his thinking that he is adequately disciplined and can therefore receive the headache cure straightaway. The Socratic response, by contrast, would be to pause and consider what discipline is and how one knows whether one has it. Part of Socrates’ task in what follows will be to model an approach to inquiry that values truth above reputation. Toward the end of the dialogue, Socrates poses his question again and receives a more promising answer (176a1–7). To get there, he will have to work to redirect Charmides’ focus from his impression on others to the nature of discipline itself.

6. Looking into Charmides’ soul (158d7–159a10)

Respecting Charmides’ desire not to offend, Socrates proposes they examine the state of his soul “together” (koinêi, 158d8),61 to help them “figure out (topasômen) whether it’s inside you or not” (159a9)––using a method that looks similar {55} to fifth-century medical diagnosis.62 If discipline were present in Charmides, Socrates suggests, he would have to have some awareness (aisthêsis) of it, on the basis of which he could form an opinion (doxa) about its nature (159a1–3). Charmides need only state his own view of “what discipline is and what qualities it has” (159a3), and they can determine whether it is in him. The implication is that if Charmides’ view is correct, they can be confident that he already has discipline and thus that his head can be treated right away.

The method Socrates proposes is baffling in several respects. First, it assumes that discipline is the kind of thing of which one is introspectively aware, like a headache or a case of indigestion. While there may be feelings or emotions associated with sôphrosunê, it does not follow that the virtue itself is inwardly perceptible (particularly when understood as a disposition). Second, even if discipline does feel a certain way, why suppose that it provides the basis of a correct opinion about the virtue’s essential nature, and not just about the fact that it is present? Compare the medical situation: a patient may correctly identify her ailment as gastroesophageal reflux disease, without being able to explain its causes or distinguish it from related conditions. Third, the diagnostic value of Socrates’ method depends on Charmides’ stated view of discipline having the right causal history, as coming from the proper sort of inward observation. What if Charmides has picked up a true opinion about discipline only from something he heard? Fourth, even if his opinion has the right causal history, and turns out to be true, he may be unable to justify his view of discipline and explain its relations to other values and virtues. Such a holistic knowledge or understanding may be necessary for one’s belief about a virtue to lead reliably to virtuous action. Finally, the aim of the method is to find out whether sôphrosunê is in Charmides, making possession of the virtue seem an all-or-nothing matter. Originally, however, Socrates asked whether Charmides had the virtue “adequately” (hikanôs, 158c3), as though it were a question of degree. His new proposal therefore seems beside the point.

The interlocutors address none of the difficulties with the method, and in fact Socrates seems hardly wedded to it. Indeed, we may wonder whether Socrates accepts even the basic premise, that one could know through any sort of momentary inner awareness whether one had discipline. When Charmides first defines discipline as “a sort of state of tranquility” (159b5), Socrates notes that he is echoing a popular view but proceeds to examine it nonetheless. Soon he abandons the introspective approach altogether: he instead asks Charmides to look at himself as a model of discipline and draw a conclusion about its nature, before finally taking up an account that Charmides avows having heard from someone {56} else. The explanation seems related to Charmides’ character. Because Charmides never claims expertise in the topic of discussion and is even reluctant to share his views (159b1–2)—unlike others of Socrates’ interlocutors, including Euthyphro, Meno, Hippias, and, in this dialogue, Critias—Socrates need not restrict him to assessing any confident and proprietary views of discipline he may hold. But because Charmides does accept some views about discipline, Socrates must still coax him to examine his beliefs, whatever their ultimate source. By framing the conversation as a joint inquiry into the state of Charmides’ soul, Socrates convinces him to expose his opinions and put them to the test.

Charmides’ Definitions of Discipline (§§7–9)

We now turn to the trial of Charmides’ three definitions. The first (“a sort of state of tranquility”) gets a seemingly exhaustive but evidently tendentious refutation, with a conclusion that seems both conciliatory and unsubstantiated. The second (“a sense of shame”) gets dispatched with unnerving rapidity. The third (“doing one’s own things”), whose authorship the interlocutors discuss, gets hung up on the referent of “one’s own.” Each is a plausible definition, but Charmides fails to appreciate the normative dimension required of any of them to serve as definition of a virtue term. Yet Charmides reveals himself and the nature of discipline in the proposals themselves as well as in the weakness of his defenses: in each he demonstrates the very aspects of “tranquility,” “shame,” and “doing one’s own things” that distinguish them from discipline. At the same time, the arguments leave us to wonder how each definition might be rehabilitated and contribute to a more adequate understanding of the virtue.

7. First definition: tranquility (159b1–160d4)

Charmides offers his first account of discipline: “doing everything in an orderly way, and with tranquility (to kosmiôs panta prattein kai hêsuchêi)—walking in the streets and having discussions—and going about everything else in the same manner” (159b3–5).63 “In a word,” says Charmides, discipline is “a sort of state {57} of tranquility” (hêsuchiotês tis). The abstract noun hêsuchiotês (more commonly hêsuchia) suggests “decorum,” a calm and measured bearing in public life and a withdrawal from the political, commercial, and legal affairs of the city.64 The definition reflects Charmides’ own behavior in the dialogue to this point. His entrance into the palaestra contrasts with that of his rowdy entourage,65 and is thrown into further relief by the prurient banter and jostling of the older men. When invited to give his view of discipline, Charmides initially holds back (ôknei, 159b1) before offering an elegantly formulated account, which he then distills into a single word.66 Indeed, orderly walking and talking just about exhaust his activities so far. Given this portrait and his high reputation for discipline (157d6–8), we may suspect that Charmides’ definition echoes the praise he is used to hearing from others.

Socrates acknowledges that his account is the kind of thing “they do say” (159b8), but he wonders whether it has any merit.67 He begins by getting Charmides to affirm that discipline is something admirable (kalon)—an uncontroversial claim, and in fact one the interlocutors have already taken for granted (e.g., at 158d1–2). Next, he asks Charmides to consider a series of cases in which acting “with tranquility” (hêsuchêi, 159c4) appears less admirable than acting in the opposite way. The examples fall into two classes: “bodily” activities, such as writing, reading, cithara-playing, wrestling, and other kinds of athletics; and activities of the “soul,” such as teaching and learning, recollecting, inquiring, and deliberating. In neither sort of case does acting with tranquility seem more praiseworthy {58} than acting without it. And so, Socrates concludes, discipline must be something other than tranquility.68

A preliminary issue with the refutation concerns the meaning of tis (“sort of”) when Charmides offers hêsuchiotês tis (“a sort of state of tranquility”) as his definition. If Charmides means by it “one of several kinds of,” he would be implying that discipline is a subcategory of tranquility.69 To refute the definition on this construal—discipline is a kind of tranquility—Socrates would have to show Charmides that he believes that some cases of discipline are not cases of tranquility. But Socrates does not do that, instead showing Charmides that he believes that some cases of tranquility are not cases of discipline. Their reasoning: not every case of tranquility is more admirable than its opposite, whereas every instance of discipline is more admirable than its opposite. There are two possible explanations for Socrates’ providing this refutation rather than the other. Socrates may slyly be testing a definition different from the one Charmides offered—its converse, in fact. Whatever the truth of Charmides’ original definition, since he hastily accepts Socrates’ formulation as his own, we learn that Charmides lacks discipline as he understands it—he fails to think with tranquility (that is, without haste) about what he is saying. The other possibility is that Charmides did not mean “one of several kinds of” by tis, but instead “approximately,” such that he would be defining discipline as “basically tranquility, but formulated a little differently.” Defining in this way would be a reasonable thing to do, given the oddness of positing discipline and tranquility as exact matches: Why would there be two such different terms for the same character trait? So, if Charmides treats discipline and tranquility as approximate matches, all cases of discipline would be cases of tranquility, and all cases of tranquility cases of discipline; Socrates could ask the questions in either direction. This may be the more plausible reading, since nothing Charmides says indicates that he holds that the scope of tranquility exceeds that of discipline.

With this complication addressed, the logical form of the refutation is simple. Yet its details should give us pause. Consider Socrates’ first example: “So, at the writing teacher’s, which is the more admirable way to write the same letters: quickly or with tranquility?” “Quickly,” Charmides answers (159c3–5). By opposing tranquility to speed or quickness, Socrates implies that tranquility is equivalent to slowness. His next question makes the equivalence explicit: “What about reading? Quickly or slowly?” (159c6). While hêsuchia does connote slowness in {59} various contexts,70 it involves much else besides: calmness, repose, presence of mind, bodily control, speaking and listening in turn, and waiting for the right moment to act.71 Socrates’ argument, and Charmides’ acceptance of it, strips the term of this thick normative content, making it seem to be a matter of the bare speed with which someone acts. Slowness in action is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy on its own. To be sure, the examples Socrates chooses—all familiar to Charmides from his education and gymnastic training—are ones in which speed and agility are likely to be prized, and slowness rebuked, all else being equal. Charmides’ mistake, however, is to suppose that acting quickly precludes acting with hêsuchia. An especially fast and difficult passage on the cithara might in fact require a tranquil frame of mind; and the quick moves of the calm and patient wrestler might be more effective than those of the impetuous one.72 Built into the notion of hêsuchia as a term of praise, it would seem, is acting slowly and deliberately when or as appropriate.73 So, the first half of the refutation appears to depend on an implausibly narrow construal of Charmides’ definition.

Socrates’ argument regarding the soul’s activities is no less dubious.74 Here the refutation turns on a slide not just from tranquility to slowness, but from slowness to sluggishness and effort (already begun at 159d1–2): “And when it comes to the soul’s investigations and deliberations, I would imagine, it isn’t the most tranquil person—the one deliberating and discovering with considerable effort—whom we’d deem worthy of praise, but the one who does this as easily and quickly as possible” (160a8–b1). There are two problems with Socrates’ inferences. First, {60} tranquility is not at odds with mental sharpness and perspicuity.75 A person with a tranquil mind may deliberate more quickly and effectively under stressful circumstances and retain more of what she has learned. Second, and more important, struggle and effort may be signs not of a dull wit but of a keen sensitivity to the complexity and difficulty of thinking through certain questions. In the second half of the dialogue, we will see Socrates repeatedly encounter problems in the analysis of self-knowledge where Critias finds no difficulties at all.76 While he will chastise himself for being a poor inquirer (175a9–e6), we might instead view Socrates’ refusal to be satisfied with his conclusions as admirable. One of the dialogue’s main upshots seems to be that aporia—the state of being “at a loss” and wanting to find a way forward—is essential to recognizing one’s own ignorance. From this vantage, quickness and facility in “the soul’s investigations and deliberations” seem at odds with (laborious) philosophical growth.

The section ends with Socrates’ lengthy—some might say slow and deliberate—recap of the refutation (160b7–d3). The cases he and Charmides have gone through suggest that tranquility is never or only rarely more admirable than its opposite. Even were they to consider many more examples, and find that tranquility deserves praise just as often as quickness, they would have to conclude the same thing. The issue is not that there must be a greater number of cases in which tranquility is more admirable. Indeed, although Socrates does not say this, so long as even a single action-type is more admirable when done quickly, tranquility cannot be the right account of discipline. An adequate definition would have to specify what makes an action disciplined, and therefore admirable, across all possible cases (cf. Euthphr. 6d–e). (Socrates spells out the causal criterion at the start of the next section.) To say that discipline is no more (oude . . . mallon, 160c4–5) tranquility than quickness is to say that we cannot look to the presence or absence of tranquility to diagnose discipline. Charmides will have to try again.

As we saw, however, Charmides could have challenged Socrates’ narrow construal of tranquility in terms of slowness and sluggishness. In his summary, moreover, Socrates repeatedly calls attention to the provisional status of the refutation. The conclusion that discipline is not the same as tranquility follows from “this argument” (160b8; cf. 160d1; Alc. 116c), in which it was “assumed” (hupetethê, 160d2) that discipline is one of the admirable things, and in which our actions “appeared” (ephanêsan, 160c2; pephantai, 160d3; cf. 159d3–4, 160b5) no less admirable when done quickly than when done in a tranquil way. A different {61} argument, or a fresh look at the examples, might yield a different result. Socrates’ recap also heightens the sense of paradox, drawing the remarkable consequence that “the disciplined life” (ho sôphrôn bios, 160b8) will not be tranquil, nor will “the tranquil life” (ho hêsuchios bios, 160c7)—an idea implied by Charmides’ initial pre-definition as “doing everything . . . with tranquility” (159b3)—be any more disciplined than its opposite. For when attributed to an entire “way of life” (bios), the adjective hêsuchios obviously does not mean performing a series of slow and sluggish actions; it means acting thoughtfully and not impulsively. Thus, in his summary, Socrates reintroduces and highlights the normative aspect of hêsuchia that had been absent from the analysis and that was implied by Charmides’ initial suggestion that discipline is acting in an “orderly” (kosmiôs, 159b3) way.77

Our analysis reveals the problem with Charmides’ first attempt to define sôphrosunê. It is not the idea of tranquility itself, as though it were too conventional or superficial. Rather, Charmides accepts, to his detriment, Socrates’ merely descriptive construal of tranquility as a measurable physical property of individual actions, and in doing so forgets to account for that which would make it a virtue—its orientation toward correctness in action, or more generally, being good. The ease and quickness with which Charmides answers Socrates’ leading questions suggest he might be better off slowing down, raising doubts, requesting clarification, and recognizing the difficulty of the conceptual landscape they have begun to explore.

8. Second definition: a sense of shame (160d5–161b4)

Charmides’ second definition has as strong a claim to plausibility as his first. In earlier Greek literature, aidôs has two distinct but related meanings: an appropriate concern for the way one appears in others’ eyes, inhibiting actions that might seem disgraceful (often translated as “sense of shame” or “modesty”); and a proper regard for the standing of others vis-à-vis oneself, expressed through acts and gestures that acknowledge their worth (usually translated as “respect”).78 In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates defines aidôs as a species of fear or dread—the fear of a “reputation for wickedness” (doxa ponêrias, 12c1)—and Aristotle claims that it is {62} generally defined as a “sort of fear of disrepute” (phobos tis adoxias).79 By the end of the fifth century, the “respect” sense mostly drops off, and aidôs becomes tightly linked—sometimes synonymous—with the emotion of shame (aischunê).80 Charmides’ second account of discipline reflects this later conception: “Well, I think that discipline makes a person feel shame (aischunesthai) and be modest (aischuntêlon), so discipline would just be a sense of shame (aidôs)” (160e3–5). His first attempt at defending a definition having failed, Charmides has been told to look at himself (eis seauton apoblepsas, 160d6) as a model of discipline and infer its nature from his own example. What is the one quality that makes him the “most disciplined” (157d6) of anyone his age? His new answer shows that he is engaged in self-reflection: Earlier, when asked whether he agreed that he was already disciplined, he blushed, and Socrates noted the beauty of his “modesty” (to aischuntêlon, 158c6). Now, he is probably even more embarrassed at having just been refuted, which explains why Socrates tells him to be “brave” (eu kai andreiôs, 160d8–e1) in trying again.81 But while Charmides identifies a quality, his sense of shame, that makes him the way he is, it is a further question whether this quality makes him disciplined. Socrates quickly persuades him that it does not.

The second refutation’s argumentative strategy parallels that of the first: get Charmides to affirm that discipline instantiates some value, and then convince him that his candidate definition does not.82 Socrates begins by reminding Charmides of his earlier agreement that discipline is something “admirable” (kalon) and then gets him to affirm that it is also “good” (agathon). Disciplined men are “good men” (agathoi andres, 160e9), by virtue of their discipline, and anything that “produces” (apergazetai, 160e11) good men must itself be good.83 So, if discipline is really the same as a sense of shame, the latter quality must be good as well. But instead of taking Charmides through a series of cases in which lacking shame seems “better” than having it (as he did in the first refutation), Socrates asks him about a single line from Homer’s Odyssey: “A sense of shame (aidôs) is no good for a man in need” (161a4).84 Charmides trusts the poet’s judgment, and so he accepts {63} that aidôs is “no more a good than a bad thing” (161b1–2). Since discipline is strictly a good thing, it cannot be a sense of shame.

Given the strong connection between aidôs and sôphrosunê in traditional Greek thought, Socrates’ refutation seems far too easy. It also contains two steps that a less complaisant or compliant interlocutor might have challenged. First, it seems to equivocate on the notion of “good” (agathon). At 160e13, Charmides agrees that discipline is good qua cause of a person’s being a good person; but he appears to accept that a sense of shame is not good (or not a good thing) in a different sense—namely, as not being good for, that is, not benefiting, a man in need. Yet being made good and being benefited are not obviously the same (e.g., the trait of “selflessness” might make a person good but seem not exactly to benefit him). Charmides needs the further premise that a virtue is always a good thing for its possessor. Thus, the argument fails to show, by itself, that discipline and a sense of shame are not the same thing.85

Even if the missing premise could be supplied, and the equivocation resolved, the argument would remain dubious for a second reason: Charmides appears to accept the crucial claim about aidôs—that it is “no good for a man in need”—solely on the poet’s authority.86 We can imagine that he would have known the Odyssey passage well, given his vaunted poetical skills (155a1), the centrality of Homer’s poetry to Athenian education, and the aptness of this verse in particular for moral reflection.87 But notice the peculiar way in which Socrates introduces the quotation: “Don’t you trust (ou pisteueis) Homer to be making a fine point when he says . . . ?” (161a2–3).88 What Charmides is being asked to consider, it seems, is not whether he thinks the remark about aidôs is true or justified, but whether he trusts Homer to speak well on the matter. When he answers Socrates in the affirmative, he suggests that he is disposed to agree with whatever the poet says, his claim about aidôs included. But what if Homer was wrong? Charmides {64} does not seem to entertain this possibility, nor does he inquire into the reasons Homer might have had for saying shame can be bad, nor which if any needs would justify a man in abandoning his sense of shame.89 He leaves the key verse unexamined and the refutation follows inexorably from there.

The question then arises why Plato would have Socrates refute Charmides’ definition with such a feeble line of reasoning. As in the previous section, an answer comes from looking at the way Charmides responds to Socrates’ questioning as much as from the argument itself. We can then appreciate that it is Charmides’ own sense of shame that prevents him from challenging the refutation, with its equivocation on “good” and appeal to poetic authority. A young man’s questioning of Homer’s wisdom might seem recklessly self-assertive: he would appear to be placing his own judgment above that of the poet and of the community that regarded Homer as a moral expert.90 It would seem “odd” (atopos, 158d2) and “obnoxious” (epachthes, 158d5) to the crowd of admirers gathered around him—the effect he hoped to avoid when Socrates asked the question that made him blush (158c5–d6). In Charmides’ eyes, challenging Homer’s authority would be a breach of the very discipline he is concerned to display. And yet, his failure to question the argument leaves him ignorant about the reason his sense of shame may not be the virtue he thought it was.

On the above reading, Homer’s saying about aidôs takes on a new and Socratic significance. In the context of Odyssey 17, it means two things at once. The swineherd Eumaeus advises Odysseus, newly returned to Ithaca and disguised as a beggar, not to let his sense of shame prevent him from begging at the suitors’ tables. Filling his stomach is more important. But it is also a message from Telemachus to his father, with a different understanding of what Odysseus needs: not to let his shame at being abused by the suitors prevent him from carrying out the plot to regain his kingdom and restore his honor.91 But Socrates advises Charmides not to let shame prevent him from satisfying his, and indeed everyone’s, most essential human need: to care for his soul, by examining himself and others about “the greatest matters” (ta megista, Ap. 22d7). Charmides’ aidôs, in other words, is directed at the wrong object when he fears falling into disrepute in the eyes of {65} his community. What he really should fear is his fear of revealing his ignorance both to himself and to others: failing to acknowledge one’s ignorance is, from the Socratic point of view, what is truly shameful (see 166c7–d2; cf. Phlb. 48c–49a; L. Hp. 372c2–3: “I have one wonderfully good trait, which saves me: I’m not ashamed to learn”).

