In the Phaedrus, Plato asserts that divine erotic mania is not an "invariable evil," but enables the philosopher to ascend to the forms and attain "true knowledge," On this view of the best life, this mania has value---it is even "superior" to sophrosume. This dissertation argues that this Phaedrus account should be read as a work in moral psychology. ;To this end, this dissertation considers the development of the ways of thinking about the individual, behavior, and ethics in Greek thought (...) before Plato, and argues that Homer, Aeschylus, and Euripides display a movement from an externalist to an internalist view. This movement, then, continues in the Charmides, Protagoras, and Gorgias, as Plato develops an increasingly complex moral psychology. Further, this internalist movement is revealed in a consideration of the concepts of sophrosune and mania, and in the development of a view of mania as an intensification of desire. ;Next, this dissertation argues that the failure of the Gorgias response to Callicles issues in the Republic's complex moral psychology---in an internalist view and justification of the best life. The Republic , account, however, results in a view on which excessive desires for the pleasures of wisdom may result in mania. Finally, then, the Symposium and the Phaedrus are read as attempts to construct a moral psychology which is both accurate and able to avoid this wisdom/mania difficulty. ;The Phaedrus, then, represents the result of the development and refinements of the internalist approach in Plato's thought. Plato provides a revised, complex psychology, which issues in a view on which the soul's proper goal---the apprehension of the forms---requires both the direction of reason and the motivational energy of the irrational elements. On this account, divine erotic mania---eros-doubled, as both the reason and desire are engaged---represents the method for attaining this knowledge. ;Thus, this dissertation concludes that the Phaedrus may be read as the culmination of the internalist movement toward moral psychology; that the dialogue extraordinary assertions about mania and sophrosune are part of a new view and justification of the best life. (shrink)

Plato’s Charmides suggests that there are really four notions that are deeply connected with one another, and in order to understand sôphrosunê we need to get a proper hold on them and their relation: these four notions are Knowledge of Ignorance, Self-Knowledge, Knowledge of the Good, and Knowledge of the Whole. My aim is to explore these four notions in two stages. First, I will try to explain Socrates’s notion of knowledge of ignorance, so that the nature and coherence of (...) this Socratic idea will come into focus, and shed some light on its connection to self-knowledge and knowledge of the good. Second, I will turn to explain what I call the origin (archê) or even “truth” of Socrates’s conception of sôphrosunê by examining the idea of the physician of the soul in Plato’s Charmides and Plato’s use of the dialogue form, and thereby make a connection to knowledge of the whole. I will show that seeing sôphrosunê as “whole-mindedness,” connects to Socrates’s description of our in-between state as human beings, and that the study of this “in-between-ness,” is the supremely insightful glimpse into Socrates and his philosophical activity (perhaps the very definition of it). (shrink)

Plato’s Charmides suggests that there are really four notions that are deeply connected with one another, and in order to understand sôphrosunê we need to get a proper hold on them and their relation: these four notions are Knowledge of Ignorance, Self-Knowledge, Knowledge of the Good, and Knowledge of the Whole. My aim is to explore these four notions in two stages. First, I will try to explain Socrates’s notion of knowledge of ignorance, so that the nature and coherence of (...) this Socratic idea will come into focus, and shed some light on its connection to self-knowledge and knowledge of the good. Second, I will turn to explain what I call the origin (archê) or even “truth” of Socrates’s conception of sôphrosunê by examining the idea of the physician of the soul in Plato’s Charmides and Plato’s use of the dialogue form, and thereby make a connection to knowledge of the whole. I will show that seeing sôphrosunê as “whole-mindedness,” connects to Socrates’s description of our in-between state as human beings, and that the study of this “in-between-ness,” is the supremely insightful glimpse into Socrates and his philosophical activity (perhaps the very definition of it). (shrink)

