Ostensibly the Charmides is a ‘definition’ dialogue in the classic mould; but it is much more than that. It goes far beyond the limited concern of searching for the definition of a particular moral term. For in the course of his attempt to define the peculiarly Greek virtue of sōphrosunē, Plato develops his investigation so as to cover the great Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge.1 What is under examination in the Charmides is not so much sōphrosunē as knowledge, in particular the strange and problematic concept of ‘knowledge of knowledge’.2 But before considering the latter, we must first address ourselves to the question of what sōphrosunē is.3
Wisdom, courage and justice are an instantly recognizable trinity of major virtues. To add a fourth, ‘self-control’ or ‘self-knowledge’, would seem to us today unnecessary and rather strange. But translate the four into ancient Greek and you have a naturally cohesive foursome: they are, for instance, the four cardinal virtues of the state at Republic 427e. For a Greek of Plato’s day, sōphrosunē was just as important a virtue as the other three. How this came to be is a long story, which need not detain us here. But in reading the Charmides one must never forget that Plato is investigating one of the cornerstones of the Greeks’ cultural and moral heritage.
The etymological meaning of sōphrosunē is ‘soundness of mind’;4 but what it meant in the popular usage of Socrates’ and Plato’s day was primarily ‘self-control’, and this is how the word has been rendered in this translation, despite the manifest inadequacy of such a rendering.5 What the term really points to in this dialogue is ‘self-knowledge’;1 but since ‘knowledge of oneself’ (epistēmē heautou) is one of the definitions proposed in the course of the investigation of sōphrosunē, this obvious rendering of the term must reluctantly be abandoned.
For Plato, Socrates was the embodiment of sōphrosunē, as he was of the other virtues.2 The aspects of sōphrosunē displayed par excellence by Socrates were self-knowledge and self-mastery (enkrateia). Knowledge of oneself was in fact the kernel of Socrates’ teaching. He believed that his primary duty in life was to persuade everyone to ‘tend his soul’ in order to make it as good as possible;3 a man had to know himself, which meant knowing his soul (psuchē), before he could ‘tend’ it.4 A memorable illustration of the second and minor aspect, self-mastery, or self-control in its popular meaning, is provided in Plato’s description of how Socrates masters his passion when he catches a glimpse of Charmides’ beautiful body beneath his cloak (155d–e).
Why is the everyday meaning restricted to the scene-setting in this dialogue?5 The answer might be found in a wish to highlight by contrast the aristocratic prejudices6 of Socrates’ interlocutors, Charmides and Critias, who ignore the meaning given to sōphrosunē by the common man and instead give Socrates the benefit of their philo-Laconian education.7 But the real reason must be that, for the purposes of developing the highly intellectual and moral interpretation of the virtue at which the dialogue is aiming, the everyday usage needs to be kept in the background. The two are connected, as in the case of any of the particular virtues; but the connection is not the focus of the dialogue.
Charmides1 and Critias2 were not simply Athenian aristocrats but were, more importantly, members of Plato’s own aristocratic family. Charmides was his uncle on his mother’s side; Critias, his mother’s cousin. Both belonged to Socrates’ circle, though Critias had mixed with the sophists,3 and in this dialogue, to some extent, he represents their ethical standpoint and methods of argumentation.
Why should Plato have chosen these two members of his own family to be Socrates’ interlocutors in this dialogue? Why should he have honoured them with such praise of their noble ancestry, which was also his own ancestry, as he does at the beginning (157e–158b)? The answers lie in the two men’s subsequent careers.4 Critias went on to become the extremist leader of the Thirty Tyrants, who imposed a reign of terror on Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404–403, in their attempt to impose their oligarchy on the citizen body. Charmides too became one of the Thirty, meeting his death, with Critias, in battle against the democrats. Part of Plato’s purpose in this dialogue is to exculpate Socrates from any responsibility for the crimes of his former companions. Xenophon, in Memorabilia I. 2.12 ff., also comes to Socrates’ defence against the same charge, stating that Socrates had taught Critias sōphrosunē in his youth and had spoken out so strongly against his later behaviour that he had taken grave offence. By showing Critias as both quite lacking in sōphrosunē and quite ignorant of its meaning beyond a superficial acquaintance with its conventional use within his aristocratic circle; by representing Charmides as equally unaware of its true purport, despite his possession of the natural sōphrosunē of youth, which he will lose when he reaches adulthood; and by portraying Socrates as trying his best to discover with them the true meaning of sōphrosunē, and as failing to elicit the answer from them, though possessing the virtue himself – by all these means Plato is endeavouring to show that Socrates tried to educate Critias and Charmides in sōphrosunē, but failed. But by trying, he saved himself from any possible accusation of responsibility for their later crimes.
If that, then, is the wider, personal motive for writing the dialogue, what are its philosophical purposes? First of all, Plato wishes to show the Socratic elenchus in action, and the first two definitions of this dialogue offer excellent examples of this.
A prominent feature of Socrates’ method is to elicit from his respondent
the admission that the virtue in question, or virtue itself, is necessarily a good (agathon)1 or admirable (kalon)2 thing. This is simply assumed to be true. No attempt is made to prove that a virtue, or virtue itself, is necessarily agathon or kalon. For Socrates, as for his interlocutors, it is an accepted truth; and a proposed definition must be rejected if it is found to be incompatible with it.3 Thus the refutation is built, not on a fact already proved to be true, but on something that everyone merely intuitively ‘knows’ to be true. The refutation of a proposed definition of V (a virtue) as x proceeds as follows: V is necessarily agathon/kalon: x is sometimes not agathon/kalon; therefore V is not x.
The bulk of the refutation of the first definition, ‘sōphrosunē is quietness’, is, as so frequently in these early dialogues, epagōgē or inductive argument by means of analogical cases.4 Socrates enumerates cases in which x is agreed to be bad (kakon), not good.5 By accumulating negative cases6 he convinces his interlocutor that his position is untenable. The enumeration is of course incomplete; every case is not, indeed cannot be, considered. A few are adduced, and he then intuits a general rule. A specious air of completeness is sometimes achieved, as here, by dividing the induction into two: to refute this first definition, the one set of cases is concerned with the body, the other with the soul. Socrates reviews some cases pertaining to the body and then states that what has been agreed to be true for these cases is true for all cases pertaining to the body. He then does the same for cases pertaining to the soul. By adding both together he gives a more convincing impression of having considered every case. If it is too great a leap to intuit the general rule from just a few cases, divide the induction into two, make two smaller leaps by intuiting two sub-rules from two (still incomplete) sets of cases, and then add them together to reach the general rule itself.7
The long analogical epagōgē of the first definition enables Socrates to telescope the argumentation in the second refutation. One negative case is enough to dispatch the proposed definition, ‘sōphrosunē is modesty’.
The point of these refutations is to demonstrate how difficult it is to formulate for complex ethical terms such as sōphrosunē definitions of universal application. For Socrates, the term to be defined was univocal1 and its definition had to be coextensive; it had to provide an equivalent. But a mere synonym would not be sufficient, nor would a pat ‘dictionary’ definition such as we might be tempted to think of. Socrates’ search for definition was a search for the ousia, the essential nature, of the term under consideration. Socratic definition aimed at explicating the essential constitution or structure of the term he was examining.2
If the first two definitions illustrate the formal Socratic elenchus, the third and fourth certainly do not. This is because Socrates does not want so much to refute these definitions completely as to build on them. They are both part of a focusing process (as, to a lesser extent, were the first two refuted definitions3), by which a definition of sōphrosunē gradually emerges, despite the aporia with which the dialogue ends. The first two definitions are in some degree merely preliminary and dispensable. The third, with its change of advocate from Charmides to Critias, marks, as does a similar change of interlocutor in the Laches and the Lysis, the turning-point of the dialogue, a rise in the level of the discussion.4
To dispose of the third definition Socrates shamelessly resorts to a sophistic trick, playing on the ambiguity of the Greek verb poiein, which may mean either ‘do’ or ‘make’. The proffered definition of sōphrosunē, ‘doing one’s own job’, or, more literally, ‘doing one’s own things’, is indeed a major advance on the first two, and not, in fact, too far from what one might consider an acceptable answer, as the course of the dialogue and later Platonic pronouncements make clear.5 Socrates, however, perverts the natural sense of the phrase and insists on interpreting it as ‘making one’s own things’. Critias rightly attacks this ludicrous twisting of the meaning and reasserts the natural sense of the words. Socrates avoids taking issue with him, seizing instead on one of his incidental points in order to introduce a fourth definition himself: ‘sōphrosunē is the doing of good things.’ Again he does not attempt a formal refutation. Instead, he sidesteps the problem by bringing the crucial missing element, knowledge, into the discussion. At a stroke, essential intellectual and
religious elements are introduced. Self-knowledge2 and moderation2 were the watchwords of the Apolline religion. Indeed it was from the temple of Apollo at Delphi that Chaerephon, a friend of Socrates who appears briefly at the beginning of this dialogue, had received the famous message that Socrates was the wisest of men, a message which Socrates interpreted as meaning ‘the wisest of men in that he knew that he did not know’.3 The introduction of these religious and intellectual factors by Socrates leads to the longest and most significant section of the discussion, the examination of sōphrosunē as knowledge of oneself (the fifth definition) and, more importantly, as knowledge of itself, that is to say, as knowledge of knowledge.
It is noteworthy that, throughout the dialogue, Socrates’ contributions to the process of definition of sōphrosunē are essentially concerned with introducing psychical and moral considerations. In each of the two groups of definitions, 1–2 and 3–6, one can discern a movement, instigated by Socrates, from the external to the internal.4 This is most easily shown as follows:
EXTERNAL (body) |
INTERNAL (soul) | |
Charmides |
(1) Quietness |
(2) Modesty |
Critias |
(3) Doing one’s own job |
(5) Knowing oneself/knowledge of knowledge |
Socrates |
(4) Doing of good |
(6) Knowledge of good |
In modifying Critias’ definitions to ‘doing of good’ and ‘knowledge of good’ respectively, Socrates goes somewhat beyond the scope of sōphrosunē itself. Plato is leading the reader on to confront the Socratic concepts of the unity of the virtues and the identification of virtue with knowledge – in particular, with knowledge of good and bad.