9. Third definition: doing one’s own things (161b4–162b11)

Having twice failed to defend his own accounts of discipline, Charmides asks Socrates to consider a definition he recently heard from someone else: “doing one’s own things” (to ta heautou prattein, 161b6). Socrates subjects the new definition to a reductio ad absurdum, prompting an indignant Critias to come to its defense.

Socrates suspects from the outset that the definition came from Critias—or, he allows, at least some “wise man” (161c1)—but Critias denies it is his, and Charmides suggests that the source of the claim is irrelevant. Socrates agrees: they should care only whether the claim is true.92 But it is neither obviously true nor obviously false; he believes the account is some sort of “riddle” (ainigmati, 161c9), in need of exegesis before they can assess its merits.93 Socrates starts with a typically ingenuous one: assume it means, for example, reading and writing one’s own name. Yet surely Charmides and his classmates did not read and write only their own names or those of their friends, but also those of their rivals? And were they not showing discipline when they were dutifully performing their lessons? From this mundane pedagogical example Socrates then shifts, for the first but not last time in the dialogue, to a political register, specifically the “good constitution” trope. Imagine a city with no division of labor, in which, according to law, doctors cured only their own diseases and everyone produced his own goods. A city under such a law clearly would not be run well; yet a disciplined city, Charmides agrees, would be. So whoever said discipline was “doing one’s own things” must have had something else in mind, if the slogan has any chance of being true—unless he was some kind of fool. Charmides then confirms what Socrates had thought all along about the definition’s authorship, looking to Critias to explain himself.

This section marks a turning point in the discussion, as Socrates and Charmides abandon the diagnostic method agreed upon at 158e7–159a5 and examine an opinion about discipline that comes from someone else. Originally, Charmides’ claims were supposed to help them determine whether discipline was in him; the {66} inquiry into “doing one’s own things” is not presented as involving any self-scrutiny of that earlier sort. Why does Socrates agree to examine the idea if it does not represent Charmides’ sincerely held belief (cf. Phdr. 275b–c)? Perhaps he was not really committed to the diagnostic method in the first place: his purpose was only to get Charmides thinking about the virtue he prizes (and is prized for) most, and now that his own or initial views have been rejected, he is motivated to find out the truth (see §6 above), and he recognizes that the truth may lie anywhere. The question about Charmides’ soul thus serves a protreptic function. But not only that: Charmides now glimpses his own ignorance about the nature of discipline. By the lights of the later account of discipline as knowing what one knows and does not know, he has become more disciplined. And so we can see that Socrates’ diagnostic method also cures.

Critias’ initial denial that he is the source of “doing one’s own things” is somewhat mysterious, as is Charmides’ initial reluctance to expose him. Perhaps Critias wants to see whether Charmides can defend the definition, for his benefit or to watch him flail; or perhaps he fears having to defend it himself. As for Charmides’ motivations, it may be that he does not want to call Critias a liar (see 158d2–3), or that he anticipates reveling in Critias’ exasperation as his account undergoes a dialectical mangling. What is clear is that Charmides does not understand the definition that his guardian taught him, and by the end of the section, he disavows any responsibility for its defense. Ashamed at having been refuted twice, and unable to make sense of this new account, he is happy to let his cousin take center stage.

There are good reasons to think that Critias was the first to identify human excellence with “doing one’s own things.”94 For one thing, the Charmides is the only evidence we have for the definition’s origin.95 When Socrates first hears the definition, he exclaims that it must have come from some sophos, or “wise man” (161c1). The implication is that the account is innovative, newfangled, perhaps even esoteric—in contrast both to “tranquility,” which is acknowledged to be {67} a popular view, and to “a sense of shame,” which echoes a long tradition.96 Socrates treats the claim as a “riddle” that needs to be interpreted before its truth can be assessed, the phrase to ta heautou prattein evidently being too abstract and indeterminate to be taken at face value.97 At 161d11, he contrasts it with to polupragmoneuein (“doing a lot,” “being a busybody,” “meddling”), a politically loaded term and a common charge against the litigious and aggressively expansionist Athenians.98 In Thucydides, “doing a lot” is opposed to apragmosunê or “inaction.”99 The historical Critias may have wanted to carve a middle path between the seeming indolence of the apragmôn and the meddlesomeness of the polupragmôn by proposing “doing one’s own things” as the true ideal.100 Perhaps in his view the disciplined person, who “does his own things,” involves himself in only the matters that are his proper concern. He minds his own business.

An alternative view, offered by some scholars, is that Critias’ definition instead parrots a Socratic formula. Their evidence: “doing one’s own things” appears in the Republic as Socrates’ own proposed account of “justice” (dikaiosunê).101 We reject this view on the following grounds: (1) As we said above, the Charmides explicitly attributes the definition to Critias. (2) Socrates says that it must have come from a “wise man,” and Socrates consistently disavows being wise (most famously at Ap. 20d–21d; cf. Tht. 210b–c) and is generally not in the business of giving esoteric {68} definitions (the Republic is an odd exception). (3) It seems more likely that the Socrates of the Republic appropriates a Critian formula for his own dialectical purposes (as he already had a Simonidean formula, 331e). He adopts a slogan with a lot of currency for his two main interlocutors, Glaucon and Adeimantus—Critias is, after all, their mother’s cousin—and uses it to mount a radical critique of contemporary politics.102

In either case, there is evident irony in the fact that, by examining an account that belongs to someone else, Charmides apparently fails to do precisely what the definition enjoins: his own things. So, does Charmides show a lack of discipline when he asks Socrates to consider someone else’s opinion instead of his own? It all depends on the meaning of the definition. The fact that Socrates endorses going beyond the diagnostic method—and testing claims regardless of their origin—suggests that pursuing the truth about discipline is every person’s work (see again 166d4–6). If Charmides fails to “do his own things,” it is not when he examines Critias’ account rather than his own, but when he stops doing so at all, provoking his cousin into taking the inquiry over from himself.

This section thus raises difficult questions about the nature of belief. What does it take for an opinion to be one’s own? Is it enough to avow an opinion, or even to be its originator, whatever that may entail? Or must one know what one means by a claim, as Charmides suggests his cousin might not, or even—and this seems most plausible—be willing and able to defend a view when it comes into conflict with other things that seem to be the case? That is, if a belief is a commitment to some view’s being true, is it also a commitment to showing (others and oneself) the reasons to take it as true? So, to the extent that Socratic practice amounts to knowing what one does and does not know, and thus what one believes and does not believe, here is yet another way the Charmides prompts reflection on that practice’s theoretical implications.

Critias’ First Formulations (§§10–12)

Over the next three sections, which carry us up to the middle of the dialogue, Critias takes over the defense of Charmides’ third definition, reveals his intellectual sophistication and conceptual commitments, and reformulates the definition in the way that occasions the eventual investigation of self-knowledge—first as “doing good things” and then as “knowing oneself.”

{69} 10. Critias defends his account (162c1–163c8)

Critias fumes over Charmides’ failure to defend his novel account of discipline and then agrees to take over his cousin’s role in the discussion. Critias’ anger betrays a lack of self-control (an important aspect of discipline, as conventionally understood): though he still will not admit to being the source of the third definition, his agitation and eventual outburst give him away. Socrates attributes his fury to his philotimia (“love of honor,” “ambition”; see 162c2–3).103 In later sections, Critias will again show a marked concern for his reputation, when he accuses Socrates of trying to make him look bad instead of focusing on the argument (166c3–6), and when he is unable to explain how knowledge can be reflexive and starts babbling to hide his embarrassment (169c3–d1). Like Charmides’ boyish sense of shame, Critias’ more active desire for honor will prove an obstacle to dialectical inquiry, in contrast to Socrates’ self-effacement and readiness to be refuted.104 The comparison in this passage of Critias to an angry playwright is revealing in two respects. It shows that Critias takes pride in his account of discipline and views it as his brainchild. And it suggests something about his attitude to pedagogy: Charmides’ task is to memorize and repeat his lines, not to interrogate them. His inability to defend the definition shows that Critias has been an ineffective teacher. But the object of Critias’ annoyance is Charmides, for having made him look bad, rather than himself, for having failed to help his cousin understand the nature of discipline (whereas Socrates expresses great annoyance at himself for the same failure: see 175a9–e6).

Once Critias agrees to take over, Socrates recaps the difficulty with the latest definition: if discipline is “doing (prattein) one’s own things,” then it looks like the craftsmen are not exercising discipline when they “make” (poiein) things for other people. Here we might expect Critias to reply that the problem is only superficial, since by making things for other people, craftsmen are indeed “doing their own things” in the sense of performing their proper tasks or functions—what is appropriate for them to do according to their nature, training, or social role.105 Instead, he draws a strict distinction between “doing” and “making,” insulating his definition (which is about “doing”) from anything logically entailed by Socrates’ refutation of Charmides (which is about “making”).106 He justifies the {70} distinction with a perplexing appeal to Hesiod’s dictum “Work is no disgrace” (ergon d’ ouden oneidos).107 According to Critias, Hesiod used the terms “working” and “doing” only for the kinds of “making” that are admirable and beneficial. Thus, any harmful or disgraceful activity fails to count as a “doing” (or “working”) at all. Only the results or products of the good kind of activity (“doing” and “working”), moreover, are properly one’s belongings (oikeia, 163c5), whereas harmful results count as others’ belongings (allotria, 163c6).108 So, Critias says, Hesiod and anyone with intelligence would agree that the man who does his own things is disciplined.

Scholars have tended to regard Critias’ Hesiodic speech as beside the point at best and incoherent at worst.109 His challenge, once again, is to show that his definition does not rule out the possibility that one could make others’ things and still be disciplined. By emphasizing that his definition is about doing, and distinguishing that from making, he appears to avoid inconsistency. But this strategy seems to get him into further trouble. On his account, “making” is the generic term, and “doing” is the good species of making; it follows that any “making” that is not a “doing” will be disgraceful—Critias seems to accept no neutral activities. But disciplined craftsmen, whose existence Critias has just accepted, “make” others’ things even as they do not “do” them (since they “do” only their own things). And if the disciplined craftsmen are “making” but not “doing” others’ things—which is what Critias needs in order to be consistent—then their activity is disgraceful. But then they are not disciplined. So, the craftsmen who make others’ things, according to Critias, are both disciplined and not disciplined.

There is, however, a more charitable and contradiction-avoiding reading of the speech, one that involves only a bit of equivocation. Critias wants to show that “making others’ things” does not entail “doing others’ things.” The key is to read the others’ things in two ways, loosely and strictly. When Critias initially suggests that those who make others’ things can be disciplined, we should read “others’ things” (in the loose sense) as things for other people. If this making is done admirably and beneficially, it will be a case of “doing” (because beneficial) “one’s own things” (in the strict sense, because beneficial things are, properly speaking, “one’s own”). So, only those who make things for other people harmfully and disgracefully do “others’ things” (in the strict sense, i.e., harmful things).

Contradictory or not, the semantic contortions of Critias’ speech do little to assist his audience’s grasp of discipline. His definition also turns out to be three {71} words too long: if “doing” just means making beneficial things, and “one’s own things” just means beneficial things, then his definition could simply be “doing.”110 At the same time, his interpretation of the Hesiod passage reveals much about Critias himself. For many readers, his lumping together of shoemaking, selling salted fish, and prostitution as the kind of work Hesiod would deem a disgrace betrays an aristocratic hauteur and disdain for manual labor.111 Critias evidently does not view all demiurgic work in this light, since he will soon agree that doctors do something beneficial when healing their patients (164a9–b2). But snobbery about shoemaking was common, and it is quite possible that he sees salted fish and sex for hire, and even fancy sandals, as contributing to luxury and indiscipline in the city.112 So perhaps Critias reimagines Hesiod as a champion of (his preferred) Spartan austerity (cf. B32–35 DK). Further, the speech as a whole reveals his tendentious approach to poetic interpretation. He claims to have learned the distinction between “doing” (to prattein) and “making” (to poiein) from Hesiod, but Hesiod in fact uses neither term in the relevant passage of Works and Days.113 Read in context, the dictum “Work is no disgrace” does not distinguish noble from shameful work but any work at all from “idleness.” The poet is advising his brother, Perses, not to be too ashamed to farm his land to earn a living. Instead of laying his hands on “others’ things” (allotriôn, 315), he must seek self-sufficiency. Critias ignores the poem’s patent and presumptively authoritative moral lesson, {72} forcing Hesiod into service as an early advocate of his own novel definition of discipline.114

A final comment on Critias’ speech puts it in the broader context of literature that defended Socrates from public scorn. In the first book of his Memorabilia, Xenophon says that Socrates was accused of bastardizing the very same line from Hesiod:

His accuser [Polycrates] claimed that Socrates singled out the most disgraceful lines from the most respected poets and used them as support in teaching his companions to be miscreants and tyrants. In reference to Hesiod’s line “Work is no disgrace; idleness is the disgrace,” Socrates is alleged to have said that the poet enjoins people not to shun any work, however unjust or shameful, but to do (poiein) anything for gain. While Socrates agreed that being a worker is both [beneficial] and good for a person, whereas being an idler is harmful and bad—or, in other words, that work is good and idleness bad—he maintained that only those people who were [making] some good were actually engaged in work (tous men agathon ti poiountas ergazesthai) and being good workers, whereas those playing dice or taking part in any other disgraceful and harmful activity (poiountas) he labeled idlers. Understood in this way, “Work is no disgrace; idleness is the disgrace” would be accurate. (1.2.56–57, tr. Boys-Stones and Rowe 2013)

The immoral reading ascribed to Socrates depends on taking the negation (ouden) to modify “work” instead of “disgrace”: “There is no work such that it is a disgrace.”115 In defense of Socrates, Xenophon claims that Socrates maintained that a person is “working” only when he “makes” some good, and that “idleness” is not inaction but harmful activity. Plato certainly would have been aware of Polycrates’ accusation and may have known Xenophon’s response.116 Unlike Xenophon, however, Plato displaces the moralizing interpretation of Hesiod onto Critias. Perhaps his aim is to suggest that the accusation is false, not because Socrates {73} said something better about the poem, but because poetic interpretation was not his bag.117 Plato’s Socrates frequently quotes from and alludes to poetry, for a variety of dialectical reasons, but he typically refrains from the kind of exegetical display put on by Critias. The major exception, of course, is the Simonides passage in the Protagoras—witnessed by Charmides and Critias—but Socrates there is stepping out of character for comic effect (339b–347a), and he recurs to the importance of self-examination.118 For others in his intellectual circle, however, the ability to make the poets say what they want them to say is a mark of their sophia (“wisdom”)—it is a kind of competition with the most respected moral authorities. Plato’s Socrates makes no claim to be sophos (“wise”) or poiêtikos (“skilled in poetry”).

11. Discipline as the doing of good things (163d1–164c6)

Socrates cuts through the fog of Critias’ epideixis (“display speech”), ignoring his appeal to Hesiod and suggesting that the distinction between “doing” and “making” may have been cribbed from Prodicus of Ceos.119 Socrates discards any talk of “one’s own things” and expands Critias’ definition into the prosodic “doing of good things or the making of them or whatever you prefer to call it” (163e1–2)—substituting, probably uncontroversially, “good things” (agatha) for Critias’ “admirably and beneficially” (kalôs te kai ôphelimôs, 163c3). Critias accepts and retightens that formula into “the doing of good things” (163e10). But Socrates finds this astonishing and asks a seeming non sequitur: Does Critias really believe that people who exercise discipline are ignorant of their doing so? Of course not, Critias answers. Socrates’ question in fact had a point: he has hit upon Critias’ unstated assumption, that discipline involves self-awareness, one that Socrates himself seems to have deployed against Charmides (158e7–159a1, discussed in §6). Socrates goes on to show that Critias’ earlier claim, that craftsmen can exercise {74} discipline (cf. 163a4–5), commits him to the possibility of discipline without self-awareness. This leads Critias to reject any earlier claims that would entail that unintended commitment, and to insist that “knowing oneself” (to gignôskein heauton, 164d4) is so essential to discipline that it is practically what discipline is.

Socrates shows that Critias accepts the following premises:

(1) When a doctor makes someone healthy, he benefits both himself and his patient.

(2) In doing so, the doctor does what he ought.

(3) When someone does what he ought, he is exercising discipline.

(4) Sometimes a doctor does not know when he is treating someone beneficially.

(5) And yet a person always knows when he is exercising discipline.

These premises are inconsistent. Let us first consider premises (1)–(3). Earlier, Critias had claimed that the disciplined person acts “beneficially” (ôphelimôs, 163c3), but he specified neither the kinds of benefit the disciplined person provides nor his beneficiaries. Now, Socrates returns to the case of “craftsmen” (dêmiourgous, 164a6), specifically that of the doctor, who in practicing his craft provides benefits both to his patient (by making him healthy) and to himself (presumably in the form of wages and recognition).120 But rather than moving directly to the claim that the doctor who acts beneficially exercises discipline, Socrates asks whether the beneficial doctor does “what he ought” (ta deonta, 164b3). Perhaps Socrates wants to focus Critias’ attention on the act of healing itself, apart from the consequences for either the doctor or the patient. By performing his craft for the good of the patient, the doctor does what he ought, and it is acting in conformity with that duty that is the exercise of discipline.121 (It is unclear why Critias would think the shoemaker is not exercising discipline when performing his craft, and so presumably doing what he ought. Perhaps he thinks that the hypothetical and categorical “oughts” align for doctors and similarly elite practitioners but are separate for the vulgar trades.)

Premise (4) presents greater interpretative difficulties. Socrates asks Critias if a doctor will always know whether he exercises his craft beneficially, and whether, in {75} general, any craftsman will always know whether he is going to “profit” (onasthai, 164b9; cf. Hes. Op. 318) from his work. This question is doubly ambiguous, in terms of the recipient of the harm or benefit—the doctor, the patient, or both—and in terms of the kind of harm or benefit they have in mind.

The text appears to favor taking the recipient of the harm or benefit to be the doctor himself, since in the next sentence Socrates generalizes from the example of the doctor, and the focus there is clearly on the profit a craftsman derives from his work.122 It would be strange, moreover, for Socrates to introduce the doctor’s benefit at 164a9–b1 unless he were going to make some dialectical use of it.123 But what kind of harm or benefit might the doctor be ignorant about? The doctor might not know whether he will be paid for his work; should it be that he will in fact get paid for a successful cure, he is benefiting himself without knowing it and is acting with discipline but in ignorance that he is doing so. Further, even if he knows he will be paid, he may not know whether such income will prove a benefit or a curse.124 A more poignant scenario, relevant to the Charmides’ setting in the years of the Athenian plague, is one in which a doctor risks infection from his patient even if he cures him. Thucydides recalls that doctors as a group were hit hardest by the plague, since they had the most contact with its victims.125 Finally, we can imagine a case in which a doctor cannot know whether his patient, once healed, will turn out to be his enemy or his friend—and may use his newfound strength against him.

Yet the text is not decisive, and so Socrates could be considering the doctor as ignorant about the eventual benefit or harm to the patient. This could be the case in two ways. First, the doctor’s craft, however well performed, may not universally succeed in effecting a cure.126 The disease may prove recalcitrant, or the patient may be unwilling to commit to the regimen of diet and exercise that will restore {76} him to health.127 Second, a doctor may not know, just because a patient is cured, that he is thereby “benefited.” Consider Nicias’ remark in the Laches: “Do you suppose, Laches, that when a man’s recovery is more to be feared than his illness, the doctors know this? Or don’t you think there are many cases in which it would be better not to get up from an illness? Tell me this: do you maintain that in all cases to live is preferable? In many cases, is it not better to die?” (195c9–d2, tr. Sprague in Cooper 1997; cf. Grg. 511e–512b). On Nicias’ view, the doctor’s knowledge is restricted to the causes of health and disease; it does not concern whether health or disease is ultimately good for a particular patient. (A version of this point arises near the end of the Charmides, at 174c3–d2.) In a case in which health is good for the patient, then, a doctor will be acting beneficially without realizing that he is doing so. Since the doctor is nonetheless doing what he ought, he will be acting with discipline—though without knowing it.