Sôphrosunê ("self-discipline") is the often-forgotten sibling of justice, wisdom, courage, and piety in discussions of canonical Greek virtues. Christopher Moore shows that during the classical period it was the object of significant debate--about its scope, its feel, its practical manifestations, and its value. By interpreting sôphrosunê as a commitment to norm-following, we see that these pointed discussions of the virtue, previously ignored as parodic moralizing or expressions of political propaganda, are in fact concerned with the ideal of human agency. These (...) discussions query the way we become fully responsible for our actions. Greek thinking about sôphrosunê becomes thinking about self-constitution, our crucial capacity to act on the general reasons that we come to identify with as our own. This perspective explains sôphrosunê's inclusion in Plato's canon of virtues, and before that its frequent appearance in funerary inscriptions, elegiac poetry, tragic drama, and historiography. It also explains the analytic attention given to it by Heraclitus, the Sophists, the historians, Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato. Moore deals principally with the classical period, though the book includes one chapter addressing earlier poetry and another addressing the virtue in two gender-sensitive post-classical works. An appendix deals with the epigraphic material. For the Greeks (and perhaps for us) there is a virtue of agency, an acquirable capacity to be guided by what's best. Hardly just a concern for reticence and reserve, commitment to sôphrosunê is a commitment to whatever it is that makes us truly ourselves. (shrink)

While readers of Euripides' Hippolytus have long regarded Phaedra's deltos as a mechanism of punitive revenge, I argue here that the tablet models itself on a judicial curse (defixio) and that its main function is to ensure victory for Phaedra in the upcoming “trial” over her reputation. In support of my thesis I examine three interrelated phenomena: first, Hippolytus' infamous assertion that his tongue swore an oath while his mind remains unsworn (612); second, Phaedra's status as a biaiothanatos; and third, (...) Phaedra's claim that Hippolytus “will learn sophrosune” (731), a speech act that, I conclude, anticipates the silencing effect on Hippolytus of Phaedra's death and her writing. (shrink)

Many commentators still take the Delphic speech in the Charmides as Socrates’ opinion of sôphrosunê. This is a misreading. The speaker is Critias, a future tyrant, and close analysis reveals his conception of self-knowledge, as a godlike and self-certain wisdom, to be perverted by his tyrannical views. His conception of sôphrosunê must be distinguished from Socrates’, and while the former conception is refuted in the dialogue, the latter is not.

The main political responsibility of the legislator to the citizens is to create laws and institutions for the sake of promoting the virtues of citizens. In Plato’s Laws, there is a tension between desiring a strong sense of virtue for the population while settling into a pessimistic acceptance of the inability of most humans to even approach it. This article draws out the tension between a strong sense of virtue and amore practical and achievable sense of virtue within the text (...) by examining sōphrosunē as the key method of raising up the citizen. Considered in contrast to the legislators’ attempts to instil self-control and moderation in the citizens are the ways in which the legislators undermine their own project through indoctrination, coercion and the lack of opportunities to practise sōphrosunē. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What's Wrong with These Cities?The Social Dimension of sophrosune in Plato's CharmidesThomas M. TuozzoThe Dramatic Setting and the dramatis personae of the Charmides strongly evoke the world of late fifth-century Athenian politics. The discussion Socrates narrates takes place the day after his return from a battle at Potidaea at the very start of the Peloponnesian War;1 his two main interlocutors in that discussion, Critias and Charmides, will play (...) leading roles in the bloody oligarchic regime that rose to power after Athens' defeat nearly three decades later.2 Furthermore, the virtue the three of them discuss, sophrosune (temperance, moderation, sound-mindedness), also has strong political associations: it was a central element in the self-understanding and propaganda of the oligarchic faction to which Critias and Charmides belonged.3 The philosophical discussion of the various definitions proposed of sophrosune in the course of the dialogue, however, for the most part avoids explicitly addressing the social and political dimensions of this virtue. Much of the discussion seems, rather, to concern epistemological issues at some remove from the public sphere.4 [End Page 32l]At two critical moments in the dialogue, however, the social dimension of sophrosune does irrupt into the discussion. At the culmination of his discussion with Charmides, and again at the culmination of his discussion with Critias (which forms the culmination of the dialogue as a whole), Socrates abruptly shifts to the social level in order to evaluate a proposed definition of sophrosune. These definitions are put to the test by considering a city governed by sophrosune (as in either case defined). In both cases the examination of Socrates' hypothetical city has the effect of discrediting the associated definition of sophrosune—in the first case, because the city governed by it would not be "well governed"; in the second, because, although the citizens of the hypothetical city may be happy, their happiness would not result from the city's sophrosune as such. In both cases, then, it is the failure of sophrosune (as defined) to conduce to the well-being of the city, in a way that both parties to the discussion agree that it should, that leads to the rejection of the proposed definition.The social context in which Socrates places the most important definitions offered by his two interlocutors does more than allow Socrates to consider, on a social scale, the benefits of sophrosune as so defined. It also enables him to raise the question of the proper social relationship between sophrosune and the other crafts or kinds of knowledge practiced in a city. This question is first raised in Socrates' discussion of the first hypothetical city with Charmides. When Critias takes over as interlocutor, Socrates continues the investigation into the relationship between sophrosune and other kinds of knowledge, but for the most part in purely epistemological terms that abstract both from social context and from all considerations of benefit. The discussion of the second hypothetical city at the end of that conversation returns the question to its social context: the relations between the different sorts of knowledge are investigated via their reflection in the social relations existing between the persons that practice them. The two hypothetical cities thus allow Socrates to consider, within a social context, both questions concerning the benefit sophrosune produces (and for whom) and questions concerning its relation to other sorts of knowledge. It is in these discussions, then, that we find the dialogue's most direct contribution to some of the most important questions of Plato's earlier dialogues.It is my purpose in this essay to examine the treatment of the social dimension of sophrosune in the Charmides in order to sketch the answers to these questions that, I hope to show, the dialogue provides. This sketch will necessarily be incomplete; a more nearly complete account of this dialogue's contribution to these questions would need to integrate the present study's results with [End Page 322] an interpretation of the abstract epistemological and metaphysical arguments that loom so large in the dialogue. Indeed, it is my hope that the results of this study may provide a useful orientation for the study of these famously perplexing... (shrink)