The interrelationships between (3) and (5) and between (4) and (6) are expressions of the Socratic belief that to possess knowledge is to act upon it: the man who knows himself will do his own job, or rather, more literally, ‘the things of himself’; and the man who knows the good will do what is good.
Socrates sets about testing the fifth definition, ‘knowledge of oneself’, by his customary means of analogical argument, and here, for the first time, we see Plato questioning this aspect of Socratic dialectic.1 Even at this comparatively early stage of his philosophical career Plato was conscious of the shortcomings of his mentor’s methods. The general criticism which he puts into Critias’ mouth is valid and apposite: argument from analogy too often relies on specious similarities to make its point, while ignoring important differences; as a dialectical tool analogy is useful, but it has its limitations.
More important for the dialogue as a whole, however, than the questioning of the validity of analogical arguments as a class, significant though that undoubtedly is, is the specific setting of crucial limits to the operation of the favourite Socratic technēanalogy.2 Socrates constantly treated the virtues or virtue itself as a technē, a skill, craft, or art – that is to say, as a body of precisely attainable knowledge (epistēmē), and, more importantly, as analogous to the other technai, for instance, shoemaking or weaving, in every respect. But the analogy can only be drawn up to a point, and no further. Knowledge of oneself can be shown to be different from the other technai in some extremely significant respects. Unlike the other knowledges (epistēmaiē) or skills (technai), knowledge of oneself has no product, as, for example, medicine has health; and self-knowledge has no object which is different from itself, as, for example, arithmetic has numbers. Plato is here confronting a crucial assumption of Socrates’ moral philosophy, that the knowledge attainable in professional skills (technai) can also be attained in moral conduct by the examination of moral language. By demonstrating that there are major respects in which knowledge of knowledge is not analogous to professional skills, Plato is able to show that a man should attempt to attain that moral knowledge or virtue which will emerge, albeit darkly, as the true definition of sōphrosunē, not just by considering the similarities between the technai and morality, but also by analysing their differences.3
In the course of the argument the definition of sōphrosunē has been modified, without comment, from knowledge of oneself to knowledge of itself, i.e. to knowledge of knowledge. What is in effect a fallacy has arisen as a consequence of the terms in which the argument has been couched.4 But Plato does in fact seem to see no difficulty in considering knowledge of oneself as equivalent to knowledge of knowledge (in that it is knowledge of one’s own knowledge), i.e. in equating one’s own self and one’s own
knowledge. By this small but crucial shift from ‘oneself’ to ‘itself’ we arrive at the philosophical core of the dialogue: the examination of ‘knowledge of knowledge’.
The first question to be faced about knowledge of knowledge is its logical possibility. Can knowledge know itself? No other perceptional, emotional or mental activity appears to be self-relational. Can anything in the physical world, such as motion or heat, relate its own faculty to itself? This last point prefigures an important tenet of Plato’s later philosophical thought, the belief in self-motion, in a self-moving soul (psuchē), which is the prerequisite for life itself.1
If we assume for the sake of argument that knowledge of knowledge is possible, what will it mean? Socrates interprets it in two ways: first, as the knowledge of itself and of the other knowledges and of ignorance, or rather, (i) the knowledge of what one knows and what one does not know and of what another man knows and does not know. As such it will mean knowledge of the extent or limit of one’s own knowledge (and that of others). Subsequently, the interpretation is scaled down to (ii) the knowledge that one knows something and that one does not know something (and that another man knows something and does not know something). All this was of especial interest to Plato because of Socrates’ famous insistence that he was wiser than other men in knowing the limits of his own knowledge, i.e. he claimed to know that he did not know, and did not think that he knew.2
If, then, knowledge of knowledge is taken to mean (ii) knowledge that one knows something, then it can only recognize that some state or condition constitutes knowledge; it cannot recognize what that knowledge is knowledge of (i.e. the objects of the knowledge, or the facts known). If knowledge of knowledge, qua knowledge that one knows, is going to know what a given ‘ordinary’ knowledge is knowledge of, it has to have added to it that ‘ordinary’ knowledge (epistēmē) or skill (technē) – such as medicine, the knowledge of what is healthy.
So knowledge of knowledge, in the sense of (ii) knowledge that one knows, seems of limited use. But before reconsidering knowledge of knowledge in the sense of (i) knowledge of what one knows, Socrates briefly discusses knowledge of knowledge as (iii) merely a general acquaintance with the concept of knowledge, a sort of knowing how to
know.1 But such knowledge will presumably serve only to make easier the learning of the objects of each ‘ordinary’ knowledge to which it is applied, and to give a clearer understanding of the ‘ordinary’ knowledge learned: one will know how to have that ordinary knowledge as well as that one has it.
Socrates accordingly reverts to knowledge of knowledge in sense (i), and now interprets it as (iv) a sort of ‘super-knowledge’ which oversees the operation of the other, ‘ordinary’ knowledges and ensures that each is performed efficiently. The way to this interpretation has been opened up by (iii), knowing how to know. But ‘super-knowledge’ would be useful only in so far as it would tell a person what to do for a given purpose. It would not tell him in what circumstances it would be good or beneficial to do it in order to ensure his happiness. It could only ensure the technically correct performance of an action, not the happiness to be derived from any possible act. It would be for the knowledge of good and bad to tell him that. And even if a superordinate knowledge of knowledge presided also over the knowledge of good and bad, it would still have no product. Benefit, the product of the putative relationship, is in fact the product of the knowledge of good and bad, not of the knowledge of knowledge, which is therefore not beneficial.2
The refutation of the fifth definition in this developed form, ‘super-knowledge’, leaves the dialogue ending in the customary aporia. The real answer to the question ‘What is sōphrosunē?’ is, however, there, though not made explicit. Sōphrosunē is beneficial; the knowledge of good and bad is beneficial; so Sōphrosunē is the knowledge of good and bad (in effect, the sixth and final definition). But this implicit definition is the definition of virtue itself, rather than the particular aspect of virtue which is sōphrosunē. Since Socrates believed that all the virtues are one,3 the dialogue ends with a clear but unstated assertion of the Socratic principle that virtue is knowledge, more specifically the knowledge of good and bad.
The main purpose of the dialogue now becomes clear. It has not been the ostensible reason for the investigation, to define sōphrosunē by itself. It has rather been to examine the Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge. Right from the start it has been stated unequivocally that sōphrosunē is a virtue: first it is called an admirable (kalon) thing (159c); then (160e) explicitly a good (agathon) thing (and we are reminded of this
in the final aporia where sōphrosunē is called ‘the most admirable of all things’ (175a) and ‘a great good’ (175e)); and the fourth definition of sōphrosunē is ‘the doing of good things’. When, with the fifth definition, Plato devotes the major part of the inquiry to attempts to define sōphrosunē in terms of knowledge, the real purpose of the dialogue begins to emerge and the conclusion, that virtue is knowledge, becomes inevitable.
What has this examination of virtue as knowledge in the Charmides to offer us? Its most original and memorable feature is the discussion of the concept of ‘knowledge of knowledge’. Though doubts are voiced as to the very possibility of its existence, and though it is unique in having neither a product nor an object different from itself, and in being the only mental activity to be self-relational, Plato refuses to abandon it. But dissatisfied with the apparently meagre benefits to be derived from sōphrosunē in sense (ii), knowledge that one knows, he examines it as knowledge of what one knows, in two versions: (i) as knowledge of the extent or limits of one’s knowledge, with obvious reference to Socrates’ claim to know more than other men in knowing the limits of his knowledge (that, in fact, he did not know), and to his exhortation to all men to examine themselves in order to discover the limits of their own knowledge;1 and then as (iv), some sort of ‘super-knowledge’ which oversees the other knowledges or skills. This latter hypothesis is left undeveloped presumably because its closer investigation would take us too far from the goal to which Plato is leading. For all its attractions, knowledge of knowledge must not be allowed to overwhelm or disrupt the firmly Socratic definitional frame-work within which the problems are discussed, and so divert us from reaching the important main conclusion of the Charmides, the equation of virtue and knowledge.
As a ‘definition dialogue’ the Charmides is eminently a success. Though it ends in the usual aporia, the ‘real’ answer can be rescued from the confusion without too much difficulty. But it is in its examination of a great Socratic paradox, and in particular in its raising of the fascinating question of knowledge of knowledge, that the dialogue transcends the more limited preoccupations of the simpler ‘definition dialogues’: it introduces us to some of the most important wider concerns of Socratic philosophy and gives notice of the more complex and demanding issues which Plato will confront when he moves on from writing ‘Socratic dialogues’ of definition.
A. Health of Body is Dependent on Health of Soul
B. First Definition: Quietness
C. Second Definition: Modesty
D. Third Definition: Doing One’s Own Job
E. Fourth Definition: The Doing of Good Things
F. Fifth Definition: Knowing Oneself
G. Is Knowledge of Knowledge Possible?
H. Knowledge of Knowledge as Knowing That One Knows
I. Benefits of Knowledge of Knowledge
J. Sixth Definition: The Knowledge of Good and Bad
K. Aporia
SOCRATES
CHAEREPHON: From Sphettus in Attica. A fanatical disciple of Socrates, who went to Delphi to ask the famous question of the oracle – whether there was any man wiser than Socrates. Sent into exile with the leading democrats by the Thirty Tyrants, returned with Thrasybulus in 403, but died before Socrates was brought to trial in 399.
