Plato's Charmides

An Interpretative Commentary

Voula Tsouna

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781316511114
• eBook ISBN: 9781009041904
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

The Charmides is a difficult and enigmatic dialogue traditionally considered one of Plato's Socratic dialogues. This book provides a close text commentary on the dialogue which tracks particular motifs throughout. These notably include the characterization of Critias, Charmides, and Socrates; the historical context and subtext, literary features such as irony and foreshadowing; the philosophical context and especially how the dialogue looks back to more traditional Socratic dialogues and forward to dialogues traditionally placed in Plato's middle and late period; and most importantly the philosophical and logical details of the arguments and their dialectical function. A new translation of the dialogue is included in an appendix. This will be essential reading for all scholars and students of Plato and of ancient philosophy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Flip It Open
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 The Prologue (153a1–159a10)
• Chapter 3 Charmides’ First Definition of Sôphrosynê: Temperance Is a Kind of Quietness (159b1–160d4)
• Chapter 4 Charmides’ Second Definition: Temperance Is a Sense of Shame (160d5–161b4)
• Chapter 5 Charmides Abandons the ‘Best Method’: The Third Definition – Temperance Is ‘Doing One’s Own’ (161b4–162b11)
• Chapter 6 Enter Critias: The Third Definition Revisited – Temperance Is the Doing or Making of Good Things (162c1–164d3)
• Chapter 7 Critias’ Speech: Temperance Is Knowing Oneself (164d4–165c4)
• Chapter 8 Socrates and Critias Debate the Technê Analogy: From ‘Knowing Oneself’ to ‘the Knowledge of Itself’ (165c4–166e3)
• Chapter 9 Critias’ Final Definition: ‘Temperance Is the Science of Itself and the Other Sciences’ or ‘the Science of Science’ (166e4–167a8) – the Third Offering to Zeus (167a9–c8)
• Chapter 10 Can There Be an Epistême of Itself?: The Argument from Relatives (167c8–169c2)
• Chapter 11 The Argument from Benefit (169c3–175a8)
• Chapter 12 The Epilogue (175a9–176d5)
• Appendix: Charmides, or On Temperance: A Peirastic Dialogue
• Bibliography
• Index