For Critias, this consequence is unacceptable: discipline, he says at the start of the next section, pretty much just is knowing oneself—premise (5). Is he right? Must a disciplined person even know that he is doing good?128 Maybe Socrates’ point at premise (3) is that discipline just is performing one’s craft as “one ought” (ta deonta), despite or while recognizing that he does not know whether doing so will ultimately benefit himself or another.129 This accords with Socrates’ account of “human wisdom” in the Apology—his realizing that he does not know “the greatest matters” (ta megista, 22d7) but still doing what he ought (Apollo’s assignment that he examine himself and others). Later in this dialogue, Socrates adds to Critias’ view of self-knowledge (knowing what one knows) knowing which things one does not know. Might Socrates and Critias agree that discipline depends on or even amounts to self-knowledge, but disagree about the salient object of that self-knowledge—that is, knowledge or ignorance? If Socrates thinks that discipline is knowing what one does not know, might he think that discipline can involve nothing more secure than doing what one ought?

{77} Evidence for this view of discipline may come from Socrates’ actions toward Charmides and Critias. Socrates talks with them even as he does not know whether doing so will ultimately benefit or harm himself or others; success in both directions depends (at least) on their commitment to maintaining those conversations and taking seriously the self-knowledge winnable from them. As it turns out, Socrates’ demise in 399 probably had something to do with his association with Charmides and Critias.130 Still, the Thirty and the reactions to them seem not to tell against Socrates’ discipline, since he did what he (thought he) ought to do.

12. The Delphic inscription: “Know yourself” (164c7–165b4)

The end of this half-page speech by Critias marks the literal center of the dialogue. It begins with Critias’ abandoning his first reformulation of the “doing one’s own things” definition (a sign either of his intellectual responsibility or his sophistic mercuriality).131 His explanation of “the doing of good things” allowed that a disciplined person might not know (of himself) that he is acting with discipline. But discipline so much involves knowing oneself, Critias feels, that it, and thus “doing one’s own things,” can practically be said to be “one’s knowing oneself.” The bulk of Critias’ speech provides a consideration in favor of this new formulation. Perhaps tellingly, he leaves unclear the precise relationship between the original and new formulation, or the centrality of self-knowledge to discipline, either of which could provide positive reason to accept his latest formulation. He instead elaborates his claim with an analysis of the Delphic inscription “Know yourself.”132 The analysis is absurd: it is non-informative, it begs the question, it is baroquely repetitive, and it has so little pertinence to the course of the argument that it does not get picked up in the ensuing conversation. But it is also fascinatingly suggestive and infuses epistemological analysis into the Charmides’ continuing ethical discussion, an infusion found throughout Plato’s dialogues, not least in the Protagoras, the Meno, and the Republic.

Critias’ speech and Plato’s reason for including it have long mystified readers, provoking them to wide-ranging explanations. Perhaps the reference to Delphi is meant to call to mind the oracle’s claim, recounted in the Apology, that {78} no one was wiser than Socrates, which he interprets as celebrating his epistemic modesty (20e–23b). It might then foreshadow a difference between two kinds of self-knowledge: Critian knowledge of knowledge and Socratic knowledge of ignorance.133 Or perhaps the speech reveals Critias’ sophistic tendency and failure to stick to dialectical exchange.134 Or worse, perhaps Critias takes himself to speak for Apollo, a sign of hubris135 or even atheism.136 Yet the details of the passage allow that much more is going on. Here we discuss only the most essential points: Critias as the speechmaker; the structure of the argument; the purpose of talking about “greetings”; and the speech’s role in the narrative of the dialogue.

The historical record tells us that Critias learnedly interpreted sage and Delphic maxims.137 Plato may thus be quoting, paraphrasing, or parodying something Critias actually wrote, a practice he also follows with Lysias (Phdr. 230e–234c) and Protagoras (Prt. 320d–328d),138 and seems to follow with Critias’ definition of discipline as “doing one’s own things.” This would explain the speech’s inefficiency and illogic: Plato caricatures Critias’ argumentative foibles. In any event, both this speech and its pendant, the exegesis of Hesiod (see §10 above), are surely Critian in being learned explanations of gnomic wisdom. They reveal Critias to be even more skilled in poetry (155a1) than Charmides, capable of authoritative interpretation—a practice that headlines good symposia (a topic dear to the historical Critias’ heart), as depicted by Plato and Xenophon.139 Such interpretations win acclaim or recall by mobilizing wondrous paradox, not through being dully and dutifully straightforward, as we learn from Gorgias’ extant speeches as much as from Socrates’ interpretation of Simonides’ poem (Prt. 342a–347a). More concretely, Delphi has a crucial role in the Spartan constitution, which we know Critias described and evaluated: Lycurgus’ laws, which concerned themselves largely with the imperative to be disciplined, received Delphic imprimatur (Xen. Lac. 8.5), {79} and Spartans generally sought advice from oracles, including the one at Delphi, before legislative action (Plut. Lycurgus 25; Diodorus Siculus Library 14.13.3).

After asserting the virtual equivalence of discipline and knowing oneself, Critias offers corroboration: “Whoever put up the inscription to that effect [sc., ‘Know yourself’] at Delphi” (164d5) thought the same thing.140 His explanation has three steps: (1) The inscriber wrote “Know yourself” at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo as a greeting, consciously replacing the familiar “Cheers” (Chaire), both as a representation of the greeting that the god gives and as a model of the greeting that people should use with each other. (2) Yet the greeting that the god actually gives (and that we should use for each other) is “Be disciplined” (Sôphronei). Naturally, the god (or the inscriber?) speaks in riddles, and so the inscriber can write “Know yourself” in place of the equivalent “Be disciplined.” (3) When someone failed to recognize the equivalence between “Know yourself” and the greeting “Be disciplined,” he thought “Know yourself” was simply a piece of advice, and proceeded to inscribe more pieces of advice on the temple.141 We may summarize the speech’s argumentative force: Critias thinks that we should greet each other with “Be disciplined” and that the god models doing so; Critias thinks that the god greets visitors to Delphi, rather than gives them advice; Critias thinks that the god riddles, and so it is reasonable that what is inscribed at the temple is something else; and, on the basis of his special insight, Critias thinks “Know yourself” must be the equivalent of “Be disciplined.” Transforming from imperative greeting to declarative statement, knowing yourself is equivalent to discipline.142

The poverty of Critias’ reasoning is excused only by its being both par for the course and gratuitous: no other definition in this dialogue has been defended by an argument, and nothing in the subsequent sections rests on a claim made herein. But his reference to “greeting” does require discussion. It seems to have resonance across the dialogue: Socrates’ narrative at the beginning of the Charmides opens with his approaching the palaestra and being greeted by shouts of welcome; Chaerephon in particular greets him by jumping up, running toward him, grabbing his hand, and asking how he made it out of the battle alive. Socrates then greets Critias. Charmides next enters the palaestra but offers greetings to Socrates neither before nor after being sat down next to him. Socrates’ and Charmides’ first {80} “ungreeted” interactions are transactional, not aimed at a common interest (see §3 above). Only once Charmides acknowledges Socrates for who he is does the real conversation begin (156a4–8). So perhaps greeting, as a form of acknowledgment, should be seen as fundamental to the conversations constitutive of Socratic philosophia. These conversations conduce to knowledge about life-guiding values and to recognition of one’s falling short with respect to them.

Assume, then, that acknowledgment formulated as greeting conduces (via conversation) to knowing oneself. Why would the content of the greeting, as “Be disciplined” rather than “Cheers,” matter, when it might seem that even a phatic greeting, such as “Hello,” would suffice? And how can we answer this question while maintaining Critias’ distinction between a “greeting” (prosrêsis, 164d7), which “urges on” (parakeleuesthai, 164e2), and “pieces of advice” (sumboulas, 165a6), which aim to be “useful” (chrêsimous, 165a7)?

Critias’ distinctions here seem somehow to echo the distinction he made in his discussion about another piece of sage wisdom, Hesiod’s “Work is no disgrace,” between the admirable “doing” and the less admirable “making” (163b3–c8; see again §10 above). Relatedly, Prodicus and Protagoras, in the fifth century, drew distinctions between speech acts; and by the fourth century, we know of analyses of the locutionary status of gnomic maxims.143 Critias, a proponent of “precise speech” (akribeis logoi, Dionysius of Halicarnassus Isaeus 20) and of the analysis of wise sayings, would be well disposed to make such a distinction. Elsewhere in Plato, Socrates uses the verb “urge” (parakeleuesthai) for the role of Delphic maxims (Phlb. 45e1; Riv. 138a9), and more generally when speaking of exhorting people to virtue or the good life.144 Sometimes it includes the implication that the person is already doing what is being exhorted, like saying “Run!” to runners in a race.145 Yet toward the end of the Charmides, Socrates advises (sumbouleusaimi, 176a2) Charmides to consider him a fool if he is already disciplined. Perhaps Critias’ point is that, for the same reasons that discipline is somehow a more fundamental character trait or virtue than any other, “Be disciplined” is somehow more fundamental than any other kind of advice (as “doing” is better than any other kind of “making”). Mutual discipline and self-knowledge might be the necessary conditions for any useful advice-giving at all. Conversations, the context for any further pursuit of the good life, and thus the realization of any encouragement to pursue it, are entered {81} into with this fundamental advice.146 This idea may well be central to the Charmides; why then put it in Critias’ mouth? Perhaps Critias really did come up with it; his fragments and their reception prove his inventiveness and insight. If so, then Plato reveals Critias’ limited understanding of his own insight. Perhaps, like the other poets Socrates has met (Ap. 22b–c), he does not know what he is saying.

Critias concludes his speech with some qualified epistemic modesty: “I’ll grant you all the earlier points—maybe you were speaking a bit more correctly . . . maybe I was; . . . nothing we were saying was especially clear” (165a8–b3). Of course, since he alone was defining and answering, he should take sole responsibility (cf. Alc. 112e–113c). But he says he will now defend his new formulation (presumably by answering Socrates’ questions, in the manner of the other definitions), if Socrates does not already accept it.147 It is unclear whether Critias assumes he does. Socrates will presently excoriate Critias for assuming that he has any settled view at all, stating that he does not know whether he accepts it, and turn their discussion to the precise meaning of “knowing oneself.”

Socrates and Critias Reflect on Self-Knowledge (§§13–14)

Over the next two sections, Socrates “looks into” whether he agrees with Critias’ new formulation, “knowing oneself,” by getting Critias to examine it. In doing so, he takes a new path. With Charmides he investigated directly whether the definiens, in the case of “tranquility” and “a sense of shame,” was as unqualifiedly good as the definiendum (“discipline”) or at least, in the case of “doing one’s own things,” perfectly coincident with it. With Critias, however, thanks to his evolving understanding of his own claim, Socrates first elicits a cascade of new formulations: knowledge of oneself, knowledge of itself, knowledge of knowledge, knowledge of every kind of knowledge and of itself, knowledge of knowledge (and of itself) and of ignorance, and eventually the more personalized “knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t know” (167a6–7). Only then do Critias and Socrates {82} consider whether self-knowledge so construed would even be possible; and assuming it is possible, whether it would be beneficial.148 These are the prerequisites for “knowing yourself” even to count as a candidate definition for discipline, much less the right one. The way Critias reformulates his definition, and his lack of creative resistance to Socrates’ suggestions, leads him to agree that they cannot yet accept that discipline is knowledge of knowledge, and thus knowing oneself.

13. Knowing (gnôsis) oneself as a kind of knowledge (epistêmê) (165b5–166b6)

Socrates balks at Critias’ suggestion that he already has a settled view about discipline, such that he could responsibly agree (or disagree) with him. Instead of calling on Critias to defend his claim, however, he frames the discussion they need to have as a joint inquiry into its truth.149 He begins the testing of Critias’ account by abstracting from knowing “oneself” (heauton) to knowing “something” (ti, 165c5), and then checking whether Critias allows the specification of that knowing as “a certain kind of knowledge . . . of something” (epistêmê tis . . . kai tinos). Again he does, and specifies: “of oneself.” Far from rejecting Socrates’ structuring of the virtue as a skill or science (as opposed to a style of behavior or emotional disposition, such as “tranquility” or “a sense of shame”), Critias wholly accepts that discipline is a (unique) intentional epistemic state—an expertise, with a definite subject matter, and presumably one that is learned and taught—which he will later formulate as “knowledge of itself.” For now, before that reformulation, Socrates has two questions about this “knowledge of oneself.” On the unstated assumption that any knowledge (epistêmê) gets its value from producing something valuable, by inference from the examples of medicine and architecture, Socrates asks about discipline’s beneficial product. Critias denies that it has any product,150 and justifies his denial by observing that not all kinds of knowledge have (external or material) products. He cites mathematics as a non-productive knowledge, although he neglects to explain how he understands its benefit (which is another sense of the “product”).151

{83} Socrates observes that mathematics, though lacking a product, still has a distinct object (of study), the numbers. What, he asks, is the distinct object of discipline? Somewhat startlingly, Critias does not repeat that it is “oneself,” that is, the person knowing; nor does he say something like soul or mind or character. He denies that it has any distinct object at all. It does have an object, since Critias already accepted that it is “of something” (tinos, 165c6), but the object is itself, as we learn later, as well as the other kinds of knowledge (166c2–3). What precisely he has in mind, if anything, comes out later; what this passage demonstrates is that Critias is committed to discipline’s being both one of the kinds of knowledge and also unique among them. The tension between his twin commitments becomes evident as the conversation continues—and leads to puzzling results—but his reason for holding them does not. He seems to accept that knowledge is valuable, and that discipline, a kind of knowledge, is preeminently valuable. Maybe Critias finds most forms of knowledge the vulgar or tedious provenance of working-class or technical personnel, but one form, discipline, the supremely refined and beneficial manager of all the others. The legendary Spartan constitution—of which the historical Critias wrote studies—distinguished between the usual employments and the virtue-promoting freedom from such work, suitable for the governing elite (Xen. Lac. 6.2).

Readers often wonder whether Socrates’ initial move from gnôsis to epistêmê is legitimate.152 Well, Critias accepts it; and to that extent his views or oversights are revealed. But Socrates may have good grounds for making the move, and Critias for accepting it: for whatever reason, Socrates may want language that allows differentiation of knowledge into kinds, and there seem to be no “kinds” of gnôsis (as there seem to be no kinds of seeing—discussed in §15 below). Yet there would be a cost here: the gnôsis in the Delphic gnôthi sauton may capture something crucial that epistêmê does not, such as recognition, acknowledgment, or personal relations.153 In {84} fact, Socrates will shift back to the verb gignôskein in the apparently more promising construal of discipline as “knowing what one knows and doesn’t know.”

14. The distinctiveness of discipline: some reformulations (166b7–167a8)

This section has three noteworthy elements. First, Critias unpacks his view that discipline is knowledge of oneself (i.e., of the person knowing) by coming to say not only that this means that it is the knowledge of itself but also that it is in addition the knowledge of the other kinds of knowledge. He thereby treats discipline as a knowledge that is both reflexive and hierarchical. Second, Socrates tries to defuse Critias’ accusation—that in questioning Critias’ reformulations he has ignored the content of the argument and wants to put Critias to the test—by claiming to be refuting or testing (elenchein) himself. Third, Socrates twice reformulates Critias’ reformulation, once by appending knowledge of ignorance and once by putting the result into a personal context; both reformulations are taken by Critias as uncontroversial but amount to highly significant moves.

Critias comes to say that “discipline alone . . . is the knowledge of all those other kinds of knowledge and also of itself” (166c2–3). He asserts discipline’s distinctiveness from all (the other) kinds of knowledge both in its being hierarchical or second-order—that is, in its taking as its object the various kinds of knowledge, rather than what the kinds of knowledge are themselves of—and in its being reflexive or “of itself”—again, of knowledge itself rather than of the usual objects of knowledge. A question concerns how Critias sees the relationship between “knowledge of all the other kinds of knowledge” and “knowledge of itself.” One possibility is that he takes knowledge of itself just to be (by composition) knowledge of all the kinds of knowledge: reflexivity and hierarchy come to the same thing. Another possibility is that he takes them to be distinct parts of discipline as an expertise, whether they in fact are or not. We can hardly tell which relationship Critias has in mind; perhaps even he does not know what he knows or fails to know here, and is simply reacting unreflectively to Socrates’ questions. In the ensuing conversation, Socrates sometimes targets the hierarchical aspect, and sometimes the reflexive aspect (shifting from hierarchy to reflexivity in §15 to §16, and again in §§17–18 to §19). What seems clear at this point is that Critias conceives of discipline as an “architectonic” or master knowledge, which somehow subordinates the other kinds of expertise.154 Does it establish their goals, organize {85} their labor, determine what counts as knowledge, or—as Critias later accepts—recognize who has what knowledge and delegate tasks accordingly? In any event, discipline for Critias has its great value in being an expertise superior to all others.

Critias excoriates Socrates for pretending not to see discipline’s fundamental uniqueness when Socrates asks after its beneficial product or separate object, the question one would ask about any other kind of knowledge or expertise. He thus accuses Socrates of ignoring “the focus of the argument” (166c5–6) and instead trying to test and embarrass (elenchein) him.155 Socrates does not deny that he is trying to test him and instead explains why he would: if any refuting (elenchein) is done to Critias, it is done for the same reason that he interrogates (diereunan) himself, namely out of the standing fear that he may miss a false conceit of knowledge.156 Socrates is testing Critias’ claim—examining or refuting it—either (1) so that Socrates does not accept it uncritically or (2) so that Critias does not accept it uncritically (or both).

(1) In testing or refuting Critias, Socrates corrects or positions himself to correct his own conceit of knowledge, specifically, in this very instance, about discipline. Socrates might think he has the same view of discipline as Critias, either (a) on independent grounds or (b) because he is disposed to think that what Critias as expert says about discipline he thereby knows. Option (a) is credible, since Socrates has earlier associated discipline with self-knowledge (158e7–159a10) but recognizes that his assumptions always need further testing.157 Option (b) is not impossible, either, if, despite his wariness, Socrates recognizes his human disposition to trust reputed experts as knowledge purveyors.158

(2) Alternatively, Socrates tests Critias on this occasion for the same reason that he tests himself on other occasions—namely, that it is good for people not to have false beliefs.159 Socrates goes on to say that he is “looking into the argument {86} mostly for my own sake” (166d3–4). This could mean that it is in everyone’s interest for Critias to have a better understanding of his own beliefs (e.g., as false, as unsubstantiated, as misleading), and testing Critias thereby conduces to Socrates’ benefit. The difficulty with this explanation is equating the advantage wrought by “the way each thing is [becoming] clear” (gignesthai kataphanes hekaston tôn ontôn hopêi echei, 166d6) with that of avoiding conceits of knowledge, which at least superficially seem different. After all, a humble and curious person just is one who, recognizing how little she knows and so not needing her conceits of knowledge punctured, seeks to learn more about “each thing.” To equate Socrates’ two purported ends, we might have to add a further premise that any belief, no matter how provisionally or unconsciously held, tends automatically to be assumed to be a piece of knowledge. In this case, someone might try to retain a skeptical stance toward, say, the nature of justice, but since she cannot help having some beliefs about justice, she ends up supposing herself (despite her general disinclination to do so) to have some knowledge about justice; and it is in discovering that the nature of justice differs from what she had believed that she realizes she had falsely assumed that she had knowledge about it.

In whatever way we come down on this issue—and there may be more possibilities—this passage forces deep questions about Socratic epistemic modesty.160 When he claims not to know, does he really not think he has any knowledge, or does he say it aspirationally—while he seeks the ideal state in which he utterly lacks false conceits of knowledge, he would be foolhardy to assume he had yet attained it? Is he exemplary for his vigilance against those conceits rather than perfectly able, once and for all, to forbear assuming that he knows what he does not know? Is his concern to help others arrive at epistemic humility not a primary goal but a (necessary or contingent) byproduct of his self-concern? Finally, when Socrates says that knowing how things really are would be a benefit for virtually everyone (perhaps excluding those who simply refuse to learn or accept what is manifestly so), does he imply that he actually can come to have knowledge?161

On the dramatic level, this passage presents Socrates as claiming to be engaged throughout this conversation in a self-scrutiny concerning his (lack of) knowledge—that is, in knowing himself, a practice whose possibility and benefit is later called into question. A reader might investigate what light Socrates’ activity {87} throws on the course of the argument about self-knowledge and discipline, in particular whether it helps diagnose Critias’ missteps.