CHARMIDES: The son of Glaucon and the brother of Plato’s mother, Perictione. Belonged to Socrates’ circle. Socrates himself urged him to take up politics (Xenophon, Memorabilia III.7). became one of the Thirty Tyrants of the oligarchical revolution in Athens in 404. Killed, along with Critias, early in 403 at Munychia in the Piraeus, fighting against the democrats led by Thrasybulus.
CRITIAS: Born c. 460, died 403. The son of Callaeschrus and the cousin and guardian of Charmides (and cousin of Plato’s mother). Became associated with Socrates early, and also with the sophistic movement. Was a literary as well as a political figure, composing elegiac poetry and tragedies, fragments of which are extant. Achieved infamy as the extremist leader of the Thirty Tyrants.
The introductory conversation establishes the dramatic date, setting and speakers. The subject of the dialogue is introduced through Socrates’ asserting that it is impossible to heal the part without also setting oneself to heal the whole: to heal a diseased part of the body the doctor must treat not only that diseased part, but the body as a whole and the soul, since all things, both good and bad, originate in the soul; and the soul is to be treated with charms, i.e. beautiful words, which will produce self-control (sōphrosunē) in it. Socrates is, therefore, even before he begins the search for a definition of self-control (sōphrosunē), implicitly defining it as ‘health of soul’. Thus two basic Socratic tenets may be discerned in this passage: (i) the importance of tending the soul, and (ii) the parallelism of the health of the body and the health of the soul.
We’d got back yesterday from the camp at Potidaea.1 I’d been away a [153a] long time, so I was glad to return to my old haunts. I went to Taureas’2 wrestling-school opposite the temple of Basile,3 where I found a large crowd of people, some unknown to me, the majority acquaintances of mine. I had not been expected, and as soon as they saw me coming in they [b] shouted over to me from all sides. Chaerephon, who is quite mad, sprang from their midst, ran towards me, grabbed me by the hand and exclaimed, ‘Socrates, how did you manage to escape from the battle?’ (Shortly before we came away there had been a battle at Potidaea, of which the people here had only just learned.)
‘Just as you see,’ I replied.
‘But a report has reached us,’ he said, ‘that the battle was very hard-fought and that many people we knew have died in it.’ [c]
‘The report is reasonably accurate,’ I said.
‘Were you actually in the battle?’ he asked.
‘I was.’
‘Come and sit down here, then,’ he said, ‘and tell us all about it. We haven’t heard the whole story properly yet.’ With that he took me over to Critias, Callaeschrus’ son, and sat me down beside him.
I sat down, said hello to Critias and the others, and proceeded to tell them all the news from the camp, answering whatever questions I was asked; and each had a different question. [d]
When we’d exhausted that subject I asked them about things here: what was happening in the field of philosophy; had any of the young men become pre-eminent for wisdom or beauty or both? At that Critias looked towards the door where he’d seen a number of young men coming in, [154a] squabbling noisily with one another, and another crowd following them. ‘I think you’re going to get an answer to your question about the handsome young men right away, Socrates,’ he said. ‘Those young men coming in just now are, as it happens, the advance guard and lovers of the young man who is thought to be our most handsome at present; and it looks to me as if the young man himself is already getting quite close.’
‘But who is he?’ I asked. ‘Who’s his father?’
‘I’m sure you must know him,’ he replied, ‘although he hadn’t come of age before you went away. He’s Charmides, my cousin, the son of my [b] uncle Glaucon.’
‘Heavens, I do indeed know him,’ I exclaimed. ‘He was very promising when he was still a child. As it is, I suppose by now he must be quite the young man.’
‘You’ll know right away how old he is and what he’s like,’ he said. Just as he was saying that, Charmides came in.
Now, my friend, I’m no judge. I’m simply a blank ruler1 when it comes to gauging how handsome young men are. Very nearly all men of that age seem handsome to me. All the same, at that moment Charmides seemed [c] to me amazingly tall and handsome. All the others present appeared to me to be in love with him, they were so startled and disconcerted by his entrance; and there were many more of his lovers among those who came behind him. The reaction of the grown men was not so surprising, but I watched the boys and saw that none of them, not even the smallest of them, had eyes for anyone else. Every one of them looked at him as if he were a statue. Chaerephon called to me and said, ‘What do you think of [d] our young man, Socrates? Hasn’t he got a lovely face?’
‘Extraordinarily lovely,’ I replied.
‘But just let him be persuaded to strip and you won’t notice he’s got a face at all, his body is so perfectly beautiful.’
Well, the others said exactly the same as Chaerephon, and I said, ‘Goodness, how irresistible you make him sound, provided that he happens to have just one other little thing.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Critias.
‘Provided that he happens to be endowed with a fine soul,’ I said. ‘He [e] should, of course, have such a soul, since he does belong to your family, Critias.’
‘Why,’ he said, ‘he’s very beautiful and noble in that respect too.’
‘Then why don’t we strip that part of him,’ I said, ‘and look at it, before we look at his body? He must now be of an age to be willing to engage in discussion.1
‘Indeed he is,’ said Critias. ‘He’s a philosopher, you know, and in the opinion of others, as well as in his own, quite a poet too.’ [155a]
That’s an accomplishment that has been in your family for a long time, Critias, thanks to its kinship with Solon.1 But why don’t you call the young man over here and show him to me? Even if he happened to be even younger than he is, it wouldn’t be improper for him to talk to us in your company: you’re his guardian as well as his cousin.’
‘You’re quite right,’ he said. ‘We’ll call him.’ With that he turned to his attendant. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘call Charmides. Tell him I want to have [b] him see a doctor about the complaint he spoke to me of the day before yesterday.’ Critias then turned and said to me, ‘You see, he said recently he’d been having headaches when he got up in the morning. Now what’s to stop you pretending to him that you know of some remedy for a headache?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just let him come.’
‘He’ll be here,’ he replied.
Which is just what happened. He came, and he caused a great deal of laughter: each of us who were sitting down tried to make room for him [c] by pushing his neighbour away in a frantic attempt to have the boy sit next to him, until we forced the man sitting at one end of the row to stand up and tipped the man at the other off sideways. In the event Charmides came and sat between me and Critias. Well, by then, my friend, I was in difficulties, and the self-assurance I’d felt earlier that I’d talk to him quite easily had been knocked out of me. When Critias told him I was the man who knew of the remedy, he gave me a look that is impossible to describe [d] and made ready to ask me something. Everyone in the wrestling-school swarmed all round us. That was the moment, my noble friend, when I saw what was inside his cloak. I was on fire, I lost my head, and I considered Cydias1 to be the wisest man in matters of love. When speaking of a handsome boy, he said, by way of advice to someone, ‘Take care not to go as a fawn into the presence of a lion and be snatched as a portion of meat.’ I felt I’d been caught by just such a creature. All the same, when [e] Charmides asked me whether I knew the remedy for his headaches, I somehow managed to answer that I did.
‘What is it, then?’ he asked.
I replied that it was a leaf, but that there was a charm that went with the remedy: if one chanted the charm at the same time as one employed the remedy, the remedy cured one completely; without the charm, the leaf was of no use.
Charmides said, ‘Well then, I’ll take down a copy of the charm from [156a] you.’
‘Whether you can persuade me to divulge it or not?’ I said.
He laughed at that and said, ‘If I can persuade you, Socrates.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘And you’re quite sure that’s my name?’
‘Yes, unless I’m quite mistaken,’ he replied. ‘There’s a great deal of talk about you among the boys of my age, and I remember your being with Critias here when I was a child.’
‘That’s very flattering of you,’ I said. ‘That means I’ll feel less inhibited about telling you what the charm actually is. Just now I was in difficulties [b] as to how to show you its power. You see, Charmides, it’s the sort of charm which cannot cure the head alone. Perhaps you too have heard what good doctors say when a patient comes to them with sore eyes. They say, I think, that they cannot attempt to heal his eyes alone, but that they must treat his head too at the same time, if his sight is to recover. They say too that to think that one could ever treat the head by itself without [c] the whole body is quite foolish. On that principle, then, they apply their regimens to the entire body and attempt to treat and heal the part in conjunction with the whole.2 You do realize that this is what they say and that this is in fact the case, don’t you?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said.
‘Do you think that’s right, then? Do you accept the principle?’
‘Most definitely,’ he said.
When I heard him agree to that, I regained my confidence, all my self- [d] assurance gradually returned, my spirits began to rise again, and I said, ‘Well, it’s like that with this charm too. I learned it when I was away on an expedition with the army from one of Zalmoxis’1 Thracian doctors, the ones who are said actually to be able to give men immortality. This Thracian said that the Greeks were right in saying what I was telling you a minute ago. “Our king Zalmoxis,” he said, “who is a god, says that just as one shouldn’t try to heal the eyes without the head, or the head without [e] the body, so one shouldn’t try to heal the body without the soul either; and that this is the reason why many diseases baffle doctors in Greece – because they ignore the whole, which they ought to take care of, since if the whole is not well, it is impossible for part of it to be so.” He said all things, both good and bad, in the body and in the whole man, originated in the soul and spread from there, just as they did from the head to the eyes. One ought, then, to treat the soul first and foremost, if the head and the rest [157a] of the body were to be well. He said the soul was treated with certain charms, my dear Charmides, and that these charms were beautiful words. As a result of such words self-control came into being in souls. When it came into being and was present in them, it was then easy to secure health both for the head and for the rest of the body. Now, when he taught me [b] the remedy and the charms, he said, “See that no one who has not first surrendered his soul to be treated by you with the charm persuades you to treat his head with this remedy. In fact,” he said, “this is the mistake that is made with people today. Some men try to be doctors and try to produce either health or self-control, the one in isolation from the other.” He gave me very strict orders that there should be no one, no matter how rich or noble or beautiful, who could persuade me to do otherwise. Now [c] I – you see I gave him my word and must obey him – I shall obey him, and if you’d like, in accordance with the stranger’s orders, to surrender your soul to me to charm with the Thracian’s charms first, I shall apply the remedy to your head. But if not, there’s nothing we can do for you, my dear Charmides.’