La présente étude suggère que l’analyse aristotélicienne de la sōphrosunē dans l’ Éthique à Nicomaque II 7 et surtout III 13-15 (ou : III x-xii) gagne à être comprise sous l’angle de son héritage platonicien et, en particulier, de l’examen de la conception de la sōphrosunē comme « science de la science » défendue par Critias dans le Charmide et de la définition de la sōphrosunē en termes de tripartition de la cité et de l’âme dans la République. La première (...) partie présente les objections soulevées par Socrate contre la notion de la sōphrosunē comme science réflexive défendue par Critias dans le Charmide, et suggère comment Aristote pourrait avoir pris ces objections en compte. La deuxième partie discute quelques caractéristiques choisies de la sōphrosunē en République IV et soutient que cette dernière conception s’éloigne du Charmide mais se rapproche de la conception aristotélicienne de cette vertu. La troisième partie positionne la conception aristotélicienne de la sōphrosunē d’une part relativement à sa conception des vertus de caractère et de sa propre méthode d’analyse et d’autre part relativement à ces deux dialogues de Platon. En conclusion, la présente étude identifie des différences cruciales entre les traitements platonicien et aristotélicien de la sōphrosunē et indique comment Aristote tient compte des arguments de Platon tout en se distanciant suffisamment de son aîné pour offrir sa propre analyse distinctive de cette vertu spécifique. (shrink)

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

This article contends that Socratic wisdom (sophia) in Plato's Apology should be understood in relation to moderation (sophrosune), not knowledge (episteme). This stance is exemplified in an interpretation of Socrates' disavowal of knowledge. The god calls Socrates wise. Socrates holds both that he is wise in nothing great or small and that the god does not lie. These apparently inconsistent claims are resolved in an interpretation of elenchus. This interpretion says that Socrates is wise insofar as he does not (...) believe himself to know what he does not know. Whether one knows is demonstrated through elenchus, which moderates between knowledge claims. Thus, elenchus is productive of a kind of wisdom even if it does not produce knowledge. This claim, if true, forms a suitable basis for Socrates' defense of himself. That it does so serves as further evidence for the interpretation of sophia as sophrosune. (shrink)