After getting Critias to accept that clarity about things benefits pretty much everyone, Socrates makes another concession: they should simply ignore who is being tested and think about the thesis on its own (cf. 161c3–6). Since Socrates will still be asking Critias questions, this concession has a cost: it appears to abandon the familiarly Socratic conversational norm of sincerity, where Socrates tests what his interlocutor sincerely believes.162 In fact, however, that norm of sincerity has limited application, since it assumes a person already has a stable, articulable, and defensible belief; and Socratic conversation might find that a person does not. Socrates’ questions discover, in the first place, only how a person responds to certain questions, posed in a certain way, at a certain time. But they do not end there. They may eventually help a person discover what he should and therefore will believe—namely, what is consistent with the best beliefs. Conversation, therefore, helps a person know what he believes, what he is really and not just superficially committed to, rather than simply helping him inventory what he believes he believes. This means that conversation amounts to the process of coming to know one’s beliefs—i.e., one’s knowledge and ignorance—which process is also the topic of the present conversation. Indeed, Socrates’ observation that, on this definition of discipline, “the disciplined person alone will know himself and will be able to examine what he knows and what he doesn’t” (167a1–2), and so on, seems to articulate exactly Socrates’ own proclaimed practice (and thus implies that he is the disciplined one around here). The inclusion of knowledge of “ignorance” (anepistêmosunê) points especially at the connection to Socrates’ activity.163

Is Knowledge of Knowledge Possible? (§§15–16)

At this point, Socrates announces the structure for the rest of the discussion: they are to investigate whether discipline, on the newest formulation as the knowledge of knowledge, is possible (the task of these two sections); and if possible, whether {88} it is beneficial (the task of the following sections).164 The questions arise from Critias’ desire to treat discipline as a kind of knowledge that differs sharply from every other kind. They start by assessing knowledge of knowledge as hierarchical (§15); in the next section they assess it as reflexive (§16).165

15. Puzzling over hierarchical intentional states (167a9–168b1)

The assessment proceeds through an inquiry into Critias’ intuitions about purportedly parallel cases. These parallel cases concern intentional states—perceptual or mental states that are about something—and the possibility that they could be of the states themselves but not of what those states usually are about. Socrates starts with seeing, asking whether there is a seeing of the “cases of seeing and not-seeing” but not of color, which is what every other case of seeing is of. Critias says no, and his reasoning is simple: Seeing is of color. Whether seeing itself has any color is irrelevant; if it does not, it cannot be seen, and if it does—say, as a physical event that takes on the color of the thing seen—its color is by stipulation not the object of the second-order seeing. Further, since different cases of seeing are individuated by what they are of (e.g., a green leaf),166 seeing an individual case of seeing (i.e., a seeing of a green leaf) would have to involve seeing what it is of (i.e., the green leaf itself); and this undermines the idea of second-but-not-first-order seeing (where one sees the leaf-seeing but not the leaf). Thus, a seeing that is strictly hierarchical seems impossible. The same seems true of hearing and, as Socrates infers, perception in general.167

From perceptual states Socrates turns to non-perceptual mental states: desire, wishing, love, fear, and belief. Critias finds these cases of hierarchy as impossible {89} as the perceptual cases; and yet they at least sound more plausible. For example, we might speak of an aspiring saint as desiring to desire holiness, of a Don Juan as loving the experience of love, and of the epistemologist as having a belief about the epistemic status of a certain belief—and, indeed, the Charmides appears to depict many of these cases of hierarchical mental states. All the same, these states apparently only seem more tractable to hierarchical application. Second-order desiring of a first-order desire but not of what first-order desires desire (i.e., any desired thing) does sound impossible. Nothing would motivate that second-order desire. One can fear fear only if the object, fear, is itself frightening, and yet Critias has ruled out that as the reason for having the second-order fear. So, although neither Socrates nor Critias draws the inference, we can hardly imagine a knowledge that knows knowledge but not anything knowable.

To maintain the possibility of a hierarchical knowledge (or any intentional state), Critias has two options. Either he could grant transparency, the fact that when a second-order state is of a first-order state, it also takes as an object what the first-order state is of; or he could treat the first-order state as having the same (knowable, etc.) characteristics as its proper objects. That is, either grant that seeing some seeing requires seeing what the seeing is of (e.g., a leaf), or grant that seeing, whatever it is of, looks like something (for example, eyes opened and glancing, people talking about what they see, etc.). In the case of knowledge, second-order knowing would have to know the subject of first-order knowing (leaf forms, in botany), or the first-order knowing would be an action that is itself knowable (e.g., performing well on a test, teaching effectively).

16. Puzzling over reflexive relatives (168b2–169c2)

Socrates presents a second diagnostic for the possibility of the knowledge of knowledge, now considered reflexively. He focuses on the fact that knowledge is a relational property (what he calls a dunamis or “power”). Relational properties require both something to be related to and the thing being related to be some way. Being double, for example, is a relational quality because it requires there to be something compared to which it is double; and it requires that that thing be half of itself. Presumably, relational properties are called “powers” for two reasons. They come to be only with something to which they “apply,” as the power of sight requires something to see, the power of a muscle requires something to lift, and so on. And they effect that thing’s own relational properties, as the muscle-lifted thing is lifted (by something), and the visible object is seen. A “power” in this context should not be conceived as an “active,” “agential,” or even “moving” thing, {90} nor exactly as a “capacity” or “potential”; it is simply something that requires a certain kind of thing for its realization or existence.168

Socrates’ argument shows that certain powers cannot self-apply; they are not reflexive. A double cannot be double of itself, because doubles apply only to halves, such that a self-applying double would, impossibly, have to be both half and double itself. The same goes for several comparatives: more than, heavier than, older than.169 Generalizing to “cases of size and quantity and so forth”—though he might rather have said for all comparatives of difference, since equality and similarity, which apply to size and quantity, are unproblematically reflexive—reflexive application is impossible. This is unsurprising.

Socrates then considers the first two intentional states from his earlier list, seeing and hearing. The power of seeing requires something visible, so for it to apply to itself, it must itself be visible and so have a color; and for hearing, hearable and so have a sound. Though Socrates does not explicitly accept these cases, neither does he disprove their possibility—he does not show that seeing is colorless. Aristotle believes that seeing is colored (DA III 2, 425b23). But Critias seems to assume the cases’ impossibility.

This analysis may look redundant, given the implied tentative conclusion at 168a10 that there are no (second-order) intentional states of (first-order) states that are not also of the objects of those first-order states (e.g., color, in the case of seeing). But in fact this analysis is new; the earlier strictures have been relaxed. Now, the relevant intentional states can be of what their first-order versions are of (e.g., color, in the case of seeing); the current question is whether the states themselves have the relevant properties (e.g., color, in the case of seeing). Socrates has moved from testing the possibility of their being hierarchical to testing the possibility of their being reflexive.

Socrates never says where knowledge fits in. He observes only that some powers are not reflexive, and others controversially so (like self-motion and self-burning),170 and that it would be good to know whether in fact no powers are {91} reflexive, or, in case some are, whether knowledge is one of them. This remark sounds protreptic: it would be good to study powers and the sort of power knowledge is. Indeed, we seem to need more knowledge of knowledge.

In any event, Socrates explains why he does not investigate the nature of knowledge and its knowability. He says he does not “trust [him]self to be up to the task of determining” how it is; they need to call on a “great man” (megalou . . . andros, 169a1–2) to decide the issue.171 Socrates presents himself, to all effects, as knowing that he does not know how to do it. Is he being sincere? Or is he mainly teaching his audience a lesson—indicated by his attention to the conditions for really knowing what the formulation “knowledge of knowledge” means—that Critias’ assertion about discipline depends on much deeper incursions into the nature of mind, physics, and logic than any of them have yet given it? Perhaps it is both.172

Socrates goes on to concede the possibility that knowledge is reflexive. This concession costs him little. The further question for Critias, whether he can show discipline to be beneficial, will hardly be easier for him to answer.

Is Knowledge of Knowledge Beneficial? An Initial Consideration (§§17–18)

Even were it possible, which has not yet been shown, the benefit of knowledge of knowledge as Critias understands it, hierarchical and non-transparent (see §15 above), is doubtful. In the first place (§17), one’s knowledge of knowledge seems able to determine only whether one has some knowledge, not which knowledge it is; and knowing only that one has some topic-unspecified knowledge hardly seems useful at all. The useful kinds of knowledge are the first-order ones, like medicine, that actually conduce to benefits, such as, for example, health. In the second place (§18), if the disciplined person knows only when there is some knowledge, not what that knowledge is of, that person cannot determine whether any purported expert actually knows that expertise; and this seriously limits the social or political (and personal) benefit of discipline.

{92} 17. Knowing that vs. what one oneself knows (169c3–170d4)

After several pages of reported dialogue without narrative intervention (starting at 162d4), Socrates now describes Critias’ response when challenged to explain the possibility of knowledge of knowledge. Seeing Socrates’ own difficulties, he says, Critias was similarly affected by puzzlement (aporia), as if by an infectious yawn, and started babbling rather than admit his incompetence. The yawning analogy is probably in jest—is aporia really the sort of thing that “seizes” a person from outside, against his will?173 Critias’ failure to defend his account, as Socrates has shown, is the result of his own opinions and commitment to logical principles, not anything he has been forced to say. So the analogy perhaps instead reflects Critias’ view of the situation: his refusal to take responsibility for the confused state of the conversation and his deflection of the blame onto Socrates (cf. Euthphr. 11b–d). Either way, Socrates provides another glimpse of Critias’ outsized concern for his reputation (see 162c1–4), which in this case leads him to try to hide his puzzlement from Charmides and the others at the palaestra. Socrates spares him any further embarrassment, proposing that they grant the possibility of knowledge of knowledge and move on to the question of benefit. Socrates’ concern is that the discussion (logos) continue, even if it should finally prove them inept (see 175a9–d5).

Earlier, Socrates glossed the knowledge of knowledge and ignorance as one’s knowing what oneself and others know and do not know (167a5–7). This sort of knowledge seems beneficial (though he does not yet spell out the presumed benefit), and in the Apology Socrates says that he has dedicated his life to it (21b–23b). Here, Socrates glosses the same way, accepting Critias’ inference that when you have a knowledge that knows itself, you know yourself, and then formulates this as knowing what you do and do not know. Critias ends up having to agree, however, that knowing knowledge means only distinguishing (diairein, 170a7) cases of knowledge from cases of ignorance; it does not mean identifying the topic or kind of any case of knowledge. Knowledge of knowledge alone (monon, 170b7), as Critias conceives it, does not peer (transparently) through to the contents of any of the lower-order kinds of knowledge (which are individuated by their contents). Knowing the content of medical knowledge means knowing health and disease; yet knowledge of knowledge does not include knowledge of health and disease. The knowledge of health and disease {93} qua knowledge differs not at all from the knowledge of anything else qua knowledge. Thus, as we eventually learn, the person with knowledge of knowledge knows only that he has some knowledge (if he does); the person without knowledge of knowledge knows only the content of whatever knowledge he might have, not that he has it.

We can put this difficult exchange schematically, where K: “knowledge of knowledge”; I: “knowledge that knows itself”; O: “knowing oneself”; and W: “knowing what one knows and doesn’t know”:

(1) [Critias] K = I [implied at 169e1]

(2) [Critias] Having I → O [169e4–5]

(3) [Socrates] But how does having I → W? [167e7–8]

(4) [Critias] Having I = W [170a1]

(5) [Socrates] But suppose I = K (from 1, by symmetry) [170a6–8]

(6) [Socrates] Then having K = W (from 4, 5)

(7) [Socrates] But having K ≠ W (from 170a10–d4)

(8) [Socrates] So, contra Critias’ (4), I ≠ W (from 5, 7)

The point is, again, that knowledge of knowledge construed in Critias’ hierarchical and nontransparent way cannot provide the benefit he desires it to have. Without treating knowledge as necessarily relative to the particular topic known, knowledge of knowledge cannot tell you which topics you know and do not know, and so it cannot allow you, for example, to avoid the tasks concerned with topics about which you are ignorant. Nor, it seems, can it enable you to act on the knowledge you do have. Critias’ account has the unhappy consequence that a sea captain, faced with the decision to lead a voyage, will have no idea whether she is up to the task. For if she lacks discipline, she cannot know that she has the relevant expertise; and if she does have discipline, she can know only that she has some expert knowledge—but for all she knows it could be medicine or carpentry instead. So again, the main problem seems to lie with Critias’ conception of discipline as a knowledge only of knowledge, which is strictly isolable (not just conceptually, but in practice) from any other expertise.174

{94} 18. Knowing that vs. what someone else knows (170d5–171c10)

This section takes on knowledge of other people’s knowledge (already introduced at 170b9–10).175 Knowledge of knowledge, as Critias understands it, is assumed to determine whether someone has knowledge. But, as we saw above, even if it really can, it cannot determine which knowledge a person has. This means that the disciplined person cannot tell a doctor from a sham doctor, for he cannot determine which person is actually the doctor. He can tell which people have knowledge, and which people claim to be doctors, and thus he can tell which people have knowledge and claim to be doctors; but he cannot tell which of those self-proclaimed doctors have knowledge of health and disease (rather than of, say, numbers). Admittedly, this is a strange result, since we think that we recognize knowledge not formally but substantially, as knowledge of something in particular. But it follows from Critias’ conception of discipline that a disciplined person can identify only that someone is an expert, not what someone is an expert in.

Socrates then presents Critias with another argument for the inability of the disciplined person to diagnose another as a particular kind of expert. While experts in the same field are thought to be able to recognize one another’s expertise, the disciplined person does not have the same expertise as any other expert, and so cannot distinguish experts from pretenders in any particular field. That is because no other expert has the specific expertise of the disciplined person, namely the one that takes knowledge as its subject. For example, the doctor qua doctor is not an expert in knowledge, even the knowledge called “medicine.” The doctor knows only health and disease, which are not themselves knowledge. This does not mean that the doctor is not knowledgeable, just that knowledge does not fall within the scope of her expertise. In a kind of parallel case from the Gorgias, though with an important difference, Gorgias claims that while his brother is a doctor, rhetoric does not fall within the scope of his expertise, with the result that he cannot reliably convince people that he is a doctor (456b–c).

The paradoxical results of these two sections seem to reduce to absurdity Critias’ conception of discipline as an effectively contentless knowledge of knowledge, an expertise possessed in isolation from any other knowledge. Could a doctor really be an expert in health and disease, and recognize fellow medical experts, while failing to grasp the nature of medical knowledge? Could she even acquire that expertise in health and disease without (at some level) knowing, of medical knowledge, that she does not yet possess it and what counts as possessing it? Could anyone reliably determine which people are really experts without knowing {95} in what they are expert or without having the expertise in those fields in which the people they judge to be experts are expert? (A difficult question about the disciplined person arises: he knows of himself only that he has some knowledge—does he know that he knows knowledge, and thus does he know that he is disciplined? Critias defined discipline as “knowing yourself” for the explicit reason that he believed disciplined people know that they are disciplined.)

Setting aside the difficulties it raises for Critias’ view, this passage has been seen to challenge Socrates’ own most characteristic practice in the dialogues: examining himself and others about the most important matters.176 Socrates’ “human” wisdom, according to the Apology, consists in his awareness that he is not an expert in such things. This makes him better off than others with reputations for wisdom, whom he has examined and found to be empty. But how can he reliably examine others’ claims to wisdom if he lacks the relevant expertise? How can he determine whether Charmides or Critias possesses discipline—if it is indeed a kind of knowledge—unless he happens to share that knowledge?

The threat to Socrates’ practice depends on the truth of a more general principle: S can know whether E is an expert in M only if S has expertise in M. In a range of cases, the principle seems false. For example, you presumably can know that someone is not an expert shoemaker if you try out several examples of his product and they all fall apart—and you have reason to believe that he is not trying to deceive or hurt you. After all, you have experience wearing successful products of shoemaking, and so you have a standard by which to judge. In other cases, however, you might lack any relevant experience. Having virtually no knowledge of Oscan or epigenetics, it would be very difficult for you to recognize pretenders, if the purported expert had even minimal competence, and you had no opportunity to see a precise English translation or the results of a scientific prize committee (both of which you do have the relevant experience to assess).

In fact, the defender of Socrates’ practice has a number of conceivable options; and even if the Charmides does not articulate or assess any of them, it occasions the readers’ thinking of them, and may even provide, in Socrates’ description of his own practice, evidence in favor of one or another.177 (1) Perhaps Socrates really is an expert in ethical matters. This would require, of course, serious disqualification of Socrates’ own avowals, as well as a story to explain Socrates’ purported {96} epistemological or moral achievement. (2) Perhaps Socrates has partial knowledge of ethical matters (including discipline) and of knowledge, which together enable him to recognize the pretenses of those who know only as much or less than he does about ethical matters. Even if someone is not expert in medicine, he may know enough about health and disease, and enough about what constitutes expertise, to tell when someone is a wholesale quack. (3) Perhaps there is a relevant distinction between ethical and technical knowledge, such that whereas only some people have expertise in technical fields, nobody has an expert level of ethical knowledge—about the most important matters, ta megista, about which only the gods are expert—and so nobody is above being tested. (4) Perhaps Socrates need not rely on any field-specific knowledge of his own at all to test purported experts’ claim to some field-specific knowledge; he need only get the experts to examine their own claims to expertise. We see Socrates do this in the Charmides itself: Critias purports to be expert about discipline but cannot, in the face of Socrates’ questions, explain his own view; ideally, he comes to realize that he lacks the knowledge he thought he had, and to retract his claim to such expertise. Examination of self and others does require some amount of knowledge, in particular a certain piece of knowledge of knowledge that Socrates knows and can assume others know—the impossibility of knowing a contradiction. Further, if knowledge of knowledge does have something to do with discipline, it may seem that the more discipline you have, the more you know about knowledge, and thus the more you know how much (and thus how little) you have—of knowledge and of discipline. In this context, the issue of knowing which knowledge you have expertise in is effectively moot.

In summary, any trouble for Socrates’ practice would seem to come from conceiving of discipline, as Critias does, as an expertise that is both analogous to other kinds of expertise and wholly isolable from them. Yet Socrates nowhere commits himself to such a view, and there is good reason, given the puzzles it generates in the dialogue and the problems it raises for his characteristic activity, for him to reject it.

Is Knowledge of Knowledge Beneficial? Further Considerations (§§19–22)

In the previous two sections, we saw that knowledge of knowledge, as Critias has construed it, can identify only instances of knowledge but not their contents, and this means the disciplined person qua disciplined knows neither what he {97} knows nor what others know—a decidedly unimpressive result. In the next sections, Socrates moves on. He first offers another possible benefit of the knowledge of knowledge, now considered more in its reflexive guise: it improves one’s learning, apparently by helping one understand the criteria for knowledge (§19); but he does not examine this benefit, observing mainly that this does not seem to be what Critias had in mind (§20). Then he observes that even were knowledge of knowledge to involve knowing which cases of knowledge oneself and others had (contrary to the findings discussed in §§17–18), this might still not satisfy their shared vision of discipline as a great good and source of happiness: on Critias’ admission, it is knowledge of what is good and bad that provides that great benefit, and knowledge of knowledge is evidently not the same as that (§§21–22).