When Critias heard me say that, he said, ‘The head complaint would prove to be a godsend for the young man, Socrates, if he’s going to be forced to improve his mind as well because of his head. All the same, I [d] can tell you that Charmides is generally considered to surpass those of his own age-group not just in his looks but also in that very quality for which you say you have the charm. You do mean self-control, don’t you?’
‘I most certainly do,’ I said.
‘Well then, rest assured that he is regarded as far and away the most self-controlled of the present generation and, for his age, second to none in everything else too.’
‘Indeed it’s only right, Charmides,’ I said, ‘that you should surpass the rest in all things like that. I don’t think there is anyone else here who [e] could easily point to any two Athenian families, apart from those from which you come, whose union might be expected to produce anyone better or more noble. Your father’s family, that of Critias, Dropides’ son, has been eulogized by Anacreon,1 Solon and many other poets, and has been presented to us by tradition as pre-eminent for beauty, virtue and everything else that is called happiness. The same is true of your mother’s [158a] family too: no one in the continent of Asia is said to have been considered more handsome or taller than your uncle Pyrilampes,2 whenever he went as ambassador to the Great King3 or anyone else in the continent. That whole side of the family is in no way inferior to the other. So it’s natural that, coming from such people, you should be first in everything. Now, from what I’ve seen of your looks, dear son of Glaucon, I don’t think you [b] fall short of any of your forebears in anything; and if you are sufficiently endowed with self-control and the other qualities, as Critias maintains, your mother bore a blessed son in you, my dear Charmides. Well, anyway, this is how things stand: if self-control is already present in you, as Critias here says, and you are sufficiently self-controlled, you no longer need the charms of Zalmoxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean,4 but I’d have to give you the headache remedy itself right away. But if you think you’re still [c] lacking in those respects, I must employ the charm before giving you the remedy. Tell me yourself, then, whether you agree with Critias and say that you already have enough self-control, or whether you say that you are deficient in it.’
At first Charmides blushed, looking even more handsome – his bashfulness suited his years. Then he gave a not ignoble answer. He said it wasn’t easy in the present circumstances either to confirm or to deny what was being asked. ‘If,’ he said, ‘I say I’m not self-controlled, it’s absurd that [d] one should say such things against oneself, and at the same time I’ll make a liar of Critias here and of many others too, who, according to him, think I’m self-controlled. On the other hand, if I say I am, I praise myself, which will perhaps seem rather bad form. So I don’t know what answer to give you.’
To that I replied, ‘What you’re saying seems reasonable to me, Charmides. I think,’ I went on, ‘that together we ought to consider whether or not you do possess what I’m asking about, to make sure that you’re not [e] forced to say things you don’t want, and that I don’t resort to medicine without due consideration. So if it’s all right with you, I’d like to consider the question with you; but if it’s not, we’ll leave it be.’
‘But it’s most definitely all right,’ he said. ‘So far as that’s concerned, consider the question as you yourself think best.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it seems to me to be best to consider the question in this way. Obviously if self-control is present in you, you can give an opinion about it, since it must, of course, by being in you (if indeed it is), be [159a] perceptible, thus enabling you to form an opinion about it – about what self-control is, and what sort of a thing it is. Don’t you think so?’
‘I do,’ he replied.
‘And since you know how to speak Greek,’ I said, ‘you could, of course, also state what you think, just as it appears to you?’
‘Possibly,’ he said.
‘Well then, so that we can guess whether it is in you or not, tell me,’ I said, ‘what you say self-control is in your opinion.’
Charmides’ first definition, which describes the outward manifestation of the virtue in a social context, as a sort of ‘good conduct’, is typical of a young Athenian aristocrat. Socrates refutes this definition by gaining agreement that self-control is kalon (admirable, beautiful, fine), whereas quietness is not always kalon; therefore self-control is not quietness.
At first he hesitated and was quite unwilling to answer, but then he said [b] that in his opinion self-control was doing everything in an orderly and quiet way – walking in the streets and talking and doing everything else in the same way. ‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘what you’re asking about is, in short, a sort of quietness.’
‘Well, are you right?’ I asked. ‘Certainly they do say, Charmides, that quiet people are self-controlled. Let’s see whether they have a point, then.
Tell me, isn’t self-control one of those things which are admirable?’ [c]
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said.
‘Is it more admirable, then, in a writing-lesson, to copy the letters quickly or quietly?’
‘Quickly.’
‘What about reading? Quickly or slowly?’
‘Quickly.’
‘And playing the lyre quickly and wrestling nimbly are much more admirable than doing these things quietly and slowly?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about boxing and the pancration?1 Isn’t it the same with them?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘And with running and jumping and all the activities of the body, isn’t it the nimble and quick performance of these which is the mark of the fine [d] body, whereas the laborious and quiet performance of them is the mark of the contemptible one?’
‘So it seems.’
‘Then it seems to us,’ I said, ‘that with regard to the body at least, it is not what is quiet, but what is quickest and most nimble that is most admirable. Isn’t that so?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Was self-control an admirable thing?’
‘Yes.’
‘With regard to the body at least, then, it isn’t quietness but quickness that would be the more self-controlled thing, since self-control is an admirable thing.’
‘So it would appear,’ he said.
‘Again, is facility in learning the more admirable thing, or difficulty in [e] learning?’ I asked.
‘Facility in learning.’
‘And facility in learning is learning quickly, whereas difficulty in learning is learning quietly and slowly?’
‘Yes.’
‘And isn’t it a more admirable thing to teach someone quickly and vigorously, rather than quietly and slowly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Again, is recalling to mind and remembering quietly and slowly the more admirable thing, or vigorously and quickly?’
‘Vigorously and quickly,’ he replied.
‘And isn’t readiness of mind a sort of nimbleness of the soul, not [160a] quietness?’
‘And again, isn’t it understanding what is said in a writing-lesson or lyre-lesson or anywhere else, not as quietly but as quickly as possible, that is most admirable?’
‘Yes.’
‘And further, in the investigations of the soul and in deliberating, it isn’t, I think, the man who is quietest and deliberates and discovers with great effort who is accounted worthy of praise, but the man who does it most easily and quickly.’ [b]
‘That’s so,’ he said.
‘Then, Charmides, in everything to do with the soul and the body we find speed and nimbleness more admirable than slowness and quietness.’
‘That may well be the case,’ he said.
‘So self-control won’t be a sort of quietness, and the self-controlled life won’t be a quiet one either, at least according to this argument, since if it is self-controlled, it must be an admirable thing. Indeed, there are two possibilities: it’s either never or probably very rarely in life that quiet [c] actions prove more admirable than quick and forceful ones. But, my friend, if at the most there are in fact as many quiet actions which are more admirable as there are vigorous and quick ones, it still wouldn’t mean that doing things quietly would be self-control any more than doing them vigorously and quickly would, whether in walking or talking or anything else; or that the quiet life would be more self-controlled than the non-quiet, since we assumed in our discussion that self-control was one [d] of the admirable things, and we’ve shown that quick things are just as admirable as quiet ones.’
‘I think you’re right in what you’ve said, Socrates,’ he said.
Charmides’ second definition is an advance on his first in that it attempts to describe the inner condition which might produce such an outward manifestation as quietness. Socrates’ refutation is achieved by arguing that self-control is not only admirable, but also good, whereas modesty is not always good; therefore self-control is not modesty.
‘Well then, Charmides,’ I said, ‘this time concentrate harder and look into your own self. Consider what sort of a person the presence of self-control makes you, and what it would have to be like to produce such an effect on you. Think it all through and then tell me plainly and manfully: what does it seem to you to be?’ [e]
He paused and, examining himself with a most manly effort, said, ‘Well, I think that self-control makes a man feel shame and be bashful, and that self-control is the same thing as modesty.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you agree just now that self-control was an admirable thing?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said.
‘Self-controlled men are good men too, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can a thing be good which does not produce good men?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then self-control is not only an admirable thing but a good thing too.’
‘I think so.’ [161a]
‘Well then!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t you believe that Homer is right when he says: “Modesty is not a good companion for a needy man”?’1
‘I do,’ he replied.
‘So modesty, it would appear, is not a good thing and is a good thing.’
‘So it seems.’
‘And self-control is a good thing if it makes men in whom it is present good and not bad.’
‘Why, yes, I do think it’s as you say.’
‘So self-control can’t be modesty, if it really is a good thing, and if modesty is no more a good thing than a bad one.’ [b]
‘Well, Socrates,’ he said, ‘I think that’s right.’
‘Doing one’s own job’ or, more literally, ‘doing (prattein) one’s own things’, is the definition of justice given at Republic 433a. There it means ‘each man performing the one function in the state for which his nature most suits him’. Here, however, Socrates takes it to mean the opposite, by interpreting the phrase as ‘each man doing (or making) everything for himself: each man should weave his own clothes, wash his own clothes, make his own shoes, etc. (This is the form of social organization rejected at Republic 369e ff.) On the basis of this interpretation, Socrates refutes the definition by arguing that self-control is good, yet there are times when doing one’s own job is bad; therefore self-control is not doing one’s own job.
The more experienced Critias now takes over from Charmides, and Socrates
makes explicit for the first time his equation of ‘doing’ (prattein) with ‘making’ (poiein, which may also mean ‘doing’ – this is the ambiguity exploited by Socrates). Critias rejects this equation: ‘doing’ one’s own things is not the same as ‘making’ one’s own things. A craftsman may make his own things and those of other people, and still be self-controlled in that he is merely doing his job; it is people who do other people’s jobs who are not self-controlled.
Critias in fact draws a distinction between making (poiein), on the one hand, and doing (prattein) and working (ergazesthai), on the other: only noble and beneficial ‘makings’ (poiēseis) can be called ‘workings’ (ergasiai) and ‘doings’ (praxeis); only these are a man’s ‘proper business’ (oikeia). Critias then abruptly concludes from this that self-control must be doing one’s own job.