In contrast to the abundance of discussion of Plato’s portrayal of the Socratic elenchos, relatively little work has been done on the elenchos as it appears in Xenophon. The reason is obvious: Xenophon makes much less use of the elenchus than Plato and what he does offer is not as interesting philosophically. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to look more closely at Xenophon’s portrait. It provides a corrective to the excessively intellectualizing portrait of the elenchus found in Plato’s writings, and (...) exhibits an educational quality that is characteristic of ancient Greek attitudes but not always stressed in treatments of Socrates. In the introduction to Bandini and Dorion 2000-2010, cxviii-clxxxii, Louis-André Dorion offers a probing analysis of the term elenchos as used by Xenophon and a broad survey of the elenchoi in Xenophon’s Socratic writings. Although Xenophon’s Socrates sometimes uses argumentation reminiscent of his Platonic cousin, this is only a minor part of his over-all conversational repertoire. Education is accomplished not by interrogation but by the direct and open communication of doctrine and by the practice of virtue (askēsis: see Mem. i 2.23, ii 1.1). Rather than employing the elenchos, Xenophon’s Socrates generally spends his time offering abundant useful advice to his friends. According to Dorion, Xenophon’s scant use of the elenchos is a result of his deep skepticism about its educational value. As a result of this skepticism, Xenophon creates an alternative portrait of Socrates in which interrogation plays a much smaller role. Dorion is certainly right to note that the elenchos is far less important for Xenophon than for Plato, but his conclusion is somewhat extreme. Although Xenophon does not focus on the Socratic elenchos, he does offer some portraits of it and he does not contest Plato’s fuller portrait of it either. This is because the elenchos does have some value for Xenophon, even if this value differs from what we may assume is its value in the Platonic portrait. As Morrison 1994 has shown, the elenchos serves a valuable role in selecting or preparing students for more substantive lessons. It can also play a valuable role in training for and acting in political affairs. And the elenchos can serve an educational role in another way, by contributing directly to the acquisition of virtue (sophrosune) by the interlocutor. I shall trace these significant roles of the elenchos for Xenophon. (shrink)

Virtue is an examination of central topics in ancient Greek explorations of "virtue," particularly the elusive notion of "Sophrosune," alternatively translated as "moderation" or "temperance". The book investigates central works of Plato and Aristotle to develop an understanding of the role this virtue plays in the broader ethical commitments of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Este trabajo distingue entre tres tipos de experiencia psicológica: deseos que son estimulados por el placer; emociones como la cólera, la gratitud, la vergüenza y también el miedo, que implican valoraciones, ya sean pragmáticas o éticas; y abatimiento o _athumia_, que es inducida por una sensación de impotencia y aporía. La primera de ellas se rige por el autocontrol, _enkrateia_ o _sôphrosunê,_ como la virtud correspondiente. Las emociones están sujetas a un mecanismo psíquico diferente, que implica una evaluación adecuada de (...) las condiciones que las provocan. Finalmente, el desaliento o _athumia_ constituye otra categoría más, como un estado de pasividad, de pérdida de agencia. (shrink)

The Greeks knew a virtue term that represented the ability to determine which norms deserved commitment, a virtue term usually misunderstood as “prediction of likely outcomes” or “being hesitant”:promêtheia. Plato’s uses of this term, almost completely ignored by scholarship, show a sensitivity to the prerequisites for the capacity for rational agency. We must add this virtue term to the usual suspects related to acting as a rational agent:sôphrosunê, dikaiosunê, phrônesis, andsophia.Promêtheiastands out for its importance in times of ignorance of the (...) future. (shrink)

This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As I will explain, Henry’s interpretation is advantageous for the reason that it makes clear how Aristotle could have made good sense of genuine akrasia, a phenomenon that we seem to observe in the (...) real world, while maintaining non-trivial distinctions between temperance (sôphrosunê), self-indulgence (akolasia), self-control (enkrateia) and akrasia. There are, however, some interpretive challenges that follow from Henry’s account and this paper is intended to explain and resolve those. (shrink)

The main political responsibility of the legislator to the citizens is to create laws and institutions for the sake of promoting the virtues of citizens. In Plato's Laws, there is a tension between desiring a strong sense of virtue for the population while settling into a pessimistic acceptance of the inability of most humans to even approach it. This article draws out the tension between a strong sense of virtue and a more practical and achievable sense of virtue within the (...) text by examining sophrosun as the key method of raising up the citizen. Considered in contrast to the legislators' attempts to instil self-control and moderation in the citizens are the ways in which the legislators undermine their own project through indoctrination, coercion and the lack of opportunities to practise sophrosune. (shrink)

Rosamond Kent Sprague’s translations of the _Laches and Charmides_ are highly regarded, and relied on, for their lucidity and philosophical acuity. This edition includes notes by Sprague and an updated bibliography.