19. The greater and smaller benefits of the knowledge of knowledge (171d1–172c3)

This section presents a possible “smaller benefit” of discipline as knowledge of knowledge. This is to be a consolation prize after the failure to find a knowledge of knowledge with a “greater benefit.” Were knowledge of knowledge to allow a person to know what he himself and others knew (the latter to whom he might delegate), so that everyone in a community would act on the basis of knowledge, the greater benefit would be the happiness (eudaimonia) of a city and all its people (cf. Rep. 423a; Aristot. NE I 1). But the argument of 169c3–171c10 has shown that, on Critias’ understanding of the knowledge of knowledge, a person can know neither of himself nor of others what is known and not known. Thus, discipline as knowledge of knowledge, as a managerial knowledge whose brief comprises only determining whether something is knowledge, not the topics of the various kinds of expertise themselves—and which for this reason can be said to “do its own thing”—produces no great good. The problem is evidently that Critias wants to treat discipline as a kind of knowledge parallel to the others, no matter how special it is to be. For, evidently, there is a skill of being aware of your epistemic deficiencies (and the same or a related skill of recognizing such deficiencies in others), or, put another way, a virtue of epistemic humility, that we do not readily describe as a kind of expert knowledge akin to the first-order expertises.

Still, despite the negative judgment of Critias’ “knowledge of knowledge” definition (described in §§15–18), discipline still seems beneficial; perhaps, Socrates wonders, he and Critias simply oversold its value. Rather than assessing its promise for political leadership, they should think about it in pedagogical contexts—maybe the knowledge of knowledge improves teaching and learning. When a person “keeps knowledge in view (proskathorônti) while learning” something, {98} what he is learning “will present itself to him more vividly” (172b4–5).178 Since it is knowledge in general that is kept in view, Socrates presumably means the criteria for something to count as knowledge—perhaps stability, clarity, expressibility, coherence with other things one knows and believes, and so on.179 Learning is harder if these criteria are not borne in mind, for otherwise a person may jump to conclusions, ignore important counterexamples, and stop short of full understanding, prematurely assuming that he has attained knowledge and has nothing further to do. When knowledge is kept in view, what is learned is “vivid” (palpable, isolable, clear and distinct), not confused, vague, or shadowy. When examining another person, knowing the prerequisites for knowledge gives initial and follow-up questions to ask.

This exchange again subordinates the value of discipline to other kinds of knowledge. Before, discipline as a managerial knowledge got its value from deploying the knowledge people had and preventing people from acting on false conceits of knowledge. Discipline as a learning aid also gets its value from the knowledge that people are learning.180

Some interesting questions remain: Does Socrates suggest that one ought to settle for this smaller benefit? Is this “smaller” benefit not actually small at all, if all learning, and thus acting on knowledge, depends on discipline? Is this smaller benefit not the only benefit of discipline but rather representative of the sort of benefits one should expect? Is this Socrates’ oblique formulation of the very benefit of “Socratic investigation”? The passage does not readily yield answers; but in favor of an affirmative answer to the final question, early in the dialogue Socrates said that he wanted to know just one “small thing” (smikron ti, 154d8; cf. 173d8) about the young Charmides; the small things are often of greatest importance (cf. Euthphr. 13a; Smp. 201c; Prt. 328e; Meno 86e).

Socrates never evaluates whether discipline really has the “smaller benefit” of enabling effective learning. The proposal proves to be one of the few views not evaluated in this dialogue. Is this Plato’s hint that it is up to us, as readers, to give it particular attention?

{99} 20. Socrates’ worry about the greater benefit (172c4–173a6)

From a dramatic perspective, the present brief section provides a breather between an almost relentless stretch of argument (§§13–19) and the coming climactic exchange (§§21–22). From a methodological perspective, however, it zeroes in on Socrates’ philosophical norms, specifically his way of dealing with puzzles. Socrates notes that something strikes him as strange; he recapitulates the agreements that got them where they are; he places blame for that strangeness on the hastiness of their previous agreements; and he gets fresh agreement to reexamine those old agreements and assumptions. He uses the language of clarity, directness of vision, and assessment. In fact, it might seem precisely an application of the “smaller benefit” of discipline adumbrated above, where we learn better if we keep knowledge in view. Keeping knowledge in view presumably means, as we said above, keeping the criteria for knowledge in view. Procedurally, then, knowledge would depend not on hastiness but on calm deliberateness (“tranquility”); not on shameless advance but on diligent, respectful, even modest appraisal of criticism (“a sense of shame”); not on overreach or dilettantism but on giving one’s whole attention to one’s positions (“doing one’s own things”); and not on success in debate but on recognition of one’s reactions and assessments of the argument so far (“knowing oneself”). Perhaps, then, Socrates does evaluate the “smaller benefits” view, though in deeds rather than in words. And the earlier definitions of discipline may, when treated in the context of conversation and the pursuit of knowledge, themselves be true.

An alternative hypothesis is that Socrates does not examine the plausibility of the “smaller benefit” view because it is not what Critias was after in the first place; it does not get us a conception of discipline that is superlatively admirable independent of every other skill or knowledge. In either case, Socrates goes on to express his further suspicions, that they were overly confident about the benefits of discipline when they conceived it as knowing what one does and does not know.

21. Socrates’ dream (173a7–174b10)

To clarify the relevance of knowledge to happiness, Socrates presents a dream of a knowledge-based political utopia, an ideal city where nobody ever acts on ignorance (cf. Rep. 536a) or deception (cf. Rep. 421a–b). It does not require the fiction of omniscience, however; there could be as much ignorance as you like, but that ignorance would be wholly recognized. And the knowledge could be as dispersed as you like—there might be a broad and even division of expertise—but {100} again that dispersion would be wholly recognized. The principle would be that only those who know how to do something do it. That is what it would mean for discipline to rule in a city. Socrates goes on to suggest that while in this wholly disciplined city everyone would act only on knowledge, they would not for that reason be happy. By asking Critias to decide whether this dream came “through horn or through ivory” (cf. Hom. Od. 19.563–67), he is asking him to confirm this result.181 It had been assumed that discipline, whatever it turned out to be, would be beneficial; but now it looks like the source of benefit—for example, whatever it is that makes a city happy—has to be something other than discipline, on Critias’ understanding of it.

Critias appears to believe that knowledge suffices for human flourishing. The argument of this part of the dialogue presents this belief as too indeterminate. For he also believes that many kinds of knowledge are basically irrelevant to human flourishing. In the end, he acknowledges that he thinks only knowledge of “what’s good and bad” (to agathon te kai kakon, 174c2–3) matters.182 He arrives at this point through two distinct sets of examples. Asked to specify the relevant happiness-producing knowledge, he nixes shoemaking, bronze-working, weaving, and carpentry (the sources of footwear, jewelry and weaponry, clothes, and furniture and shelter). So he excludes all the personal and domestic niceties—and even necessities. He finds another option more enticing, the art of the seer or diviner (mantis), since the person who knows all future events seems happy on the basis of his extensive knowledge.183 On this measure, Socrates suggests, even happier would be the person who knows, in addition to the future, also the past and present. The reason for Critias’ interest in the seer is uncertain: it is likely enough that he had a historical interest in oracles, but it is also possible that the breadth of the seer’s knowledge, and its role in executive decision-making, provides the best parallel to his own managerial conception of the knowledge of all the kinds of knowledge.184 Socrates’ reason for raising the issue is clearer: he can again ask which part of the seer’s or omniscient man’s knowledge is specifically responsible for happiness. Critias nixes checkers and arithmetic, takes an equivocal stance {101} toward medicine,185 and then affirms the knowledge of what is good and bad (cf. La. 199b–e; Rep. 505b–c).

It is worth reflecting on Socrates’ consideration of the seer’s art, divination (mantikê).186 Socrates seems unsure that it would be accepted as a branch of expert knowledge. Even were it accepted and were it presided over by discipline—so that we would listen only to true prophecies—he seems to doubt that our society would be any happier (an uncertainty that our confident Critias seems not to share). It is against this skeptical background that we must evaluate Socrates’ presenting his utopian vision as a dream. Dreams have prophetic power and need to be interpreted. The language building up to this passage is in the same vein. Socrates is receiving a strange vision that a disciplined society would not be a happy one. This remark echoes 169b4–5, where Socrates says he has a hunch (manteuomai, related to mantis) that discipline is something beneficial and good. Socrates is appropriating the language of divination for his own dialectical practice: he has hunches about things that serve as basic assumptions that will guide the rest of the inquiry, or strange consequences that need to be examined further to see whether they really do follow (cf. Rep. 506a, 523a). Here he says to Critias, “Listen to my dream” (173a7)—that is, to see whether he thinks it will come true. But Socrates is really saying: “Assess whether this consequence really follows from the view that discipline is knowing what one does and does not know.” We might note that for Xenophon’s Socrates, divination plays a special role vis-à-vis the other arts (technai). In the Memorabilia, he distinguishes between those things we can work out for ourselves and those things we need to consult the gods about (1.1.6–9). The suggestion in Xenophon is that divination can tell us useful things about the future, contributing to our prosperity, beyond what technical knowledge can provide. This seems not so for Socrates in the Charmides: divination can tell us what will happen, but it cannot contribute to our happiness. (The passage does not explain why; but a plausible suggestion is that it cannot tell us what our ends should be. Even if divination can tell us that our ship will sink, it cannot tell us what we should do about it.)

At this point in the dialogue, we may wonder again about Critias’ idealization of knowledge. Why does Critias not believe instead in the value of pleasure, or authenticity, or leisure, or creativity, or influence, or reputation? Is it not unusual to treat knowledge as a panacea? One partial explanation could be his concern for doing one’s own things, since action depends on competence, and competence {102} can be construed as knowledge. Another partial explanation could be that Critias serves as a doppelgänger for Socrates, someone who shares Socrates’ valuation of knowledge and commitment to philosophical discussion. After all, something must have attracted Socrates and Critias together. And Critias apparently had an illustrious intellectual career before entering the highest echelons of politics. The reader is left to discern what distinguishes Socrates’ and Critias’ views of knowledge.

22. The final refutation (174b11–175a8)

Critias has just admitted that, according to him, the knowledge that conduces to happiness is the knowledge of what is good and bad. This is not an acquiescence to a Socratic leading question; indeed, Socrates appears never to affirm this view. Critias’ point must be that a person must know more than how to do things—he must also know which things it would be good to do or avoid, and to whom, and when, and how often (cf. Alc. 109b–d). In more recent parlance, happiness requires knowledge of values or ends. But Critias does not say that discipline is the knowledge of what is good and bad, and, again, neither does Socrates. It is a provocative idea, to be sure; but a challenge not met in this dialogue is to identify that knowledge with Critias’ “knowledge of knowledge.” The definition might, anyway, seem too capacious, failing to distinguish discipline from courage, justice, or wisdom, even if it does explain what makes a virtue a virtue; but this issue does not arise in the dialogue.

Socrates goes on to illustrate Critias’ point about the knowledge of what is good and bad as the exclusive source of happiness. Take knowledge of what is good away from the various other kinds of knowledge—medicine, shoemaking, and so on—and, as Critias accepts, they still achieve their local (contingent) ends: producing health, shoes, and so on. Confidence that those local ends will conduce to our (final) human end of happiness, however, comes only with the (additional) knowledge of what is good (cf. Aristot. NE I 1, 1094a10–18). This view forces some hard questions on the reader. Suppose that the “medical” expertise includes the ability to prescribe the drug that best cures each disease. To determine whether any prescription is good, and not just effective, requires, in addition to medical knowledge, knowledge of what is good. But how then do we characterize the performance of the medical functions themselves? They can be performed well or poorly, depending on their fit to internal norms, apparently irrespective of the cure conducing in some case to human happiness (see §11 above). On this view, one can be a good doctor in two ways: by always effecting cures and by always effecting benefits. Perhaps Critias should not so readily have accepted that {103} a doctor without knowledge of what is good could perform just as well. Plato’s Phaedrus (268a–269a) describes the folly in thinking that one understands an expertise free of knowing anything evaluative—for example, the best time to provide medical treatment or the best length of a dramatic performance. The Gorgias (465a) distinguishes between having a knack for treatment and having technical knowledge about it, where the latter involves knowing what is good internal to the practice, not just what is effective.187 The conversation in the Charmides, by contrast, neither assumes that each kind of expertise has an internal good nor investigates the relationship between technical and evaluative knowledge, between hypothetical and categorical ends.

This silence might seem problematic, except that the precise relationship between the two proves argumentatively moot. That is because, whatever it is, knowledge of what is good and bad, according to Critias, is responsible for happiness. Whether one can practice medicine successfully without knowledge of what is good is beside the point. Socrates had dialectical reasons to present things that way, to get Critias to focus on his assertion that knowledge of what is good and bad is the source of happiness. It is from this agreement that Socrates can develop his final refutation of Critias’ definition of discipline as the knowledge of knowledge. Critias tries to preserve knowledge of knowledge’s responsibility for happiness by saying that, since it presides over every kind of knowledge, it also presides over the knowledge of what is good and bad. Albeit in an intermediated way, it remains responsible for happiness. Socrates reminds him, however, of their earlier agreement about medicine. Medicine alone (as knowledge of health and disease), not discipline (as knowledge of every kind of knowledge), is responsible for health. So, too, the knowledge of what is good and bad alone, and not discipline, would be responsible for happiness. Since they had long agreed that discipline produces benefit, but knowledge of knowledge apparently does not, it seems that knowledge of knowledge, and so self-knowledge, cannot be discipline. Back to the drawing board.

The Conversation Concludes . . . for Now (§§23–24)

Socrates faults his investigative skills for his and his interlocutors’ inability to define discipline successfully and for their skipping over some important {104} questions, including whether one can know what one does not know at all (§23). Despite this, Charmides, whom Socrates helps rejoin the conversation, now admits to recognizing his lack of knowledge of discipline (both its nature and his possession of it), and suggests that by having further discussions with Socrates, he may in time come to possess discipline adequately (§24). The monitory ending, with Charmides and Critias asserting their power to force Socrates into continued conversations, leaves in doubt whether either cousin will ever fully develop that discipline.

23. Mea culpa? (175a9–176a5)

Thinking it more likely that discipline is beneficial than that they have proven it not to be, Socrates bemoans his poor handling of the inquiry. Supposed evidence for his methodological poverty is his failure, with his interlocutors, even to show the value of discipline, despite their various concessions. He provides this evidence by recapitulating the key points of the dialogue’s second half. His doing so raises several questions. To what extent does Socrates speak ironically about his role in the inquiry? Why does Socrates reprise their concessions? And why does Socrates highlight a bypassed assumption, that someone could know what he does not know at all?

Socrates had already remarked on his inadequacy to resolve the difficult questions they were confronting (169a7–b3, 172e4–173a1)—as had Critias (165e3–5, 166c3–6)—but in each case, he pushed forward. Here, Socrates might be modeling a salutary self-criticism; perhaps he does not congratulate himself or show complacency because he does not want his interlocutors to do the same. He has demonstrated the proper way to feel ashamed (contrast 158c5–d6, 159b1–2, 161a2–5, 162c1–4, 169c3–d1)—namely, at one’s dialectical inadequacies, treating the truth as one’s humiliating judge. But, as so often already in the dialogue, his remarkable competence at dialectic is revealed by his very claim to lack it. The default assumption, as Socrates presents it, is that the initial conclusion of any investigation should not appear so final as to close off further inquiry. And in fact, Socrates’ self-criticism seems a deliberate shift of blame. It was Critias, and not Socrates, who contributed the definition of discipline as knowing oneself; Critias unpacked it as knowledge of knowledge and then as knowledge of the kinds of knowledge and ignorance; Critias stated that happiness comes only from knowing what is good and bad; and Critias accepted every inference Socrates drew thereafter. Indeed, it was Critias who got the conversation with Charmides and about discipline going (154a3–155b8, 157c7–d8). In brief, there is no evidence that Socrates or his conversational norms are themselves at fault.

{105} Socrates’ reiteration of their concessions helps pull together a long and winding conversation, after the fashion of an astute seminar facilitator. It gives focus to the fact that the tentative conclusion, that discipline is not self-knowledge, depends on Critias’ idiosyncratic construal of knowing oneself as knowledge of knowledge. Should Critias want to relitigate the case, he would do well to wonder whether he should have interpreted knowledge of knowledge, or even knowing oneself, differently than he did.

The fresh point Socrates introduces in this section is his claim that they had not investigated the impossibility of “someone knowing, somehow or other, the things he doesn’t know at all” (175c5–6), which they basically accepted as possible. But nothing, it seems, “could appear more absurd than that” (175c7–8). They thereby neglected to think hard about “knowledge of one’s ignorance,” which is at once a promising definition of discipline and, for modern readers, Socrates’ own motto. Socrates admits that the idea sounds crazy; but that does not mean he knows or believes it actually to be impossible. Knowing ignorance directly (as knowing a lack, what is absent) might be impossible, even as knowing ignorance by inference—for example, by realizing that you always spent time learning Japanese, and so cannot have learned Oscan—might avoid those difficulties. Or even if knowing what one does not know, when taken as “knowing the x that one does not know,” seems definitely impossible, since it means “knowing x and not knowing x,” when taken as “knowing of x that one doesn’t know x,” where “knowing of” and “knowing” are not equivalent, it does not seem so impossible: Socrates knows just enough about medicine (that it involves cauterizing and splints, etc.) to know that he does not know it. This is related to a resolution of “Meno’s paradox” (Meno 80d; cf. Aristot. PA I 1, II 19) such that we might know the existence of a field of knowledge without having (much) knowledge of it. We might know only its name or a few relevant facts.188 After all, Socrates says he believes of discipline that it is a great good but he does not know what discipline is. As the dialogue’s capping perplexity, one admitted to be strange but not at all explored, there seems good dramatic reason for thinking that a clue to the nature of discipline is to be found in the nature of the knowledge of ignorance.

In sum, this section makes Socrates’ disavowals of knowledge puzzling in various ways, and implicitly links those disavowals with the possession of discipline (cf. Tht. 210b–c). What we see harks back to our discussion at §19—making one’s learning go better by keeping an eye on knowledge. Since knowledge depends on {106} explanation, consistency, avoiding absurdity, and so on, Socrates’ awareness of and attention to the inadequacies of their search may instantiate the self-knowledge that is discipline.189

24. Charmides’ promise (176a6–d5)

The dialogue closes in just the way the definitional exchange began: Socrates asks whether Charmides has discipline—for if so, he does not need the Thracian incantation. Earlier, Charmides blushed and begged off, citing the impropriety of the two answers he saw open to him (158c5–d6). Here, he does not blush but instead pleads ignorance about his possession of discipline, an ignorance he feels to be excused by the difficulties Socrates and Critias had in defining it. He also says that he suspects he needs the incantation; the whole point of the discussion has been to decide whether he does, and now he seems to realize that the discipline-inducing and soul-healing incantation is not a formula to write down and chant but precisely what he has been undergoing: testing of his understanding of discipline—that is, Socratic conversation. This newfound epistemic humility and methodological insight is only inchoate and promissory, and it reveals itself at present as submission and obedience. As Critias observes, only with time will he really become disciplined, or, as we might put it, realize how little he knows about discipline. Right now, his realization is only partial: he believes that he could someday have had “enough” discipline-conducing conversations, and that Socrates could tell him when that is. But Socrates has already undermined this view, saying of himself that he must never stop testing himself against conceits of knowledge (166c7–d2; cf. Phdr. 229e); even in the afterlife, if he gets there, Socrates will not stop examining himself and others (Ap. 41a–c). Charmides also assumes that Socrates knows enough about discipline to teach it and discern it in his interlocutors; in assuming this, he takes himself to be able to see through Socrates’ denials of that knowledge or ability. And yet Socrates elsewhere denies knowing matters of such import (ta megista, “the greatest matters”: Ap. 22d7; cf. Tht. 210b–c).