Socrates’ comments on this lead on to the fourth definition: one’s proper business and one’s own job are good things; self-control is, on the current hypothesis, the doing of one’s own job; the refore self-control is the doing of good things (this is the fourth definition).
[Charmides speaks] ‘But give me your considered opinion of this statement about self-control, which I’ve just remembered I heard from someone once: that self-control might be doing one’s own job. Give me your considered opinion. Was the man who said that right?’
‘You wicked boy,’ I replied, ‘you heard that from Critias here or from another of our clever fellows.’ [c]
‘It must have been from someone else,’ said Critias. ‘It certainly wasn’t from me.’
‘But what difference does it make, Socrates,’ said Charmides, ‘who I heard it from?’
‘None at all,’ I replied. ‘In any case, the question we’ve got to consider is not who said it, but whether or not the statement is true.’
‘You’re quite right,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘All the same, I should be surprised if we actually will discover what exactly its status is. It appears to have a sort of cryptic meaning.’
‘How is that?’ he asked.
‘Because presumably,’ I replied, ‘he did not really mean quite what his [d] words conveyed when he said that self-control was doing one’s own job. Or do you believe that the writing-master does not do something when he reads or writes?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I do believe he does something.’
‘Then do you think that it’s only his own name that the writing-master reads and writes, or teaches boys to? Or did you write your enemies’ names just as much as your own and your friends’?’
‘Well then, were you meddling – that is, were you without self-control in doing that?’ [e]
‘Not at all.’
‘And yet you were not doing your own job if reading and writing are “doing something”.’
‘They most certainly are.’
‘And, my friend, healing, building houses, weaving and producing any piece of skilled work whatsoever, by any skill whatsoever, are all presumably “doing something”.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘do you think a state would be well run by a law like this, which commands each person to weave his own coat and wash it, and make his own sandals and oil-flask and scraper1 and everything else on the same principle of each person’s keeping his hands off what is not [162a] his own, and working at and doing his own job?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied.
‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘a state run on the principle of self-control would be run well.’
‘Certainly,’ he said.
‘Then,’ I said, ‘self-control would not be doing one’s own job when it’s of that sort and done in that way.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Then it looks as if, as I was saying just now, the man who said that doing one’s own job was self-control was speaking cryptically, since I [b] don’t suppose he was so simple-minded as that. Or was it some fool that you heard saying this, Charmides?’
‘Far from it,’ he said. ‘He seemed to be a pretty clever fellow, you know.’
‘Well, as far as I can see, he propounded this as a deliberate puzzle for us, for no other reason than that he thought it would be difficult for us to find out what on earth doing one’s own job is.’
‘Possibly,’ he said.
‘So what on earth would doing one’s own job be? Can you tell me?’
‘Heavens, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I dare say there is no reason why even the man who said it should have the slightest idea of what he meant.’ As he said that, he gave a little smile and looked at Critias.
Now Critias had clearly long been champing at the bit in his eagerness [c] to impress Charmides and the others present. He had only with great difficulty managed to restrain himself up to then, and this was the last straw. I think it’s absolutely certain – as I assumed at the time – that it was from Critias that Charmides had heard this answer about self-control. So Charmides, who did not want to explain the answer himself, but to have Critias do it, kept trying to provoke him and pointing out that he [d] had been refuted. This was too much for Critias. It appeared to me as though he had got irritated with Charmides, just as a poet might do with an actor who treated his poetry badly. So he gave him a look and said, ‘Is that what you think, Charmides? That if you don’t know what on earth the man meant who said that doing one’s own job was self-control, he doesn’t know either?’
‘Why, Critias, my dear fellow,’ I said, ‘it is not at all surprising that at his age Charmides doesn’t understand it; but, of course, it’s natural for [e] you to possess that knowledge in view of your age and your devotion to study. So if you agree that self-control is what Charmides says it is, and are willing to take the argument over, I’d much rather investigate with you whether what we said is true or not.’
‘Well, I do agree,’ he said, ‘and am willing to take it over.’
‘That’s very good of you,’ I said. ‘Tell me, do you also agree with what I was asking a minute ago, that all craftsmen make something?’
‘I do.’
‘Well then, do you think they make only their own things or other [163a] people’s things too?’
‘Other people’s things too.’
‘Then are they self-controlled in so far as they’re not making only their own things?’
‘What objection is there?’ he asked.
‘None as far as I’m concerned,’ I replied. ‘But watch that there is not one for the man who assumes that doing one’s own job is self-control, and then says that there is no objection to those who do other people’s jobs being self-controlled too.’
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I’ve agreed that those who do other people’s jobs are self-controlled, by agreeing that those who make other people’s things are.’
Tell me,’ I said, ‘don’t you call “making” and “doing” the same thing?’ [b]
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied, ‘nor for that matter “working” and “making”. I learned that from Hesiod, who said, “Work is no disgrace.”1 Now, do you suppose that if he had been calling the sorts of thing you were speaking of a minute ago “works” and “working” and “doing”, he would have said there was no disgrace in being a cobbler or selling salt fish or being employed in a brothel? Don’t you believe it, Socrates. Hesiod too, in my opinion, considered making to be different from doing and working. A thing which was made sometimes brought disgrace when it lacked beauty; [c] while a work could never be any disgrace at all. Things that are beautifully and beneficially made he called “works”, and such “makings” he called “workings” and “doings”. It must be stated that he believed only things like that to be a man’s proper business, while everything that was harmful was other people’s business. So we must conclude that both Hesiod and any other knowledgeable person call the man who does his own job self -controlled.’
Critias,’ I said, ‘the minute you began to speak I was pretty sure of [d] your thesis – that you called what is proper to a man and what is his own job good things, and that you called the “makings” of good things “doings”. I have heard Prodicus1 drawing his innumerable distinctions between names, you know. But I give you my permission to assign each name as you wish; only do make it plain to what you are applying which ever name you use. Now then, go back to the beginning again and give us a clearer definition.’
Socrates does not, as one might expect, examine what Critias means by ‘good things’; instead he turns to the question of whether it is [b] possible for the self-controlled man to be ignorant of his being self-controlled. His argument is as follows: (i) self-control is doing what one should; (ii) doing what one should is doing good; therefore, by implication, (iii) self-control is doing good; but (iv) one may do good without knowing it; therefore (v) one may be self-controlled without knowing it.
Critias consequently abandons this line of argument. The implication of this section, of course, is that self-control is doing good knowingly: self-control is the knowledge of (the doing of) good.
[Socrates speaks to Critias] ‘Are you saying that this doing or making, or [e] whatever you like to call it, of good things is self-control?’
‘I am,’ he said.
‘So it’s not the man who does bad things, but the man who does good things who is self-controlled?’
‘Don’t you think so, my good fellow?’ he asked.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Let’s not consider what I think just yet, but rather what you’re saying now.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m saying that it is not the man who doesn’t do good things but does bad who is self-controlled, but that it is the man who does good things and not bad who is. That is, I define self-control quite plainly as the doing of good things.’
‘There’s probably no reason why that shouldn’t be true. However, I [164a] am surprised,’ I said, ‘that you believe that men who are self-controlled do not know that they are self-controlled.’
‘But I don’t,’ he protested.
‘Weren’t you saying a short while ago,’ I said, ‘that there was no reason why craftsmen shouldn’t be self-controlled, even when making other people’s things?’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘But what of it?’
‘Nothing. But tell me whether you think that a doctor, when making someone healthy, does what is beneficial not only to himself but also to [b] the man he is curing?’
‘I do.’
‘Is the man who does that doing what he should?’
‘Yes.’
‘Isn’t the man who does what he should self-controlled?’
‘He certainly is.’
‘Then must a doctor know when his curing is beneficial and when it’s not? Must every craftsman know when he’s likely to profit from whatever work he does and when he’s not?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘So sometimes,’ I said, ‘the doctor does something beneficial or harmful without knowing which he has done.1 And yet, according to what you [c] say, in doing what is beneficial, he has done what is self-controlled. Wasn’t that your point?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Then it would appear that sometimes, when he does what is beneficial, he does what is self-controlled and is himself self-controlled, though he does not know that he is being self-controlled?’
‘But that could never happen, Socrates,’ he said. ‘Still, if you think that that must follow as a result of what I admitted earlier, I’d rather retract part of that admission – and I’d not be ashamed to say that I was wrong – [d] than ever allow that a man who does not know himself is self-controlled.’
The refutation of this definition is attempted, in the first place (165c–166a), by analogy with a ‘productive’ knowledge: sōphrosunē has no product, as medicine (the knowledge of what is healthy) does: it produces health. Critias counters by showing that there are other knowledges, such as arithmetic, which also do not have products; so Socrates has not shown that sōphrosunē cannot be knowledge of oneself.
Socrates accordingly attempts a second refutation, which again uses analogy: every knowledge is the knowledge of something, and this something is different from the knowledge itself. Arithmetic, for example, is the knowledge of numbers, but numbers are not arithmetic itself. So what is sōphrosunē the knowledge of in the same sense? What object different from itself does it have? Critias denies the analogy, and replies that this is precisely the difference between sōphrosunē and all other knowledges.
As a result of all this, the definition of sōphrosunē is modified to ‘knowledge both of the other knowledges and of its own self (and of ignorance)’. sōphrosunē is no longer knowledge of oneself, but knowledge of itself (and of the other knowledges and ignorance): in other words, it is knowledge of knowledge. The move from ‘oneself’ to ‘itself’ appears to be an unwitting fallacy (see Tuckey, pp. 32–6, and Guthrie, IV, pp. 169–70). It arises as a natural consequence of the structure and movement of the argument which, by setting out to demonstrate the uniqueness of sōphrosunē, has driven itself into saying that, if all the other knowledges have objects which are different from themselves, then sōphrosunē (which is already unique in having no product) must, if it is to be unique in this respect too, have itself as its object. In effect, Plato seems to be treating one’s knowledge as equivalent to oneself. This emerges most clearly at 169e, where knowledge of knowledge is made to correspond to a man’s knowledge of himself: what it should in fact correspond to is a man’s knowledge of his own knowledge.