In a paper recently published in this Review, I tried to show that part of the formal beauty of the Hercules Furens is due to a subtle treatment of the familiar doctrine that the tyrant's wealth and power are of trifling value compared with Sophrosune, the gain that is really gain. Perhaps some further notes on the dramatic use made by Euripides of these familiar ideas may be of interest. One object with which I started was to observe the (...) use of the word τúραννος in Greek drama. Though the poets frequently enough use it merely as a convenient equivalent for βασιλεúσetc., popular feeling made it easy to suggest the meaning ‘tyrant,’ ‘bad King,’ or ‘Usurper’; and the poets use the ambiguity with great subtlety and in a manner which enables them to obtain fine effects of irony and scorn. What is more important is the fact that the notion of a tyrant with which we are acquainted in later Greek literature was already common-place in the fifth century, and that many dramatic effects depend on the recognition by the audience of the commonplace as such. Indeed, it is often the adaptation by the poet of the familiar ideas that lends formal beauty to compositions which, if we think simply of the plot, appear at first sight jerky or ‘epeisodic.’. (shrink)

In a paper recently published in this Review, I tried to show that part of the formal beauty of the Hercules Furens is due to a subtle treatment of the familiar doctrine that the tyrant's wealth and power are of trifling value compared with Sophrosune, the gain that is really gain. Perhaps some further notes on the dramatic use made by Euripides of these familiar ideas may be of interest. One object with which I started was to observe the (...) use of the word τúραννος in Greek drama. Though the poets frequently enough use it merely as a convenient equivalent for βασιλεúσetc., popular feeling made it easy to suggest the meaning ‘tyrant,’ ‘bad King,’ or ‘Usurper’; and the poets use the ambiguity with great subtlety and in a manner which enables them to obtain fine effects of irony and scorn. What is more important is the fact that the notion of a tyrant with which we are acquainted in later Greek literature was already common-place in the fifth century, and that many dramatic effects depend on the recognition by the audience of the commonplace as such. Indeed, it is often the adaptation by the poet of the familiar ideas that lends formal beauty to compositions which, if we think simply of the plot, appear at first sight jerky or ‘epeisodic.’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What's Wrong with These Cities?The Social Dimension of sophrosune in Plato's CharmidesThomas M. TuozzoThe Dramatic Setting and the dramatis personae of the Charmides strongly evoke the world of late fifth-century Athenian politics. The discussion Socrates narrates takes place the day after his return from a battle at Potidaea at the very start of the Peloponnesian War;1 his two main interlocutors in that discussion, Critias and Charmides, will play (...) leading roles in the bloody oligarchic regime that rose to power after Athens' defeat nearly three decades later.2 Furthermore, the virtue the three of them discuss, sophrosune (temperance, moderation, sound-mindedness), also has strong political associations: it was a central element in the self-understanding and propaganda of the oligarchic faction to which Critias and Charmides belonged.3 The philosophical discussion of the various definitions proposed of sophrosune in the course of the dialogue, however, for the most part avoids explicitly addressing the social and political dimensions of this virtue. Much of the discussion seems, rather, to concern epistemological issues at some remove from the public sphere.4 [End Page 32l]At two critical moments in the dialogue, however, the social dimension of sophrosune does irrupt into the discussion. At the culmination of his discussion with Charmides, and again at the culmination of his discussion with Critias (which forms the culmination of the dialogue as a whole), Socrates abruptly shifts to the social level in order to evaluate a proposed definition of sophrosune. These definitions are put to the test by considering a city governed by sophrosune (as in either case defined). In both cases the examination of Socrates' hypothetical city has the effect of discrediting the associated definition of sophrosune—in the first case, because the city governed by it would not be "well governed"; in the second, because, although the citizens of the hypothetical city may be happy, their happiness would not result from the city's sophrosune as such. In both cases, then, it is the failure of sophrosune (as defined) to conduce to the well-being of the city, in a way that both parties to the discussion agree that it should, that leads to the rejection of the proposed definition.The social context in which Socrates places the most important definitions offered by his two interlocutors does more than allow Socrates to consider, on a social scale, the benefits of sophrosune as so defined. It also enables him to raise the question of the proper social relationship between sophrosune and the other crafts or kinds of knowledge practiced in a city. This question is first raised in Socrates' discussion of the first hypothetical city with Charmides. When Critias takes over as interlocutor, Socrates continues the investigation into the relationship between sophrosune and other kinds of knowledge, but for the most part in purely epistemological terms that abstract both from social context and from all considerations of benefit. The discussion of the second hypothetical city at the end of that conversation returns the question to its social context: the relations between the different sorts of knowledge are investigated via their reflection in the social relations existing between the persons that practice them. The two hypothetical cities thus allow Socrates to consider, within a social context, both questions concerning the benefit sophrosune produces (and for whom) and questions concerning its relation to other sorts of knowledge. It is in these discussions, then, that we find the dialogue's most direct contribution to some of the most important questions of Plato's earlier dialogues.It is my purpose in this essay to examine the treatment of the social dimension of sophrosune in the Charmides in order to sketch the answers to these questions that, I hope to show, the dialogue provides. This sketch will necessarily be incomplete; a more nearly complete account of this dialogue's contribution to these questions would need to integrate the present study's results with [End Page 322] an interpretation of the abstract epistemological and metaphysical arguments that loom so large in the dialogue. Indeed, it is my hope that the results of this study may provide a useful orientation for the study of these famously perplexing... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Aristotle on Moral Temperance, Self‐Indulgence, and Insensibility Epistemic Temperance, Self‐Indulgence, and Insensibility Acknowledgments References.