The troubling final ten lines of the dialogue may suggest how incomplete Charmides’ progress is. As modeled by Socrates throughout the conversation, discipline involves unwavering commitment to and engagement in difficult inquiry; the martial analogue is with staying at one’s post and never deserting it. But Charmides and Critias embellish the analogy, talking of orders, plans, force, action without consultation, and opposition. Admittedly, the plotting between Critias and {107} Charmides may look at first like a playful echo of the plotting between Critias and Socrates near the conversation’s start (155b1–6). But the fun quickly dissipates. Critias never waits for Socrates to accept the request for continued tutelage; he commands Charmides to keep spending time with him.190 From a broader vantage, his actions sound rather like his eventual treatment, as member of the Thirty, of Leon of Salamis (and many others), whom Socrates says the oligarchy sought to execute without a trial (Ap. 32c–d; cf. Xen. Hell. 2.3.39).191

Plato thus ends the dialogue with more than a puzzle about the definition of discipline. He leaves us to ponder the value of Socrates’ conversation with Charmides and Critias. On the one hand, Charmides appears to have learned something about himself. (It is unclear what Critias has learned, though he accepts that Charmides should study with Socrates.) To that extent his method succeeded. On the other hand, the concluding exchange could point forward a quarter century, to an oligarchic Athens, the exile of Chaerephon, and the possibly fatal besmirching of Socrates’ reputation. The dialogue does not hint that some Socratic error caused this. And yet, since we have already seen that Charmides, for one, is not simply incorrigible, puzzles remain. What does go wrong over the intervening twenty-five years; what are we to think about discipline and political association; and what can Plato hope his depiction of Socrates here might lead us, his readers, to discover? A start to an answer recognizes that Socrates is just one member of the polis. The Zalmoxian principle of health attributed a healthy body to a healthy soul; might we extend this to suggest that a healthy soul depends on a healthy city? Socratic conversation needs to be repeatedly applied, and by many people. After all, what will ensure that Charmides sticks to his commitment to Socrates, given the many influences, depicted at the dialogue’s opening, that pull him away from self-critique and modesty?192

1. For Thucydides’ account of the siege of Potidaea, see 1.56–65, 2.58, 2.70. On the chronology of the Thracian campaign, see Planeaux 1999; Nails 2002, 311–12. Potidaea, a Corinthian colony and member of the Delian League (tributary allies of democratic Athens), became embroiled in a conflict between Athens and Corinth (a member, along with Sparta, of the Peloponnesian League).

2. See Roberts 2017, 86–89.

3. For epidemiological analysis, see Morens and Littman 1992; Littman 2009.

4. Thu. 2.58.3; cf. Roberts 2017, 83–86.

5. The siege of Potidaea was particularly expensive, costing the city two thousand talents (Thu. 2.70.2), or two years’ total income (Roberts 2017, 88). See also Munn 2000, 54: “This was far more than the cost of the Parthenon, and probably the equivalent [of] the entire expenditure for the Periclean building program of the 440s and 430s.” Some in Athens saw the plague as a direct consequence of (or even as divine retribution for) the war with Sparta (see Thu. 2.54.4–5).

6. At Thu. 2.60–64, in a speech set in 430, Pericles responds to the angry and war-weary Athenians and condemns the proponents of apragmosunê. Thucydides claims that Pericles restored public faith in the war effort, but that privately there was still discontent (2.65.2). On apragmosunê at the start of the war, see Carter 1986, ch. 2, esp. 38–51 (hêsuchia, 42–47); cf. Ehrenberg 1947; Adkins 1976; Lateiner 1982. For the Spartans’ sôphrosunê and hêsuchia, see Thu. 1.68–71, 1.83–84.

7. Monoson 2014, 142–44, interprets Socrates’ easy reintegration into civilian life as a reflection of his sôphrosunê.

8. Critias declines to comment on Charmides’ “wisdom” (sophia); he may express doubts about the quality of Charmides’ “mind” (dianoia) at 157c7–d1 (discussed in §5 below).

9. For the divisions of and terms for Athenian childhood, see Golden 2015, 10–19.

10. On paiderastia (“love of boys”), see Dover 1989 [1978], 81–109; Foucault 1985; Davidson 2007 (with 96–99 on anxiety about the precise age of the beloved); Lear 2014; Ormand 2018, ch. 3. On the palaestra as a setting for paiderastic pursuits, see Fisher 2014, 253–57.

11. For ochlos in a political sense, see Plt. 304d; Grg. 455a; Euthd. 290a. At Rep. 565e, Socrates uses the word when he describes how the leader of a democracy transforms into a tyrant.

12. Critias was presumably chosen over the default option, one of Charmides’ uncles; for this point and bibliography about the role of epitropos, see Nails 2002, 91.

13. Verbal allusions occur at 154b4 (cf. Od. 18.216–17), c1–2 (cf. Od. 1.301, 3.199–200, 18.219), 158b4 (cf. Od. 3.95, 4.325), and 173a7–8 (cf. Od. 19.562–67); more subtle echoes at 155c7–d3 (Telemachus’ journey). See Brouwer and Polansky 2004; Lampert 2010, ch. 2; Burger 2013; Joosse 2018; Raymond 2018.

14. For the image, see Rep. 495b–c; Socrates earlier professes his love for philosophia at 481d.

15. See Raymond 2018, 40–43.

16. This is the first of three such passages describing his reaction to Charmides’ looks (with 155c5–e3, 158c5–7); nowhere but here and twice more in the second passage does Socrates address his anonymous friend: ô hetaire (“my friend,” 154b8), ô phile (“my dear friend,” 155c5), ô gennada (“my noble friend,” 155d3).

17. This anticipates Socrates’ own aporia at 155c5–e3. See similar erotic scenes and language in the Phaedo (66d), Symposium (192b, 194b, 198b, 211d, 215d, 216d), Phaedrus (234d, 248a–b, 250a, 255b, 259b), Rival Lovers (133a), Lysis (210e), Republic (390c), and Laws (659a); cf. Eur. Hipp. 38. In the Republic, Socrates warns against being “dazzled” like a child by a tyrant’s outward appearance and wealth (576d, 577a, 591d, 619a); cf. Grg. 523d. On “wonder” (thauma) as a response to beauty, see Neer 2010, 57–69; Hunzinger 2015.

18. See Smp. 216e; Phdr. 251a–b, 252d–e; Gorg. Hel. 18; cf. Tuozzo 2011, 107. For this passage, see Gros 1994. Compare Socrates’ description of Charmides’ entrance to that of Autolycus in Xen. Smp. 1.1–8; and at Xen. Lac. 3.5, it is said that the well-educated young Spartan man ought to be more disciplined than “a bronze [sc. statue].”

19. On the coincidence of bodily beauty and beauty of soul, see Smp. 209b–c; Rep. 402d, 494b–d; on the priority of psychic beauty, see Tht. 143e–145b, 185e; Smp. 210b–c; Alc. 104a, 132a; Prt. 309a–d.

20. Fourth-century reflection on Sparta treated kalokagathia (the noun form) as the highest public ethical achievement (Xen. Lac. 10.4).

21. See Dover 1974, 41–45; cf. de Ste. Croix 1972, 371–76. At Thu. 8.48.6 and Pl. Rep. 569a4, the expression “those who are called kalos kagathos” (contracted form) refers to oligarchs.

22. Cf. Tht. 145b–c, 162b, 169b; Prt. 352a–b.

23. Cf. Tht. 185e4–5 (“He who speaks beautifully is beautiful and good”); Eur. fr. 909.5–6 TrGF. Apuleius may have the Charmides passage in mind when he writes that Socrates could see handsome young men only by talking to them (Florida 2.1–2; discussion at Fletcher 2014, 233).

24. For more on the idea that Charmides’ headaches are alcohol induced, see Hyland 1981, 41–42; McPherran 2004, 15. On the historical Critias’ sympotic ethics, see Hobden 2013, 104–7, 153.

25. The passage is quoted by Athenaeus (5.187e–f, early third cent. ce) and echoed by Aristaenetus (1.24.1–3, fifth or sixth cent. ce). Ficino bowdlerizes only this passage in his complete translation of Plato’s dialogues (Hankins 1990, 1.313).

26. For issues about the Cydias fragment, see Tuozzo 2011, 108–10 (with references).

27. For Socrates’ own avowed expertise in “matters of love” (ta erôtika), which equips him to judge the wisdom of Cydias, see Smp. 177d, 201d; Thg. 128b; cf. Lys. 206a; and for analysis of this frequent avowal, see Belfiore 2012.

28. Compare Alcibiades’ account of Socrates’ sexual discipline at Smp. 216d–219e; cf. Rep. 402e–403c and “Sôphrosunê” in the Introduction.

29. McCabe 2007, 13. The phrase recalls Alcibiades’ claim to have glimpsed “the statues inside” (ta entos agalmata) the Silenus-like Socrates: “They were so godlike—so bright and beautiful, so utterly amazing (pankala kai thaumasta)—that I no longer had a choice—I just had to do whatever he told me” (Smp. 216e–217a, tr. Nehamas and Woodruff in Cooper 1997). Readers who think Socrates catches a glimpse of Charmides’ body disagree about which part: Ficino thought it was the chest, while Benardete 2000 [1986], 235, assumes the genitals; cf. Dover 1989 [1978], 155–56. Chaerephon’s remark about Charmides’ “form” (eidos) at 154d5 seems to tell against the genitals, but see the Superior Argument’s speech in Aristophanes’ Clouds for attraction to boys’ genitals in the context of moralizing about sôphrosunê (961–83, 1009–14); cf. Wasps 578 and Dover 1989 [1978], 124–25.

30. Compare Glaucon’s humorous exclamation about the form of the good (Rep. 509a): “This is an inconceivably beautiful thing (amêchanon kallos) you’re talking about!” (cf. Smp. 218e).

31. The verb anagein in the middle voice (translated “prepared”) occurs only here in Plato’s dialogues; in earlier literature it is used for ships leaving port (as at Hom. Il. 1.478; Hdt. 3.137.5; Thu. 6.30.2; Aesch. Ag. 626). The passage calls to mind Telemachus’ voyage to the kingdoms of Nestor and Menelaus at the start of Homer’s Odyssey (see §8 below).

32. Compare the fragment from Aristotle’s lost dialogue Eroticus (= Athenaeus 13.564b): “Lovers look upon no other part of their beloveds’ body than the eyes, where aidôs [‘modesty’ or a ‘sense of shame’] resides.”

33. Charmides had already witnessed Socrates’ mode of conversation in the Protagoras (315a), three years earlier.

34. For discussion of the health of the eyes being affected by that of the head in the Hippocratic corpus, see Airs, Waters, Places 7.2, 7.3, 10.11; Nature of Man 4.3; Places in Man 10; Diseases 2.1.

35. On Athenian attitudes toward Thrace and Thracians, see Sears 2015, 314–18; on the Zalmoxis cult, see Rabadjiev 2015, 451–53.

36. Compare Prt. 403d2–4: “It seems to me that a fit body doesn’t by its own virtue make the soul good, but instead that the opposite is true—a good soul by its own virtue makes the body as good as possible” (tr. Grube, rev. Reeve in Cooper 1997); cf. 410c. Aristot. NE I 13, 1102a18–23: “It is clear that a politician must in a way know what pertains to the soul, just as someone who is going to take care of people’s eyes must know about the body generally—more so indeed to the extent that politics is more estimable and better than medicine—and that doctors (the ones who are more sophisticated) occupy themselves greatly with knowing about the body” (tr. Reeve 2014). On Zalmoxian medicine in the Charmides, see also McPherran 2004; Faraone 2009; Redfield 2011. The Charmides’ contrast between a physiological and psychological medicine spoke to Renaissance doctors, as in Champier’s Libelli duo (1506).

37. At Rep. 389d–390c (cf. 404e), Socrates speaks about the kind of music that begets sôphrosunê in souls. For the use of incantations in medical practice, see Hom. Od. 19.457; Soph. Aj. 582; Pl. Tht. 149d; Euthd. 290a; Rep. 426b. For their use in Socratic practice, see also Phd. 77e–78a, 114d; Tht. 157c–d; Rep. 608a; cf. Gorg. Hel. 10. For uses of leaves in hangover cures, see [Aristot.] Prob. 3.17; POxy. 5245.1–2, 12–13. For an example of an incantation for headaches, see the “Philinna Papyrus” (with Maas 1942). On epôidai in Plato, see Laín Entralgo 1970 [1958], 103–38.

38. Compare Alcibiades’ remark about Socrates at Smp. 216d7–e5: “Believe me, it couldn’t matter less to him whether a boy is beautiful. You can’t imagine how little he cares whether a person is beautiful, or rich, or famous in any other way that most people admire. He considers all these possessions beneath contempt, and that’s exactly how he considers all of us as well. I’m telling you: he spends his whole life ironizing and playing games with people” (tr. Nehamas and Woodruff in Cooper 1997); cf. Prt. 319c; Rep. 408b.

39. Eur. Hipp. 422; Ion 672; cf. Pl. Smp. 222c; Grg. 487a–d, 491d; Clt. 406a; Rep. 557b. The Athenian democracy prided itself on such frankness, as a mark of its freedom from tyranny and commitment to open debate. For background, see Moore 2012b, 261–62 (with references).

40. See esp. Ap. 29d–30b, 36b–c.

41. The less effective doctors are presumably those who treat diseases in isolation and who employ drugs without recommending changes in behavior. For the Hippocratic background to this passage, see Bartoš 2015. Socrates discusses “regimens” (including training programs for athletes) at Rep. 403d–408b, where he is critical of elaborate and extended regimens that prevent one from “doing one’s own things” (ta heautou prattôn, 406e2); cf. Ti. 89c–d. Those who are excessively concerned for their bodies tend to find mental work difficult, because they imagine they are suffering from (philosophy-induced) headaches and dizziness (407c). At Rep. 459c, Socrates contrasts the need for drugs (pharmaka) with the willingness to follow a regimen. At Laws 720a–e, 857c–e, the Athenian says that slavish doctors give instructions without explanations, whereas gentlemen doctors give enough explanation (of the “whole nature of the body,” 857d3–4) to convince patients about the value of their treatment, who will then be willing to cooperate with the regimen. On Plato and medicine, see Levin 2014.

42. See, e.g., Hazebroucq 1997, 118.

43. See also Hogan 1976; Gerson 2003, 21–22; Tuozzo 2011, 118–23. Drawing on Tht. 203e–205e, Tuozzo sees an implicit distinction between “the whole” (to holon, 156e4) and “the entire human being” (panti tôi anthrôpôi, 156e7–8). On his reading, the latter refers to the human being as the sum of its (bodily) parts, while the former refers to a single form (the soul) that is distinct from its parts and brings them into a unity (thereby making them parts); cf. Rep. 462c–d.

44. For the relationship between sôphrosunê (conceived as health of the soul) and bodily health, see Rep. 404e, 425e–426b, 591c–d.

45. This point may be hinted at when Socrates says that without the incantation, the herb will have “no benefit” (ouden ophelos, 155e8). Compare Rep. 505a, where Socrates suggests that without knowledge of the good, even the fullest knowledge of other things would fail to benefit us. See also Lys. 208e–209a; Euthd. 280d, 289a–b; Grg. 513e–514a; cf. the Hippocratic Regimen 3.69.

46. On the interpretation of this passage, see Burnyeat 2003. For epimeleia language, see also Ap. 29d–e, 36c; Phd. 115b–c. Ficino (Opera omnia II, 1305) likewise reads the Zalmoxian medicine as a variation on Socratic “care of the self” (but of both body and soul). For more examples of Socratic ethics being cast in magical or hieratic terms, see Smp. 201d–e; Phdr. 274c–275d; Meno 81a–e.

47. Herodotus disparages the Getae’s religious practices (including human sacrifice) and reports a Greek view that Zalmoxis was a human being, indeed a slave of Pythagoras on Samos. Upon manumission, Zalmoxis became rich and returned to his native Thrace, where he introduced his backward countrymen to Ionian customs. “He therefore built a hall to which he used to invite the chief Thracians. Entertaining them sumptuously, he taught them that neither he nor they, his guests, nor any of their descendants, would ever die, but would go to a place where they would live in the perpetual enjoyment of every blessing. While Zalmoxis was entertaining the Thracians and imparting this doctrine, he was constructing an underground chamber; and when it was ready, he disappeared. Having descended to his underground room, he lived there for three years. The Thracians missed and mourned for him as if he were dead; then in the fourth year he reappeared, and thereby persuaded them that what he had taught was true” (4.95.2–5). At the start of the Charmides, Socrates has likewise just returned from a three-year absence with his body intact.

48. Compare Euthd. 289a–b. For a defense of this reading of apathanatizein in the Charmides, assumed in Ficino’s Latin translation (immortalitatem afferre), see Linforth 1918; Murphy 2000.

49. See Ficino, Opera omnia II, 1305–6: “And the Pythagoreans . . . promise that if the soul prudently orders the individual movements as well of itself as of the body, the result will be the perpetual health of both and a long life for the body. . . . But something even more wonderful may be affirmed. For the Magi in their incantations actually promise immortality to bodies” (tr. Arthos 1959, 267–68).

50. Clement reads it this way, glossing the line as athanatizein tên psuchên (Stromata 1.15.68.3).

51. See again Murphy 2000. In the Symposium, Diotima suggests of the virtuous lover that “if any human being could become immortal, it would be he” (212a5–7); in this case, “immortality” is achieved through offspring whose worth is recognized by the gods. The implication is that true immortality is not available to human beings, but the best of them can achieve something like it. Plato’s contemporary Antisthenes (VI A 188A-1 SSR) treats apathanatizein as virtue-caused rather than effected by a “grant of immortality” of the sort Calypso failed to persuade Odysseus to take (Hom. Od. 23.337). Yet another alternative is immortality of fame, as is presented in the tomb of the atheistic contemporary of Socrates, Hippo (R6 LM; cf. B2 DK).

52. For doubts that it is endorsed by Plato’s Socrates, see Peterson 2011, 74–85; Nails 2015.

53. See, e.g., Tht. 176a–b; Smp. 207c–d; Ti. 90a–b; cf. Laws 716c4–d4: “In our view it is [the god] who is preeminently the ‘measure of all things,’ much more so than any ‘man,’ as they say. So if you want to recommend yourself to someone of this character, you must do your level best to make your own character reflect his, and on this principle the [disciplined] person is [the god’s] friend, being like him, whereas the undisciplined and unjust man is not like him and is his enemy; and the same reasoning applies to the other vices too” (tr. Saunders in Cooper 1997). On the ideal of “godlikeness” in Plato and the Platonic tradition, see Annas 1999, ch. 3; Sedley 1999. Cf. Aristot. NE X 8, with the verb athanatizein at 1177b33.

54. Contrast Murphy 2000, 292–93, who suggests that the examination of Charmides’ and Critias’ views is a type of purgation that prepares the philosophical initiate to receive the incantation (corresponding to positive knowledge). For more on the ambition of Socratic conversation to instill virtue, see Moore 2012b.

55. See Moore 2016a.

56. Critias states that Charmides is thought poiêtikos, a quality the poet may well have claimed for himself—and will put on display in his analysis of Hesiod (see §10 below).

57. Recall his desire to “undress” Charmides’ soul by engaging him in conversation (154e5–7). For doubts about the heritability of virtue, see Alc. 118d–e, 120e–121a; Aristot. Rhet. II 15, 1390b16–21, and the fragments of his lost dialogue On Good Birth.

58. For similar questions, see Smp. 204a; Mx. 234a; Rep. 504c.

59. See Raymond 2018, 34–35, for a defense of this interpretation.

60. Compare Socrates’ remarks on his own aporia at 155c5, 156b1–2, 167b7–8; cf. 161c8–9, 172c4–6, 175a9–e6.

61. For Socrates’ practice of joint inquiry, see, e.g., Crito 48d–e; Tht. 151e; Cra. 384c; La. 187d, 201a; Prt. 330b, 361d; Grg. 506a; Meno 80d, 81e, 86c; cf. Smp. 209c.