Next the definition is reformulated in terms of the sōphrōn man: he is the man who knows himself and knows what he knows and what he does not know (and what another man knows and does not know).
Finally part of the definiens (the defining expression, i.e. ‘knowing oneself’) is added to the definiendum (what is to be defined, i.e. sōphrosunē and the sōphrōn man): at 167a–b it is said that being sōphrōn, and sōphrosunē, and knowing oneself, are knowing what one knows and what one does not know.(This is expanded in 167b to ‘knowing (that one knows and that one does not know) what one knows and what one does not know’.) By all this Plato is leading up to an interpretation of knowledge of knowledge as knowledge of the extent or limits of one’s knowledge.
[Critias speaks] ‘Indeed, I’d almost say that is what self-control really is, knowing oneself. I agree with the man who dedicated the inscription to that effect at Delphi.1 The fact is, I think that the inscription was dedicated to serve instead of “Hail”, as a greeting from the god to the people entering the temple, as though the god felt that this form of greeting [e] wasn’t correct, and that they ought not to recommend that to one another, but rather self-control. So this is how the god speaks to the people who enter his temple, and not in the way men do. At least, that’s what I think the man who dedicated the inscription intended by the dedication. He says to whoever enters nothing other than “Be self-controlled”. Or rather, he expresses himself more cryptically, as a prophet would, because, as the inscription implies and as I maintain, “Know yourself” and “Be self-controlled” are the same thing, though one might perhaps think that they [165a] are different, as, I believe, the people who dedicated the later inscriptions, “Nothing in excess” and “A pledge is the next thing to ruin”, actually did. In fact, they thought that “Know yourself” was a piece of advice, not a greeting from the god to the people entering. Consequently, because they themselves wanted to dedicate pieces of advice that were no less useful, they inscribed those words and dedicated them. The reason why I’m saying all this, Socrates, is this: I let you have all we’ve said before – perhaps you were more right there, perhaps I was, but nothing of what [b] we said was absolutely clear. Now, however, I’m willing to explain this fully to you, unless you do agree that self-control is knowing oneself.’
‘But, Critias,’ I said, ‘you’re treating me as if I’m maintaining that I know what I’m asking about, and as if I’ll agree with you if I really want to. But it’s not like that. In fact, I’m going along with you in investigating whatever proposition is made, because I myself am in ignorance. So, when I’ve considered it, I’m prepared to tell you whether or not I agree with [c] you. But wait until I’ve considered it.’
‘Consider it, then,’ he said.
‘I am,’ I said. ‘If indeed self-control is knowing something, it will obviously be a knowledge and a knowledge of something, won’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of oneself.’
‘Now, isn’t medicine the knowledge of what is healthy?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘if you asked me, “What use is medicine to us, inasmuch as it is the knowledge of what is healthy? What does it produce?”, I’d say that it is of considerable benefit in that it produces [d] health, a splendid product, for us. Do you accept that?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, if you then asked me what product I say the art of building, which is the knowledge of building, produces, I’d say buildings; and the same for the other arts. Now, since you say that self-control is the knowledge of oneself, you ought to be able to tell me the answer in the case of self-control, when I ask, “Critias, what splendid product worthy of the name does self-control, in so far as it is the knowledge of oneself, [e] produce for us?” Come on then, tell me.’
‘But Socrates,’ he said, ‘your method of investigating the question is wrong. It isn’t like the other knowledges, and they aren’t like one another either; but you’re conducting the investigation as if they were. For tell me,’ he went on, ‘what is the product of the art of arithmetic or geometry, in the way that a house is the product of the art of building, a cloak of the art of weaving, or many other such products of many arts which one could point to? Can you point to any such product of those arts? You won’t be [166a] able to.’
I said, ‘That’s true, but I can point to this – what each of these knowledges is the knowledge of, that thing being different from the knowledge itself. For example, arithmetic is the knowledge of the even and the odd, of the way in which members of the one group are numerically related to one another and to members of the other group, and vice versa, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said.
‘Aren’t the odd and the even different from arithmetic itself?’
‘Of course.’
‘And again, weighing is the weighing of the heavier and the lighter [b] weight; but the heavy and the light are different from weighing itself. You admit that?’
‘I do.’
‘Tell me, then, what is self-control the knowledge of, that thing being different from self-control itself?’
‘That’s just it, Socrates,’ he said. ‘You’ve come in your investigation to the question of what the difference is between self-control and all the other knowledges. You’re trying to find some similarity between it and the others. There isn’t any. All the others are knowledges of something else, [c] not of themselves. Self-control alone is the knowledge both of the other knowledges and of its own self. You’re well aware of that. Indeed I think you’re doing what you said just now you were not doing: you’re ignoring the real point at issue in our discussion in your efforts to refute me.’
‘How can you believe,’ I exclaimed, ‘that if I’m trying my hardest to refute you, I’m doing it for any other reason than that for which I’d investigate what I say myself! You see, my great fear is that I may some [d] time not notice that I’m thinking I know something when in fact I don’t. And this, I tell you, is what I’m doing now: looking at the argument mostly for my own sake, but perhaps for the sake of my friends as well. Or don’t you think that it is a common good for almost all men that each thing that exists should be revealed as it really is?’
‘I do indeed, Socrates,’ he said.
‘Well then, Critias, don’t be discouraged, and give me the answer, as you see it, to the question. Never mind whether it’s Critias or Socrates who is the one refuted. Just concentrate on the argument itself, and consider [e] what on earth will become of it if it is examined.’
‘I’ll do that,’ he said, ‘because I think that what you’re saying is quite reasonable.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘tell me, what do you say about self-control?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I say that it alone of the knowledges is the knowledge both of itself and of the other knowledges.’
‘Would it be a knowledge of ignorance too,’ I asked, ‘if it is a knowledge of knowledge?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he replied.
‘So the self-controlled man alone will know himself and be able to [167a] examine what he in fact knows and what he doesn’t, and he will be capable of looking at other people in the same way to see what any of them knows and thinks he knows, if he does know; and what, on the other hand, he thinks he knows, but does not. No one else will be able to do that. In fact, that is being self-controlled and self-control and knowing oneself “ knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘third time lucky.1 Let’s go back to the beginning again, as it were, and consider – whether or not it is possible for that to [b] be the case – to know that one knows and that one does not know what one knows and what one does not know; and secondly, if it is perfectly possible, what benefit our knowing that would bring us.’
‘Indeed we ought to look at that,’ he said.
Socrates again proceeds by means of analogies. First, a sense such as vision sees colour – it does not see itself and the other visions and non-visions – and an emotional/mental activity such as desire desires pleasure – it does not desire itself and the other desires.
Second, Socrates adduces comparative terms; but these are not true analogies at all. The preceding analogy employed things which, though not knowledges, were all mental activities of some sort and consequently, to a limited extent, analogous to knowing; but comparatives are analogous only in being of something. Plato can attempt the analogy with comparatives only because of a peculiarity of the Greek language, which may express, by the use of the genitive case, ‘greater than’ as ‘greater of’. Thus (i) knowledge is the knowledge of something; (ii) what is superior is the superior of something; (iii) if a thing is the superior of itself, it will also be the inferior of itself.
All this leads to the general conclusion that whatever relates its own faculty to itself will also have that essential nature to which its faculty was related. That is, (a) the superior is the superior of the inferior: if the superior relates its faculty of superiority to itself, it will also have the essential nature (inferiority) to which its faculty was related; so if the superior is the superior of itself, it must simultaneously be the inferior of itself. And (b) vision sees colour: if vision relates its faculty of vision to itself, it will also have the essential nature (colour) to which its faculty was related; if vision sees itself, vision must be coloured, (a) is rightly pronounced impossible, but (b) is left as a (remote) possibility.
‘Come on then, Critias,’ I said, ‘look at it, and see whether you can be shown to be closer to a solution in these matters than I, because I am at a loss. Shall I tell you where I find myself in difficulties?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said.
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘if what you were saying a moment ago really is the case, won’t it all amount to this, that there is some one knowledge which is the knowledge of nothing but itself and the other knowledges, this same [c] knowledge being the knowledge of ignorance too?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘See what a strange thing we’re trying to say, my friend. If you look at that same proposition in other cases, it’ll come to seem to you, I think, that it is impossible.’
‘How? In what cases?’
‘In these. Consider whether you think there is a vision which is not the vision of what the other visions are visions of, but is the vision of itself and the other visions, and non-visions in the same way: and though it is a vision, it sees no colour, only itself and the other visions. Do you think [d] there is such a vision?’
‘Heavens, no, I don’t.’
‘What about a hearing which hears no sound, but hears itself and the other hearings and non-hearings?’
‘No, not that either.’
‘Take all the senses together. Do you think there is some sense of the senses and of itself which, however, senses nothing of what the other senses sense?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Do you think there is some desire which is the desire for no pleasure, [e] but for itself and the other desires?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Nor indeed, I think, is there a wish which wishes for no good, but which wishes for itself and for the other wishes.’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘Would you say there was some love of that kind, which is actually the love of no beautiful thing, but of itself and the other loves?’
‘No, I’d not,’ he said.
‘Have you ever observed a fear which fears itself and the other fears, but fears none of the things which are frightening?’ [168a]
‘No, I haven’t,’ he replied.
‘Or any opinion which is an opinion of opinions and of itself, but which holds no opinion about what the other opinions hold opinions about?’
‘Not at all.’
‘But it would appear we’re saying that there is some such knowledge, which is the knowledge of no branch of learning, but is the knowledge of itself and the other knowledges?’