Volume 35 contains papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during academic year 2018-19. Works: Commentary on _De Anima_, Nicomachean Ethics. Topics: Humean motivation, memory-oblivion & myth, final causality and ontology of life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Charmides by Raphael WoolfAlan PichanickWOOLF, Raphael. Plato's Charmides. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 282 pp. Cloth, $110.00With the publication of Raphael Woolf's Plato's Charmides, Cambridge University Press releases its second commentary on the dialogue in the last two years. Woolf's contribution is a welcome addition. More than a discussion of the difficulties of defining sophrosune, his approach to the Charmides is distinctive in his attempt to (...) unify the drama and the argument of the dialogue around two elements that prior commentators have not stressed enough: the centrality of eros and the significance of Socrates' first-person narration of the conversation.Chapter 1 begins with an account of two methodological principles: the "principle of agnosticism," which states that "one should not assume, in advance... that one has knowledge of the aims and methods at work... of either Plato or... Socrates." Along with this principle, Woolf adopts what he calls "the principle of separation," which says that "we should not assume that what is said or done by any of Plato's characters is necessarily endorsed by Plato himself." These two principles, as principles, are helpful interpretive tools to confront the dialogue on its own terms. On Woolf's reading, Plato portrays Socrates in conversation with his interlocutors in order to "instill in his readers... the stance of inquiry... [, that is,] an attitude that does not take ideas or arguments on trust but engages reflectively with them." He argues, moreover, that such an endeavor on Plato's part can yield a "unified account" of the structure of the conversation Socrates has with Charmides and Critias, including the rich dramatic introduction to the dialogue.In chapter 2, Woolf turns to five examples from the Charmides that illustrate what he calls the stance of inquiry. In a particularly interesting section, Woolf turns to the ominous ending of the dialogue, in which Charmides conspires with Critias to force Socrates to continue to instruct him. It is a moment in which Plato intends his readers to think of the forthcoming violence of these two tyrants, and it thus prompts readers to confront the question: Was Socrates possibly a bad influence on Charmides? In answer to this question, Woolf suggests that Plato wants readers to reflect on the possibility that Socrates could be flawed (or at the very least, distinctive) in that "he seems sufficiently indifferent to the spatiotemporal world to be pretty much unaffected by the deaths of his comrades in battle," and that we may reasonably doubt that Socrates "would be any more affected by the havoc wreaked by the Thirty and by Charmides' subsequent fate." According to Woolf, such an interest in the abstract over the concrete should not be imitated by readers who have taken up the stance of inquiry toward Socrates.Woolf returns later in the book to defend this provocative claim, especially in chapters 4 and 5, but first turns in chapter 3 to develop his earlier claim that the unity of the dialogue can be grounded in Socrates' erotic concern with Charmides. Here he argues that Socrates' concern for the young man connects to the dominant medical metaphor in the dialogue: Socrates' claim to be a physician of the soul. Woolf makes a [End Page 559] compelling case for the importance of eros in the dialogue, and in drawing attention to the erotic features of the dramatic setting of the conversation, he makes an equally compelling argument that these elements are related to Socrates' role as a soul doctor. In Woolf's own account of the dialogue, it is only after 110 pages of commentary that the reader comes to hear Charmides' first definition of sophrosune (which Woolf prefers to translate as "temperance"). Woolf's procedure is warranted by the richness of the introduction and his persuasive case that this context is essential to understanding the dialogue as a whole. In particular, he demonstrates that the dramatic introduction reveals the importance that Plato lays on conversations in his account of Socratic philosophy. From here emerges Woolf's candidate for definition of sophrosune as "selfrealization." He argues that the dialogue suggests, especially in the dramatic introduction, that sophrosune is... (shrink)