62. For the verb topazein (“figure out”) in a medical context, see Aristoph. Wasps 73.

63. Charmides’ definition echoes the opening lines of the Superior Argument’s speech in Aristophanes’ Clouds (which, however, does not use the word hêsuchia): “Then let me begin by explaining how education was run in the good old days / when my just cause was predominant and [discipline] (sôphrosunê) was the aspiration of every man. / First, it was a given that boys should be seen and not heard and that students / should attend their district schools marching through the streets in orderly pairs (badizein en taisin hodois eutaktôs) / behind the [cithara] master” (961–65, tr. Meineck 2000); cf. Isoc. 7.48–49; Xen. Lac. 3.4–5. Compare the lines attributed to the sixth-century bce poet Phocylides: “Many men who walk about in an orderly (kosmôi) manner seem to be [disciplined] (saophrones), although their wits are actually shallow” (fr. 11 W, tr. Gerber 1999). For sôphrosunê and “orderliness” (kosmiotês), see Aristoph. Wealth 563–64; Thu. 1.84.3; Lys. 3.4, 14.12, 19.16, 21.19; Pl. Grg. 508a; Rep. 560d.

64. See “Sôphrosunê in the Charmides” in the Introduction; cf. Carter 1986, 42–47; Leigh 2013, 38–41 (discussing Isocrates’ On the Peace). In its political sense, hêsuchia (often translated as “quietness”) could be synonymous with apragmosunê (“inaction”). The rarity of hêsuchiotês, found again only in Lysias’ speech from 382, On the Scrutiny of Evandros, which concerns sympathies with the Thirty oligarchs, may suggest a watchword: see Witte 1970, 44–45; Dušanić 2000, 59–60.

65. Disorderly walking is characteristic of drunkenness: Xenophanes D59.17–18 LM; Xen. Lac. 5.7; Pl. Smp. 213a.

66. For the connection between the verb oknein, hêsuchia, and sôphrosunê, see Thu. 1.120.3–4; cf. Antiphon D47a–b LM. For hêsuchia in discussions: Pl. Tht. 179e–180a. On Spartan brevity of speech: Prt. 342a–343c; cf. Plut. Lycurgus 19–20. On the reluctance to speak: Grg. 495d–e.

67. “They” include the comic and tragic poets, e.g., Epicharmus fr. 101 PCG; Eur. Heracl. 476–77; cf. Aristoph. Clouds 961–83; Lys. 26.5.

68. See also Santas 1973, 113–17; Kosman 1983; Tuozzo 2011, 157–61.

69. This is the view of Murphy 1986, 161–63; he notes other issues throughout his discussion at 160–68.

70. For the link between hêsuchia and slowness as characteristic of the Spartans, see esp. Thu. 1.70; generally, Xen. Cyr. 5.3.53. The Athenians, by contrast, are characterized by their speed and swiftness and lack of tranquility.

71. E.g., Hdt. 8.70.1; Xen. Eq. 9.7.

72. See also Kosman 1983, 216. Compare Hamlet’s advice to the Players: “In the very torrent, tempest and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness” (Hamlet 3.2.5–8).

73. Cf. Plt. 307a7–b3: “We say on each occasion that they are [‘tranquil and disciplined’] (hêsuchaia . . . kai sôphronika), admiring things done in the mind, and in the sphere of actions themselves, that are slow and soft, and also things the voice does that turn out smooth and deep—and all rhythmic movement, and the whole of music when it employs slowness at the right time (en kairôî). We apply to them all the name, not of courage, but of orderliness (kosmiotêtos)” (tr. Rowe in Cooper 1997, our emphasis). Charmides’ suggestion that hêsuchia involves walking and talking “in an orderly way” (kosmiôs, 159b3) conspicuously drops out of the analysis (see below). For hêsuchia as a virtue term elsewhere in Plato, see Rep. 496d (the philosopher in a corrupt city “remains tranquil and does his own things”), 604e (to phronimon te kai hêsuchion êthos), 605d. See also Gocer 1999.

74. It may be compared to Meno 88a–c.

75. Compare Theodorus’ description of the young Theaetetus, who combines mental vigor (and physical manliness) with a calm and gentle demeanor (Tht. 144a–b).

76. See n. 60 above on Socrates’ aporia. In the Apology, Socrates describes his mission to understand the oracle as having been undertaken “with effort” (mogis, 21b8).

77. All manuscripts have ὁ ἡσύχιος βίος κόσμιος at 160c7, presumably glossing “the tranquil life” as an “orderly” one. But the phrase’s syntactical difficulties have led all editors to seclude κόσμιος. For discussion, see van der Ben 1985, 27–28.

78. On the traditional connection between aidôs and sôphrosunê, see “Sôphrosunê” in the Introduction. The standard study of aidôs is Cairns 1993. Aidôs comes to be presented as a leading desideratum of Spartan education; see Xen. Lac. 2.2, 10, 14 (linked with being enkratês, “self-controlled”), 3.4 (linked specifically with to sôphronein).

79. NE IV 9, 1128b11–12; see Raymond 2017 for discussion.

80. See, e.g., Thu. 1.84.3.

81. Compare Cra. 440d; Tht. 157b.

82. For a full analysis of the argument, see Raymond 2018.

83. Tuozzo 2011, 163–64, and Moore 2015a, 76–78, observe that the structure of this preliminary argument mirrors Socrates’ instructions at 160d5–e1. On the potential textual issue at 160e11, see n. 44 of the Translation.

84. Od. 17.347; cf. Pl. La. 201b.

85. See Aristot. SE 180a9–11 for this kind of refutation. In Aristotle’s terms: Charmides agrees that discipline is good without qualification, Socrates adduces an example where shame is not good for someone, but it does not follow that aidôs is not good without qualification. Likewise, health may not be good for the foolish man, but health is still a good thing.

86. See also Benardete 2000 [1986], 242–43; McCoy 2005, 144–47.

87. A variation on the saying also appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days (317)—just six lines below the verse that Critias will cite at 163b4–5; see Joosse 2018, who reads Critias’ Hesiodic citation as a response to Socrates’ quotation of Homer. In Xenophon’s Symposium, Niceratus says that his father (the Athenian general Nicias) was concerned that he become a “good man” (agathos anêr), and therefore had him memorize all of Homer (3.5). See Rademaker 2005, 54–61, for aidôs in relation to sôphrosunê in Homer.

88. This rare negative question (“Ou pisteueis . . . ?”) emphasizes authority; see Cra. 400a (of Anaxagoras); Plut. Alcibiades 22.2 (of Athens); John 14:10 (of Jesus).

89. This is a central question in Sophocles’ Philoctetes (first performed in Athens in 409, when Plato was about the same age Charmides is in the dialogue): Neoptolemus is being counseled by a devious speaker, Odysseus, to forgo his shame for the supposed benefit of the Achaeans; see, e.g., 88–120.

90. Compare Socrates’ remark on aidôs toward Homer at Rep. 595b–c.

91. At the same time, Telemachus signals to his father that he has outgrown his boyish aidôs into manhood. On the parallels between Telemachus and Plato’s Charmides, see Raymond 2018, 40–43.

92. Abraham Fraunce (c. 1558–1592) cites the Charmides—in perhaps the earliest English paraphrase from the dialogue—for Socrates’ having “biddeth us consider not who speaketh, but how true that is which is spoken” (Lawier’s Logike, 1588).

93. See Struck 2005 on the interpretation of ainigmata.

94. See Bultrighini 1999, 47–57; Gray 2015, 225; Herrmann 2018, 83–84, 100–101 (with references in n1); see also Murphy 1986, 173n17. Diels and Kranz 1952 include it as authentic fragment B41a, followed by Dillon and Gergel 2003, 260.

95. At Ti. 72a4–6, Timaeus remarks, “It was well said long ago that it is for the disciplined man alone to do his own things and know himself (eu kai palai legetai to prattein kai gnônai ta te hautou kai heauton sôphroni monôi prosêkein)” (our translation). The “long ago” (palai) could surely be ironic, if the phrase is in fact, as Socrates implies in the Charmides, innovative—and given that one of the three men Timaeus is speaking to is Critias himself (or his grandfather). See also Tuozzo 2011, 97–98.

96. Late fifth-century intellectuals regularly sought definitions of moral concepts (cf. Aristot. PA 642a24–31). It may also be relevant that Lycurgus, the legendary Spartan lawmaker whose discipline-enforcing legislation Critias would have had to describe in his Constitution of the Spartans (cf. B32–37 DK), was judged sophos, in particular for devising an utterly novel system that was successful in achieving superior happiness (Xen. Lac. 1.2).

97. See also Ap. 27a; Phd. 69c; Tht. 152c, 180d, 194c; Smp. 206b–c; Lys. 214d; Rep. 332c; cf. Soph. OT 439–40.

98. Cf. Eur. Supp. 576–77; fr. 576 TrGF; [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.18; Thu. 1.70.2–9, 6.87.2–4. Within the city, the term connotes activism about revising the laws and striving for public office, litigiousness, and the pursuit of commercial profit. Externally, it connotes interventionism abroad and commercial and imperial expansion. See also Rep. 549c, 550a, 620c; Leigh 2013, ch. 1. In the Apology, Socrates describes his own activity with the verb polupragmoneuein (31c5) but also refers to examining others as “doing my own work” (ta emautou prattontos, 33a6–7). On Socrates’ complex self-presentation in this respect, see Schofield 2006, 21–24.

99. Thu. 2.40.2, 2.63.2, 2.64.4, 4.61.7, 6.18.6; cf. Eur. fr. 193 TrGF; Aristoph. Clouds 1007. For discussion of apragmosunê, see n. 6 above.

100. Apragmôn language becomes common in fifth-century literature, appearing in Aristophanes’ Knights of 424 and Clouds of 423. For the sense of “inaction” as indolence, see Aristot. NE I 5, 1095b33 (apraktein dia tou biou).

101. See, e.g., Lampert 2010, ch. 2; Burger 2013, 225–27. Socrates also discusses “doing one’s own things” in the context of justice at Alc. 127a–d.

102. For the Republic’s critique of contemporary Athenian (as well as Spartan) institutions, see Peterson 2011, chs. 4–5; Nails 2012.

103. Cf. Prt. 333e; Rep. 338a, 548c–550b. On Critias’ philotimia, see Hazebroucq 1997, 203–5; Wolfsdorf 2008b, 217–25.

104. See Raymond 2018, 38–39.

105. Compare Socrates’ interpretation of “doing one’s own things” throughout the Republic (esp. 433a–b).

106. Aristotle also distinguishes between “doing” and “making” (NE VI 4).

107. Op. 311. The line concludes with “but idleness is a disgrace” (aergiê de t’ oneidos).

108. Cf. Smp. 205e.

109. See Brennan 2012, 240–41 (with references). The rest of this paragraph distills his analysis of the speech.

110. “Doing” is, admittedly, not an altogether implausible definition for a virtue: if a behavior is an action (a case of “doing”) because it involves reasons, and reasons pertain to norms of goodness, then action, seen in contrast to instinctual or habitual behavior, could be a sufficient ideal of self-constitution—and of discipline. Cf. Korsgaard 2009; Moore 2015a.

111. See Brennan 2012, 240n2. Compare Critias’ reaction to Socrates’ examples at 173d8–e5. On disdain for manual labor generally, see Critias B15 DK; Aristoph. Eq. 739–40; Pl. Rep. 495d–e; Xen. Oec. 4.2. On Athenian attitudes toward, and laws concerning, prostitution, see McGinn 2014, 84–91.

112. See, e.g., Aristoph. Eccl. 432; cf. Dover 1989 [1978], 108n105. Spartan youths were known to train barefoot (Xen. Lac. 2). On Spartan attitudes to footwear more generally, see van Wees 2017, 216–17, with Critias B34 DK. Salted fish were a classic “relish” (opson) consumed widely by the Athenian populace; see OCD s.v. “fishing”; Davidson 1997, ch. 1 (cf. Rep. 404b–c, d), with Critias B60 DK. In Republic 2, Glaucon complains that Socrates’ “city of pigs” will lack relishes (372a); its citizens will also make minimal use of footwear. Glaucon’s “feverish” city, by contrast, will have exotic relishes, courtesans, and luxurious clothes and sandals (372e–373c; cf. Phd. 64d); it will also have far greater need of doctors (373d).

113. Cf. Hunter 2014, 211–12. Joosse 2018, however, considering the wider context of the passage, argues that Critias’ appeal to Hesiod in support of his view of sôphrosunê is “substantially justified” (585).

114. See Trivigno 2013 on “parasitic interpretation,” whereby a speaker arbitrarily appeals to a poem’s authority to support his own contention. Critias repeats this pattern in the Delphic speech (see §12 below), where he defends the claim that discipline is “knowing oneself” by appeal to the Delphic maxim. But the Delphic maxim says nothing about sôphrosunê. While he seems to be appealing to authority, his method of interpretation is to make the maxim say what he already thinks. This may be Charmides’ model for what it means to be poiêtikos.

115. On Polycrates’ speech against Socrates, see Murphy (forthcoming). In the fourth century ce, Libanius claims that Socrates quoted the Hesiod line (“Does not this man praise all work, claiming that no work is a disgrace?”) to refute his interlocutors’ opinion that the poet is wise (1.86, tr. Calder III et al. 2002).

116. On the intertextual connections, see Wolfsdorf 2008a; Graziosi 2010; Hunter 2014, 208–15.

117. Works and Days 311 was most likely a standard discussion piece, in the tradition of analysis of “Hesiodic problems” (a work under that name was attributed to Aristotle (Vita Hesychii #143)). We may see Plato trying to distinguish Socrates from others in his intellectual milieu.

118. See Moore 2016b.

119. On Prodicus, see Mayhew 2011 (esp. 144–45). Critias and Prodicus are both present at the gathering of intellectuals in the Protagoras, in which dialogue Socrates gives similarly short shrift to Protagoras’ epideixis (328d–e). For Prodicus’ synonyms elsewhere in Plato, see Phdr. 267b; La. 197d; Euthd. 277e, 305c; Prt. 337a–c, 340b–341c, 358a–e; Meno 75e. Socrates claims to have been Prodicus’ student (Meno 96d)—though not for his “fifty-drachma” lecture course (Cra. 384b)—and to have matched up many of his own associates with the sophist (Tht. 151b). Other ancient sources identify Prodicus as a religious skeptic and theorist of the origins of civilization (Kouloumentas 2016).

120. It would not be strange to consider a doctor a dêmiourgos; Eryximachus, who belongs to Agathon’s elite social set, calls himself one in the Symposium (186d), as does the Hippocratic author of the late fifth-century On Ancient Medicine (1.8).

121. Cf. Clt. 409; Rep. 336c–d. See also Grg. 507a–c, where Socrates suggests that a disciplined person does “what’s appropriate” (ta prosêkonta, 507a8) with respect to gods and human beings, and avoids and pursues “what he ought” (ha dei, 507b6). Murphy 1986, 368–69, warns that this is not a “definition” of discipline, since it is not offered as one and because in the Gorgias (507b) it applies to other virtues. But might it explain why discipline is a virtue?

122. This view is defended by, e.g., Tuozzo 2011, 182. By contrast, Reale 2015, 50–51, assumes without argument that the focus is the patient’s benefit.

123. Cf. Tuozzo 2011, 182. Elsewhere in the Platonic corpus (including Chrm. 165c10–e2), the crafts are individuated by the benefits they bring to others (see esp. Rep. 341c–342e, 346a–347a, where profiting from one’s work is understood to be its own distinct craft).

124. See Taylor 1927, 53.

125. Thu. 2.47.4–5: “Doctors, not knowing what to do (therapeuontes agnoiai), were unable to cope with it at first, and no other human knowledge (anthrôpeia technê) was any use either. The doctors themselves died fastest, as they came to the sick most often. Prayers in temples, questions to oracles—all practices of that kind turned out to be useless (anôphelê) also, and in the end people gave them up, defeated by the evil of the disease” (tr. Woodruff 1993). Thucydides also describes how friends and family became infected caring for one another (2.51.5).

126. See Thu. 2.51.2 (the same treatment benefited some victims of the plague and harmed others) and the Hippocratic On Ancient Medicine 9, 12.

127. Cf. Xen. Mem. 1.1.6–9. Tuozzo 2011, 181n36, argues against this scenario on the grounds that, according to the “Platonic conception of craft,” a doctor can be properly said to exercise his craft only when he brings about the end of health, and so, if a doctor knows that he is treating someone, he has to know that he is benefiting him (insofar as health is beneficial). But his chief evidence comes from Thrasymachus’ notion of the craftsman “in the precise sense” (Rep. 340d–e), and yet we can hardly say whether Socrates (or Plato) endorses this view, since Socrates does not endorse others of Thrasymachus’ views. Further, a doctor who commits no errors may still not cure his patient, thanks to bad luck.

128. Compare Aristotle’s knowledge requirement for virtuous action in general (NE II 4, 1105a27–33). On Critias’ self-knowledge requirement for discipline, see Kosman 2014b, 227–29.

129. Compare Socrates’ description of the humble helmsman at Grg. 511e–512a.

130. See Xen. Mem. 1.2.12–39; Aeschines 1.173.

131. Compare Socrates at Meno 89d. For contrasting views of Critias’ readiness to abandon earlier formulations, see Barker 1995, 29–30; Rowe 2011, 206. On the question whether his reformulations replace or explain his initial account, see Press 2002, 257–60.

132. For discussions elsewhere in the Platonic corpus, see Phlb. 48c; Phdr. 229e; Alc. 124a–b, 129a, 132c–d; [Hppr.] 228d–e; Riv. 138a; Prt. 343b; Laws 923a; and in Xenophon’s Socratic writings, Mem. 4.2.24. See Moore 2015a for discussion.

133. Some authors think that Critias is appropriating or even perverting a Socratic idea—e.g., Lampert 2010, 178–92; Burger 2013, 226–27.

134. Kahn 1996, 190n13; Press 2002, 259–60 (“sophistic, mock reasoning . . . display[ing] apparent, not real, intellectual seriousness”); Dorion 2004, 56 (“pedant et triviale”), 134.

135. Benardete 2000 [1986], 246–48; Press 2012, 43: “His oligarchic reinterpretation of [the] Delphic motto [is meant] to evade its traditional sense of controlling oneself and remaining within the bounds of appropriate human behavior.”

136. E.g., Hazebroucq 1997, 231–33; Schmid 1998, 36–39; Lampert 2010, 186–90. The evidence for Critias’ atheism is limited (see Tuozzo 2011, 78–85): (1) his possible authorship of the tragic (or satyric) “Sisyphus fragment,” containing (in an unknown voice) an argument that belief in gods is merely conventional, and (2) his inclusion in a few surviving lists of ancient atheists (see Winiarczyk 2016, 133–37).

137. Critias A1 and B7 DK, both of which have sources independent of the Charmides.

138. The exact relation between Plato’s speeches and his target authors’ productions is unclear.

139. On poetic interpretation generally, see Ford 2002.

140. He might be remembering Socrates’ claim, at Callias’ party depicted in the Protagoras (343a), that it was the Seven Sages who put up these inscriptions, as first fruits of their wisdom; but both men could be drawing from a shared tradition.

141. As it turns out, it would be easy to imagine “Nothing in excess” (Mêden agan) or “Pledge, and disaster is near” (egguê para d’ atê) as themselves formulations of “Be disciplined.”

142. For further discussion see, e.g., Hyland 1981, 89–93; Tuozzo 2000 and 2011, 186–88; Moore 2015a, 60–71.

143. E.g., Aristot. Rhet. II 21, 1395a19–23; more generally, Fortenbaugh 2014, 195–235.

144. E.g., Ap. 29d5, 31b6, 36d5; Phd. 61c2, 83a8; Smp. 193a8, 212b7; Euthd. 283a4; Grg. 487d1; Mx. 236e6; Rep. 362e5, 367c1; Laws 648c1.

145. Phd. 60e–61a; Smp. 221a4; Rep. 474a8.

146. Cf. Tuozzo 2011, 255. If greetings have this status for Critias, then it is all the more offensive to him that the standard greeting is Chaire (“Cheers” or “Enjoy yourself”)—what kind of fundamental advice is that? Critias is no hedonist.