‘Yes, we are!’
‘Isn’t it strange, then, if it really does exist? In fact, let’s not state categorically just yet that it doesn’t exist, but let’s keep on investigating whether it does exist.’
‘You’re right.’ [b]
‘Come on, then. This knowledge is the knowledge of something, and it has some such faculty, so as to be of something, hasn’t it?’
‘For example, we say that that which is superior has some such faculty, so as to be the superior of something, don’t we?’
‘Yes. It does.’
‘Then that something is inferior, if the other is to be superior.’
‘It must be.’
‘Now, if we were to find some superior thing which is the superior of those things which are superior and of itself, but the superior of none of those things of which the other superior things are the superiors, I’m quite sure that what would be the case with it would be this: if it were the [c] superior of itself, it would also be the inferior of itself, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would certainly have to, Socrates,’ he said.
‘And if something is the double both of the other doubles and of itself, it would itself constitute a half, as would the others, if it were double, since there is not, I’m sure, a double of anything but a half.’
‘True.’
‘That which is the superior of itself will be the inferior of itself too, and what is heavier, lighter, and what is older, younger, and so on. Whatever [d] relates its own faculty to itself will also have that essential nature to which its faculty was related, won’t it? I mean something like this: hearing, for example, we say is the hearing of nothing other than sound, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘If it is to hear itself, it will hear itself as possessing a sound, since it couldn’t hear otherwise.’
‘Most definitely.’
‘And vision, of course, my good friend, if it is to see itself, must have some colour, since vision will certainly never see anything that is colourless.’ [e]
‘No, it definitely won’t.’
‘Do you see, then, Critias, that of all the examples we’ve gone through, for some it seems to us absolutely impossible, while in the case of the others it is very difficult to believe, that they could ever relate their own faculty to themselves? For instance, it is absolutely impossible for magnitudes and numbers and the like, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Whereas hearing and vision, and also motion moving itself and heat burning itself and everything like that, would excite disbelief in some people, though perhaps not in others. What we need, my friend, is some [169a] great man to determine satisfactorily for all instances whether none of the things which exist relates its own faculty to itself naturally, but to something else instead, or whether some do, but others don’t; and if there are things which relate it to themselves, whether the knowledge which we say is self-control is one of them. I don’t believe I’m competent to settle these questions, which is why I cannot state categorically whether it is possible for there to be a knowledge of knowledge, and why I do not accept that, if it definitely does exist, it is self-control, until I have considered whether a thing like that would benefit us or not, since I do have the feeling that self-control is something beneficial and good. Right, then, son of Callaeschrus, since you maintain that self-control is the knowledge of knowledge and indeed of ignorance too, show first, as I said a minute ago, that it is possible, and then that in addition to being possible it is beneficial as well; and you may perhaps satisfy me that you’re right in [c] what you say self-control is.’
It is now assumed for the sake of argument that knowledge of knowledge is possible. Critias makes the point that if a man possesses knowledge of itself (heautēs), he will know himself (heauton). Though this is in fact a fallacy (see p. 192), in that the man should know, not himself, but his own knowledge, Socrates agrees. But he protests against equating knowing oneself with knowing what it is that one knows and what it is that one does not know: knowledge of knowledge will be able to determine only that one thing is knowledge and another is not; a man knows what is healthy by medicine (which is the knowledge of what is healthy), not by the knowledge of knowledge; indeed, knowledge of knowledge will enable a man to know only that he knows something and that he does not know something (and that another man knows and does not know something), but not what he knows.
Knowledge of knowledge will not enable a man to tell a real doctor from a quack. The sōphrōn man will know that the doctor possesses some knowledge, but he will not know what it is knowledge of; it is medicine that tells him that it is knowledge of what is healthy and what is diseased. Further, the doctor himself knows only what is healthy and what is diseased: he does not know about medicine (i.e. medical knowledge) qua knowledge, since knowing about knowledge is the province of the sōphrōn man. Consequently, one can tell a real doctor from a quack only by being a doctor in addition to being sōphrōn: one must possess both sōphrosunē (knowledge that one knows) and technē (professional skill), in order to know what one knows or what another knows in any given technē.
When Critias heard this, and saw that I was in difficulties, he seemed to me to be forced by my being in difficulties to fall into difficulties himself, in the way people who see others yawning in their faces are affected similarly. Well, conscious that he had a reputation to keep up, he felt ashamed in front of the others and was unwilling to admit to me that he was unable to determine the points on which I was challenging him. He said nothing clear, in an attempt to conceal his difficulties. So, to get on [d] with our investigation, I said, ‘Well, if you like, Critias, let’s grant for the moment that it is possible for there to be a knowledge of knowledge. We’ll consider whether or not this is the case later on. Come on then, let’s suppose it is perfectly possible: how does that increase one’s chances of knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t – which, of course, we said1 was knowing oneself, that is, being self-controlled, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said. ‘And it does, I think, follow, Socrates. If a man possesses knowledge which knows itself, he would himself be like [e] what he possesses. For example, when a man possesses swiftness, he is swift; when he possesses beauty, he is beautiful; when he possesses knowledge, he is knowing: and when a man possesses knowledge which is knowledge of itself, he will then, of course, be knowing himself.’2
‘I don’t doubt,’ I said, ‘that when a man possesses that which knows itself he will know himself; but why, when he possesses that, must he necessarily know what he knows and what he doesn’t know?’
‘Because, Socrates, the one is the same as the other.’ [170a]
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘but I don’t really think I’ve changed at all, because I still don’t understand how knowing what one knows and knowing what one does not know are the same as that.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘This,’ I replied. ‘Supposing there is a knowledge of knowledge, will it be able to determine anything more than that one thing is knowledge and another is not?’
‘No, just that.’
‘Is it the same thing as knowledge and ignorance of what is healthy? Is it the same as knowledge and ignorance of what is just?’ [b]
‘Not at all.’
‘The one is, I think, medicine, the other public affairs, while this one is nothing other than knowledge.’
‘Of course.’
‘If a man doesn’t know in addition what is healthy and what is just, but knows only knowledge, inasmuch as he possesses knowledge only of that, he would in all probability know, both about himself and about others, that he or they know something and possess some knowledge, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘How will he know by that knowledge what he knows? For example, he knows what is healthy by medicine, not by self-control; what is harmonious, [c] by music, not by self-control; what makes a building, by the art of building, not by self-control; and so on. Doesn’t he?’
‘So it seems.’
‘How will he know by self-control, if it is only the knowledge of knowledge, that he knows what is healthy or what makes a building?’
‘He won’t at all.’
‘So the man who is ignorant of that won’t know what he knows, but only that he knows.’
‘It would appear so.’
‘Being self-controlled, or self-control, wouldn’t be knowing what one [d] knows and what one doesn’t know, but only, it would appear, that one knows and that one doesn’t know.’
‘It may well be.’
‘Nor will that man be able to examine another man who claims he knows something, to see whether he knows what he says he knows or whether he does not. All he’ll know, it would appear, is that the man possesses some knowledge. Self-control will not make him know what it is of.’
‘It seems not.’
‘So he won’t be able to distinguish the man who pretends to be a doctor, [e] but isn’t, from the man who really and truly is one, or indeed to distinguish any other of those who know from any other of those who don’t. Let’s look at it this way. If the self-controlled man, or anyone else at all, is to know the difference between the man who is really and truly a doctor and the man who is not, he won’t proceed as follows, will he: he certainly won’t talk to him about medicine – because, as we said, a doctor under- stands nothing but what is healthy and what is diseased – will he?’
‘That’s so.’
‘He knows nothing about knowledge. We allocated that to self-control alone.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then the medical man doesn’t know medicine1 either, since medicine [171a] is a knowledge.’
‘So the self-controlled man will know that the doctor possesses some knowledge; but when he has to try to find out what it is, won’t he consider what it is knowledge of? Hasn’t each knowledge been defined not just as a knowledge, but also as a specific one, by reference to what it is of?’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘Medicine, then, is distinguished from the other knowledges by being defined as the knowledge of what is healthy and what is diseased.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then the man who wants to look at medicine must look at whatever things it is concerned with, and surely not at things with which it is not [b] concerned.’
‘Certainly.’
‘The man looking at it properly, then, will consider the doctor qua medical man, in relation to what is healthy and what is diseased.’
‘It would appear so.’
‘As regards what is said or done in such a case, he’ll consider whether what is said is true and whether what is done is right?’
‘He must.’
‘Could anyone follow up either of those questions without medicine?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘No one could, it would appear, except a doctor; nor could the self-controlled [c] man either, unless he were a doctor in addition to being self-controlled.’
‘That’s so.’
‘So inevitably, if self-control is only the knowledge of knowledge and of ignorance, it won’t be able to distinguish the doctor who knows his art from one who doesn’t, but pretends he does or thinks he does, or any other of those people who know anything at all, except for the man who practises the same art as itself, in the way other craftsmen do.’
‘So it seems,’ he said.
(a) Let sōphrosunē be knowledge of what one knows and what one does not know (and of what another knows and does not know). In that case, error would be removed from human life, because each person would do only what he knew and would leave what he did not know to those who did. But such knowledge does not exist.
(b) Let sōphrosunē be knowledge of knowledge in the sense of a general acquaintance with the concept of knowledge (see Guthrie, IV, pp. 162 and 174, and Robinson, pp. 37–8), a sort of ‘knowing how to know’, as well as that one knows. This will make the learning of any ‘ordinary’ epistēmē (knowledge) or technē (skill, craft, art) easier, and will produce a clearer grasp of the knowledge. And knowledge of knowledge in this sense will enable someone who has learned an ‘ordinary’ knowledge to examine anyone else with that ‘ordinary’ knowledge better than someone without this knowledge of knowledge. But this is not a grand enough conception of knowledge of knowledge.