Sport was included in ancient educational systems because it was thought to promote aretê or human excellence which could be applied to almost any endeavor in life. The goal of most modern scholastic athletic programs might be better summed up in a word: winning. Is this a sign that we have lost touch with the age-old rationale for including sport in education? I argue that it need not be by showing that we value winning precisely for the virtues associated with (...) it. I then take Plato's traditional parts of aretê: piety, sophrosunê, courage and justice and show how they are manifest in modern athletic ideals of self-knowledge, discipline, courage and justice. To the extent that scholastic athletic programs develop these virtues, I conclude, their pursuit of winning is not at odds with the institutional mission of educating students. If an athletic program's pursuit of victory allows such character-building to fall by the wayside, however, it deserves no place in our high schools, colleges or universities. (shrink)

C. J. Rowe's translation and commentary fills a gap in Phaedrus scholarship to date. The Greek text, provided on the pages facing the translation, is the Burnet Oxford edition with emendations, most of which are suggested by deVries in A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato. Because deVries has already produced a copious philological study, Rowe does not concentrate on the philological problems of the dialogue but refers the reader to deVries. Rowe strives for literalness in his translation, and although (...) he sacrifices at times a smooth English style, his translation is lucid. He is more successful than his modern counterparts in providing a translation which gives a sense of the original with relatively little interpretive license. Rowe does not attempt to maintain word-for-word consistency, and, for example, uses four words to translate söphrosunë, usually stating in the notes that he is doing so. In cases where Rowe does not note that he is using several English words for the same Greek word or the same English word for different Greek words it is difficult for the reader with little or no Greek, for whom Rowe says the translation is primarily intended, to understand the connection between Plato's terms. (shrink)

In this book Schmid holds that the traditional and cultural ideal of moderation is enough of an established fact that the Charmides can be held up against it to make the distinctions and similarities which will then provide for the necessary reference for interpreting the drama Plato uses in the dialogue. The Preface and section 1 define the “cultural setting in which the ancient Greek ideal of sophrosunê was situated”. Here Schmid defines the complex political and cultural setting of ancient (...) Greece out of which the dialogue is to be interpreted and thereby sets the stage for the drama and speech of the dialogue as a whole. (shrink)

Unlike many other dialogues, Plato’s Charmides has never elicited much sustained scholarly attention, even though it focuses on an important moral excellence, sôphrosunê (temperance, moderation), features two of Plato’s relatives who were members of the oligarchic government of 304–303 BC, and includes two refutations of the Republic’s formula, “doing one’s own things,” as well as a long, complex discussion of “knowledge of knowledge.” The present work is therefore a welcome addition to the small collection of English books on it (Tuckey, (...) Plato’s Charmides; Hyland, The Virtue of Philosophy; Schmid, Plato’s Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality). Early chapters, comprising nearly half the .. (shrink)