147. On giving defenses (didonai logon) as answering questions about one’s claim, see Phd. 76b, 101d; Tht. 169a; La. 187c–188a; Prt. 336c–d; more generally, it refers to defending oneself (e.g., Eur. Hipp. 986; Andoc. 1.55, 103) or deliberating in a group (e.g., Aristoph. Thesm. 471; Plu. 466).

148. Aristotle argues that protreptic speeches—speeches in favor of some way of life—work this way, with arguments for possibility, then benefit, and sometimes then ease of attainment (Rhet. I 3–5).

149. See n. 61 above.

150. In the Platonic Clitophon, by contrast, Socrates’ interlocutor expects virtue to have a product (409b–e).

151. For the distinction between praktikê (“practical” or “productive”) and gnôstikê (“theoretical”) epistêmê, see Plt. 258b–e; cf. Phlb. 55e–59c. In the Eudemian Ethics, when talking about Socrates’ equation of knowledge and virtue, Aristotle contrasts astronomy, physics, and geometry (where the goal is simply knowledge) with medicine, political science, and (maybe) building (where the goal is external to the knowledge) (1216b3–25).

152. See, e.g., Wellmann 1964. Plato frequently shifts between gnôsis-related and epistêmê-related terms (Prm. 134a–b; Prt. 352c; Rep. 477a–478a), as did other authors (Soph. OT 1115; Eur. Ion 51; Aristoph. Eq. 1278); for related shifts between epistemic terms, see Tht. 145d–e; Meno 88b.

153. See Schofield 2006, 149: the new formulation “turns self-knowledge away from individuals, their souls and their lives, and transforms it into something like an impersonal science. Presumably, there must have been something about the historical Critias’ intellectual style which made Plato use him to convert Socratic self-knowledge into abstractions of this kind.” For possible relations between Critias’ thinking and his involvement in the oligarchy of the Thirty, see Barker 1995, 31–32; Schmid 1998, ch. 7. For gnôsis as acknowledgment, see Moore 2018a, 9–11.

154. For other visions of architectonic knowledge, see Plt. 259e–260c; Euthd. 288e–291e; Aristot. NE I 1–2. For discussion of the Platonic passages, see Schofield 2006, ch. 4.

155. For elenchein, see esp. Parmenides D8.5 LM; Gorg. Hel. 2. With a personal object, it can mean “put to shame” (cf. Hom. Od. 21.424; Aesch. Ch. 919). A frequent meaning in the fifth century is “cross-examine” (Hdt. 2.115.3; Soph. Ant. 26; Aristoph. Frogs 857; Plu. 574; cf. Pl. Ap. 18d; Grg. 470c, 471e), where the truth-examining aim includes testing the credibility of the witness.

156. Socrates’ reply, that he does not want a conceit of knowledge to escape his notice (166d1–2), echoes Critias’ assertion that the nature of discipline, as he sees it, could hardly have escaped Socrates’ notice (166c4)—thus Socrates is saying that you should make sure not to ignore, not the truth of things, but your mere assumption that you know the truth of things.

157. For the last point, contrast, e.g., Vlastos 1958, 506.

158. This is consistent with Socrates’ doubting the expertise of certain purported experts, e.g., Euthyphro.

159. See also Prt. 348c–d; Grg. 486d–488b; cf. Rep. 527e–528a. For the notion of a “shared” or “common” good (koinon agathon) in Plato, see, e.g., Phd. 98b; Grg. 505e.

160. For further reflections, see Rowe 2011, 205–12.

161. Socrates does not assert that he and Critias will be able to clarify the nature of each thing; his contemporaries had doubts about the possibility in general—e.g., Democritus (D19 LM), who claims that “it is a real problem to know how each thing is” (hoion hekaston gignôskein en aporôi esti); cf., earlier, Xenophanes of Colophon (D49 LM).

162. A norm of sincerity was famously formulated in Vlastos 1983, referring esp. to Crito 49c–d; Prt. 331c; Grg. 500b; Rep. 346a; see McCabe 2000, ch. 2, for valuable discussion.

163. The rarity of the Greek term anepistêmosunê may mark its ethical importance; see Thu. 5.7.2; Xen. Mem. 3.9.6; Oec. 20.21; Pl. Tht. 199e–200b; Rep. 350a, 560b, 598d.

164. For a similar argument structure, see Rep. 450c–d, 458a–b.

165. For concise summary of the arguments, see Kahn 1996, 194–96; Kamtekar 2017, 28–33; for detailed analysis, Tuozzo 2011, ch. 7.

166. Actually, it might seem harder to know what distinguishes cases of seeing (moments in time, objects, color?) than cases of knowledge (mathêmata [“subject matters”])—Plut. Moralia 440f suggests that it is color.

167. Observing the impossibility of perceiving the senses themselves, and the necessity of an external object for perception, Aristotle concludes that the perceptive part of the soul is mere potential until activated by its perception of something external (DA II 5, 417a3–7). This passage may respond to this section of the Charmides, because Aristotle goes on to explain the impossibility of self-burning, a puzzle about which Socrates mentions immediately below, at 168e10. Later in De Anima, Aristotle underlines that we (can) perceive that we are perceiving, but only by (also) perceiving what external object is perceived (III 2, 425b12–426a16). See in general Caston 2002, 768–73; Kosman 2014a [1975].

168. On relatives, see Soph. 255d; Prm. 133c–134e; Smp. 199d–e; Rep. 438b; Aristot. Cat. 7; Top. IV 6, 142a28–32; Met. Δ 15. For discussion of the connection to Aristotle, see Tuozzo 2011, 226–33, 310–13.

169. Cf. Prm. 141b–d. At Rep. 431a, in the context of defining sôphrosunê, Socrates laughs about the common notion of something’s “being greater than itself”; cf. Laws 626e–627d.

170. Fifth-century physiologists debated the possibility of these added cases of reflexivity vis-à-vis theories of life, including Alcmaeon on the self-moving soul (see Aristot. DA I 2, 405a30–32, with Pl. Phdr. 245c–246a and Aët. 4.2.2; cf. Pl. Ti. 89a; Laws 895b). For puzzles about fire’s self-generation, see Theophrastus De Igne, with van Raalte 2010. Eisenstadt 1981 argues for these examples’ dramatic relevance; cf. Bruell 1977, 177–81; Schmid 1998, 98–99; Tuozzo 2011, 224–25.

171. The term megas anêr may be pregnant with Homeric (Il. 3.167, 3.226, 23.664; Od. 9.508) and more recent (Hdt. 2.173.2, 5.56.2, 7.12.6; cf. Pl. Laws 730d6, 732a2) overtones.

172. Tuozzo 2011, 313–22, treats investigation into the nature of the knowable as a principal task for the reader of the Charmides and proposes his own view about knowability, appealing to the Form of the Good.

173. Compare Meno’s likening of Socrates to a torpedo fish, treating Socrates as solely responsible for his stunned perplexity (Meno 80a–d). On sympathetic yawning, see [Aristot.] Prob. 7.

174. See further Politis 2008 on the ways the term monon (“only”) affects the development of the arguments about possibility and benefit.

175. See Tuozzo 2011, 243–44, 248–49, for an alternative division of the two sequences of argument here.

176. See Tuckey 1951, 66; McKim 1985; Barker 1995, 25–27; Benson 2003; and Kahn 1996, 197–203, who concludes: “It is appropriate, then, to see the Socrates of the Charmides as reflecting critically on the Socrates of the Apology. Insofar as Socrates undertakes to expose the ignorance of others in a matter where he disavows knowledge, either the elenchus must be fraudulent or the disavowal must be ironical and in some sense insincere” (201).

177. See Kahn 1996, 198–201, for doubts about each of the options surveyed in this paragraph.

178. Tht. 206a–b and Phdr. 247d–e suggest further ways in which thinking about knowledge conduces to learning; see also Aristot. Met. Γ 3, 1005b2–5.

179. Tuozzo 2011, 259–63, adds to these criteria “understand[ing] something more fundamental about the sciences than their formal features alone . . . [namely,] in relation to the good” (citing the language of forms at Phdr. 247d6–7: kathorai de epistêmên), and later summarizes his reading of the Charmides: “We [may have reason to] consider the good as the proper description of the nature of the knowable” (313).

180. For less optimistic views of the “smaller benefit,” see Murphy 1986, 248–52. Some readers simply ignore this section altogether, e.g., Kahn 1996; Brann 2004.

181. On the potential significance of Socrates’ Odyssey allusion (the last of several in the dialogue), see Lampert 2010, 216–18; Tuozzo 2011, 266–67; Burger 2013, 227–31.

182. Socrates elsewhere says that knowing what is worse goes along with knowing what is best (Phd. 97d).

183. But see La. 195e–196a for limits to the seer’s knowledge. On ancient Greek divination and the profession of mantis, see Flower 2008; Johnston 2008 (esp. ch. 4).

184. Compare this to Gorgias’ understanding of rhetoric as managing every kind of knowledge (Grg. 456a).

185. Critias says that this one “more than” (mallon, 174b8) others will be responsible for happiness. But this does not necessarily mean that it produces some benefit (as Murphy 1986, 258–61, believes); perhaps it is more like the sort of knowledge that does produce benefit.

186. On divination in Plato more generally, see Struck 2016, ch. 1 (on this passage, 44–45).

187. See also Woolf 2004.

188. See also LaBarge 1997; Benson 2003. Note also that questions about knowledge of ignorance were contemporaneous with Plato; Metrodorus of Chios (a follower of Democritus) starts his book: “I declare that we don’t know whether we know anything or nothing, not even whether we know that or not” (Cicero Academica 2.23.73, tr. Brittain 2006).

189. For a similar conclusion about the Charmides’ display of Socrates’ sôphrosunê, see Carone 1998; Schmid 1998.

190. Lycurgan Sparta treats rule-following as essential for the development of sôphrosunê (Xen. Lac. 8.2).

191. This talk of use of force without persuasion also animates the beginning of the Republic (327b–c). For the Thirty’s forgoing of the usual legal practices, see MacDowell 1978, 239–42; Tuozzo 2011, 301–2.

192. Cf. Rep. 490e–493a. On the challenges to aspirational improvement, see Callard 2018, notably 14–30 (on the case of Alcibiades).

{108} The Charmides in Reflection

The signal political-philosophical debate in the fifth and fourth centuries concerned the architectonic or master knowledge—the expertise that alone would conduce to the flourishing life and city. For some, it might be rhetoric, and for others, skill in contentious debate; some might think it the art of interpreting poetry, others the contemplation of mathematics; yet others might advance mnemonics or polymathy. The Charmides considers yet another candidate: discipline (sôphrosunê). It dramatizes three interlocutors who each take discipline as supremely valuable, but manifest and conceive of it differently. Charmides’ outstanding beauty depends on outstanding modesty and decorum, and so he takes these as definitional. Critias articulates his assertiveness and intellectual confidence as “doing one’s own things” and “knowing oneself.” Socrates apparently represents discipline in the way he holds the conversation with his interlocutors and, presumably, in his (offstage) comportment in battle. The conversation tests the views of the first two interlocutors; they fail fully to defend them. It does not test the third—Socrates’ life of investigation, self-scrutiny, and pursuit of wisdom—leaving its validity and promise for the reader’s further reflection.

Socrates tests for Charmides’ possession of discipline by testing his understanding of discipline. Charmides, like his cousin, accepts without skepticism that discipline is always admirable. His three definitions fail because he cannot show that discipline, as he construes it, is always preferable to its absence. His proposals meet two kinds of obstacle, one connected to the definitions themselves and the other to his character. First, although “a sort of state of tranquility” (hêsuchiotês tis), “a sense of shame” (aidôs), and, in so many words, “doing one’s own things” (to ta heautou prattein) each has tradition and informativeness on its side, none is purely normative. While they help distinguish discipline from related virtues and dispositions, they fail on their own to account for discipline’s status as a virtue and thus as always good. Sometimes tranquility, or shame, or limiting oneself to one’s own thing, is not good. (There is the added problem, for the first two, that one-word definitions tend either to be uninformative or inaccurate synonyms.) Second, Charmides accepts Socrates’ definition-undermining suggestions too readily, carelessly, and improperly. He seems, indeed, to manifest an indiscipline that reflects exactly the ambiguities of his proffered definitions: acquiescence or hastiness (rather than tranquility); bashfulness or inadequate self-respect (rather than a sense of shame); needling Critias into taking over the discussion (rather than doing his own thing {109} and persisting). The Charmides does not show the insuperability of either obstacle. “Tranquility,” “a sense of shame,” and “doing one’s own things” may have a role in future investigations into discipline. The refutations may have the goal of encouraging a more disciplined examination of them in future conversations, an examination that appreciates them as sightlines toward discipline. Socrates’ own practice, as calm and deliberate, self-conscious and respectful, and concerned with his own things—the well-being of himself and those for whom he cares—embodies the truth in each candidate definition of discipline.

Critias, under pressure to reformulate or improve his “doing one’s own things” definition, fails in the end to show how his ultimate formulation, the knowledge of knowledge, could possibly refer to any phenomenon, and even if it could, how it could ever provide the benefits he ascribes to discipline. As with Charmides, Critias’ failure comes both objectively, from the new-and-improved formulations themselves, and subjectively, from his lack of discipline, again of a sort precisely reflecting the ambiguities of his definition—in particular, not knowing his ignorance. Critias does realize that “doing one’s own things” needs normative content (rather than a descriptive explication of the scope of “one’s own”), and needs it to such an extent that he initially accepts Socrates’ normative formulation, “doing good things.” Critias comes to believe that it does not define discipline, however, which, as his original formulation required, has an irreducibly reflexive or self-aware element (he is ambiguous about which). Hence the appealing formulation “knowing oneself,” whose claim to be considered a master knowledge it sufficiently wins from its status as a leading Panhellenic moral imperative. But again, Critias moves beyond it almost as soon as he adopts it. Believing in the superlative benefit of discipline and having just treated it as a kind of knowledge, he seeks to distinguish it from every other kind of knowledge, and its possessor from every other kind of expert. (Contrast the Republic, where discipline is shared by all members of the justly governed city, even the lowliest craftsmen.) He thereby formulates it as the only knowledge that takes itself, and all the other kinds of knowledge, as its object—in short, as the “knowledge of knowledge.” This is not an entirely unexpected reformulation, if the value in knowing oneself comes from knowing one’s proper role in society—“doing one’s own things”—and specifically exercising all and only those skills in which one counts as having knowledge. Knowing what one knows would seem to require knowing what counts as knowledge both in general and in any particular case.

Surprisingly enough, Critias comes to find discipline impossible under that guise, as long as he wants to preserve the “opacity” of knowledge—knowing that something is a piece of knowledge without having to know its subject matter. He presumably needs opacity so that discipline counts as a master knowledge, a {110} knowledge with leverage: he would like his knowing of one thing to yield the benefits of knowing everything else, by commanding those with particular expertises to produce their associated benefits, while he himself avoids the toil of acquiring any particular knowledge for himself. But in conversation with Socrates, he ends up accepting that without also having learned the subject matter of a field of knowledge, he could know only that something is a case of knowledge, not which expertise it is. This bodes poorly for discipline conceived as knowledge of knowledge being the master knowledge, if the point of a master knowledge is delegating specific tasks to specific experts: the person with knowledge of knowledge would not know to whom to delegate what. Not only would discipline be impossible; its value would be null, given that value apparently resides only among the various expertises themselves. Critias ultimately specifies the unique source of value in the knowledge of what is good and bad, but he cannot identify it with knowledge of knowledge.

Critias’ formulations, however, are no more doomed than Charmides’ proposals were. There is no reason to think that he explicated and defended “knowing yourself” in the only possible way. Socrates’ personalizing of the “knowledge of knowledge” as “knowing what one knows and does not know” (which includes personalizing his addition of the “knowledge of ignorance”) suggests that Critias’ definition might even be on the right track. Maybe another conversation would redeem “doing one’s own things” as seeking to know oneself, just as that slogan gets redeemed (even if not tested) in the Republic as psychic and civic justice.

This result has a political upshot, which the tragic irony of Critias’ and Charmides’ demise a quarter century later underlines. In this dialogue, Socrates twice assesses a utopian society in which discipline rules and delegates to various experts, who do only what they know how to do. Given that Socrates directs his questions to Critias, Plato may imply that this is the eventual tyrant’s ideal. Twice Socrates shows the society’s impossibility, in Critias’ own terms: first, discipline (conceived as knowledge of knowledge) could not know which experts have which knowledge, and so could not effectively delegate; and second, discipline could not anyway guarantee the city’s happiness, since it is not the knowledge of what is good and bad.

This result also has an ethical-epistemological upshot, which Socrates’ unfazed energy for conversational examination underlines. Throughout the conversation he reports, Socrates speaks about what he knows and does not know, and by what method he seeks to know further the extent of his knowledge and ignorance. When he realizes he does not know something, he seeks to investigate it communally; and even if he thinks he knows something, he realizes that {111} this conceit may be false, and so he wants to investigate it again. The method he follows and advises is one that continually refers to criteria for knowledge, including consistency, explanation, and aptness. This may well be the benefit, even if the “smaller” one, of discipline, where discipline is something “in addition” to the things one knows and does not know, helping one learn and acquire knowledge. After all, that is the sole account of discipline in the dialogue that is articulated but not refuted, and learning does seem Socrates’ primary concern. No doubt difficulties remain in understanding Socrates’ procedure: How exactly do we recognize expertise or its absence when we ourselves lack that expertise? Probably we must accept partial states of knowing, as Socrates and his interlocutors in fact do. By the end of the dialogue, they appreciate that they do not know what discipline is, despite not knowing what discipline is. This is possible because they understand partially what counts as knowledge, and partially what counts as discipline. (They apparently keep knowledge in view, and to that extent they themselves are at least minimally disciplined.) But this resolution of the paradox does not have to mean that we can know what we do not know (a paradox), or more relevant to the case, that we can fully know who is expert in what we are not. We must accept a certain incorrigible ignorance: while we can identify likely experts, as people who do not fall into contradiction as we test them, we may never be certain that they are experts, and thus we should never stop testing them. Those purported experts, of course, may include ourselves.

So, again: What is discipline? In Socrates’ report that constitutes the whole of the Charmides, the conversation of 429 spent half its time explicitly concerned with knowing oneself, and even more time than that in implicit reference to the practices connected with knowing oneself. So knowing oneself is surely key, somehow. We might understand what knowing oneself is by keeping Socrates in view, undeniably Plato’s model of a disciplined person. Socrates recognizes that he is not wholly transparent to himself; he cannot determine, simply by introspecting, which of his beliefs are knowledge and which are not. So he constantly tests himself and others. We should not think that Socrates would not have to do this, given how careful he is never to overstep his epistemic warrant. We should think instead that he is Socrates because he does this: he, too, is a human, and as human, he recognizes his risk of mistaking his beliefs as knowledge, and hence is always investigating. As disciplined, the authority he obeys is the logos, the norms and results of conversation and examination. The end of the dialogue offers Critias’ hypothesis that we need to know what is good to be happy. An ideal of a city and soul ruled by knowledge of the good provides the central image of the Republic. But, as the Apology tells us, Socrates does not {112} think we can know what is good. But we can pursue knowledge of it—by eliminating inconsistencies, trying to understand what we say, looking to laws and institutions, and so forth. Knowing that we do not know the good, and for that reason pursuing it, is probably the next best thing; how so, of course, is a difficult question. Anyway, this may be how the highly disciplined Socrates, who recognizes that he does not know the good, is happy. And it may be in this way that discipline is essential for happiness: in order to pursue the good effectively, you need always to recognize that you might not know what it is.

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CONTENTS

1. Cover
2. Half Title
3. Title Page
4. Copyright

5. Titles of Related Interest Available from Hackett Publishing

6. Contents
7. Dedication
8. Preface
9. Abbreviations

10. Introduction

1. The Charmides in Context
2. Characters
3. Sôphrosunê
4. Self-Knowledge
5. The Reception of the Charmides

11. A Note on the Text
12. Charmides
13. Analysis
14. The Charmides in Reflection
15. Bibliography
16. Back Cover

1. Cover

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