(c) So let sōphrosunē be knowledge of what one knows and what one does not know, in the sense of being a sort of ‘super-knowledge’, a knowledge which presides over the performance of the ‘ordinary’ knowledges, and ensures their correct functioning. There will be technical perfection in every knowledge or skill and no bogus practitioners of any knowledge or skill. But technical perfection is no guarantee of the good and happy life.
‘What benefit would we get from self-control in that case, Critias,’ I [d] asked, ‘if it is like that? If, as we assumed in the beginning, the self-controlled man knew what he knew and what he didn’t know – that he knew the former but did not know the latter – and was able to examine anyone else in the same position, it would be a great benefit to us, we maintain, to be self-controlled. We’d live all our lives without making any mistakes, and not just those of us who possessed self-control, but all those other people who were governed by us as well, because we’d neither try [e] ourselves to do what we didn’t know, but would find those who did and hand the matter over to them, nor trust those whom we governed to do anything except what they were likely to do properly – and that would be what they possessed knowledge of. In that way a house run on the principle of self-control would be likely to be run admirably, as would a state that was run on that principle and everything else that self-control governed. When error has been removed and correctness leads the way, people in [172a] those circumstances must do admirably and well in their every activity, and people who do well must be happy. Isn’t that what we said about self-control, Critias,’ I asked, ‘when we said what a good thing it was to know what one knows and what one doesn’t know?’
‘It certainly was,’ he replied.
‘But as things are,’ I went on, ‘you can see that there is obviously no knowledge like that anywhere.’
‘I can,’ he said.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘does knowing knowledge and ignorance, which is what [b] we are now discovering self-control to be, bring the following advantage, that the man who possesses this knowledge will more easily learn whatever else he learns, and everything will appear clearer to him inasmuch as he will see, in addition to each thing he learns, its knowledge? And will he examine other people better in things he has learned himself, whereas people who examine others without that knowledge will do so more feebly and incompetently? Aren’t those the sorts of benefit we’ll derive from selfcontrol, [c] my friend? Haven’t we got our eye on something grander, and aren’t we demanding that it should be something more than it actually is?’
‘That may perhaps be so,’ he replied.
‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘but possibly what we demanded it should be isn’t anything useful. What makes me suspect this? It’s that there seem to me to be certain strange consequences which follow if self-control is some- thing like that. Let’s see: if you like, let’s agree that it’s possible to know knowledge, and let’s not reject what we assumed in the beginning, that self-control is knowing what one knows and what one doesn’t know. Let’s grant it for the sake of argument. Having granted all that, let’s consider [d] even more carefully whether something like that will in fact benefit us, because I don’t think that we were right in allowing what we were saying a minute ago, that self-control would be a great good if it were a thing like that, and organized the running of both house and state.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ I replied, ‘we readily allowed that it was a great good for men if each group of us were to do what it knows and were to hand over what it doesn’t know to others who do know.’
‘Then we weren’t right in allowing that?’ he asked. [e]
‘I don’t think so,’ I replied.
‘What you’re saying is really strange, Socrates,’ he said.
‘By the Dog,’1I exclaimed, ‘I think so too, you know. That’s what I was referring to just now when I said that there appeared to me to be certain strange consequences which would follow and that I was afraid we weren’t looking at the question properly. The truth is, even supposing self-control actually is like that, I don’t think it’s at all obvious what good [173a] it produces for us.’
‘How is that?’ he said. ‘Explain! We too want to know what you mean.’
‘I’m sure I’m talking nonsense,’ I said. ‘All the same, one must examine any thought that occurs to one and not dismiss it without due consideration, if one has even a little respect for oneself.’
‘Quite right,’ he said.
‘Listen to my dream, then,’ I went on, ‘and see whether it’s come through the Gate of Horn or of Ivory.1 Supposing self-control were as we now define it, and did govern us completely – wouldn’t everything be done as the various knowledges directed? No one who claimed to be a [b] pilot, but wasn’t, would deceive us; no doctor, no general, or anyone else who pretended to know something he didn’t know, would escape our notice. Under those circumstances, wouldn’t the result be that we should be healthier of body than now, that when in danger at sea or in war we should escape unharmed, and that all our utensils, clothing, footwear, indeed all our possessions and many other things too, would be works of [c] skill and art, because we employed true craftsmen? If you liked, we might concede that the art of the seer was the knowledge of what is to be, and that self-control, presiding over it, could deter impostors and appoint the true seers as foretellers of the future. Now, I agree that the human race, given this, would do things and live as knowledge directed – because self-control [d] would mount guard and wouldn’t let ignorance creep in and be a partner in our work. But that by doing things as knowledge directed we’d do well and be happy, that is something we can’t as yet be sure of, my dear Critias.’
‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘you won’t easily find any other complete form of success, if you disregard doing things as knowledge directs.’
Critias defines sōphrosunē as knowledge of good and bad. Socrates responds that the efficient functioning of the other knowledges, such as medicine, is in no way impaired by the absence of the knowledge of good and bad, but that nothing can function well and beneficially without it. Hence, if sōphrosunē is the knowledge of knowledge and ignorance, but it is the knowledge of good and bad that is beneficial, then sōphrosunē is not beneficial.
Critias objects that sōphrosunē, conceived as a ‘super-knowledge’ presiding over the other knowledges, could still be beneficial, by governing the knowledge of good. But Socrates replies that the knowledge of knowledge and ignorance cannot produce the products (erga) of the other knowledges or skills, and therefore cannot produce benefit, which is the product of the knowledge of good.
‘There’s just one more little thing I’d like you to explain to me,’ I said. ‘As knowledge of what directs, do you mean? Of cutting leather for shoes?’
‘Of working in bronze?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Of wool or wood or something like that?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘we no longer adhere to the doctrine that the man who lives as knowledge directs is happy. You don’t allow that those people who live as knowledge directs are happy; rather you seem to me to make a distinction and define the happy man as one who lives as the knowledge of some particular things directs. Perhaps you mean the man I was speaking of a minute ago, the man who knows everything that is to be, the seer. [174a] Do you mean him or someone else?’
‘Both him and someone else.’
‘Who else?’ I asked. ‘Can it be that you mean the kind of man who knows all the past and the present in addition to the future, and is ignorant of nothing? Let’s assume that such a man exists. I don’t imagine you’d say that there was anyone who lived more as knowledge directs than he.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘There’s just one more thing I want to know. Which of the knowledges is it that makes him happy? Or do all of them alike?’
‘Definitely not all of them alike,’ he said.
‘Well, which most makes him happy? The one by which he knows – [b] what past, present or future thing? Is it the one by which he knows the game of draughts?’
‘What! Draughts indeed!’ he exclaimed.
‘The one by which he knows arithmetic?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Is it the knowledge by which he knows what is healthy?’
‘You’re getting closer,’ he said.
‘The closest one I can get to is the one by which he knows – what?’ I said.
‘Good and bad,’ he replied.
‘You wretch,’ I said, ‘you’ve been leading me round in a circle all this time, keeping from me that it was not living as knowledge directed that made one do well and be happy, not even if it were knowledge of all the [c] other knowledges put together, but only if it were knowledge of this on alone, that of good and bad. Because, Critias, if it’s your intention to remove that knowledge from the other knowledges, will medicine make us healthy any the less; shoemaking make shoes any the less; weaving make clothes any the less? Will piloting prevent death at sea any the less, or generalship death in war?’
‘But, my dear Critias, we’ll be unable to ensure that each of these is performed well and beneficially if that knowledge is absent.’ [d]
‘That’s true.’
‘But it would appear that that knowledge isn’t self-control, but rather the knowledge whose function is to benefit us. It’s not the knowledge of knowledges and ignorances, but of good and bad; so that if that knowledge is beneficial, our self-control must be something else.’
‘Why wouldn’t self-control benefit us?’ he asked. ‘If self-control is in the fullest sense the knowledge of knowledges and presides over the other knowledges too, it would certainly govern the knowledge of good too and [e] consequently benefit us.’
‘Would it make us healthy too,’ I asked, ‘not medicine? Would it make the products of the other arts, instead of each of them making its own? Weren’t we solemnly declaring all this time that it was knowledge only of knowledge and ignorance and of nothing else? Isn’t that so?’
‘Apparently.’
‘So it won’t be the producer of health?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Because health belonged to another art, didn’t it?’ [175a]
‘Yes.’
‘So it won’t be the producer of benefit either, my friend, since we allocated that product to another art a minute ago, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘How will self-control be beneficial, then, when it is the producer of no benefit?’
‘It won’t at all, it would appear, Socrates.’
The conclusion is reached that sōphrosunē is not beneficial, though it is agreed to be the most admirable of all things. Socrates finds this unacceptable, and all the more disappointing in that a number of important concessions were made in the course of the investigation to allow the argument to proceed. These were: (i) that there was knowledge of knowledge; (ii) that knowledge of knowledge knew the products of the other knowledges; (iii) that the sōphrōn man knew that he knew what he knew and that he knew he did not know what he did not know (despite the impossibility of a man’s knowing what he does not know – cf. Meno 80d–e, and Euthydemus passim, e.g. 276d ff.).
Socrates blames this outcome on his shortcomings as an investigator and states his belief that sōphrosunē is beneficial. This is a strong hint of the ‘real’ definition: sōphrosunē is the knowledge of good and bad. Since this would be the definition, not of a virtue, but of virtue itself, then, as in the Laches, Socrates is underlining the essential unity of the virtues. The ‘real’ conclusion of the dialogue, which emerges from the aporia, is an affirmation of the Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge.
‘Do you see, Critias, how all this time I had good reason to be apprehensive, and was quite right to accuse myself of not conducting a worthwhile inquiry into self-control? Something that is agreed to be the most admirable of all things wouldn’t have seemed to us to be of no benefit if I had [b] been any use at making a proper investigation. As it is now, we’re defeated on all fronts, and are unable to discover to which actual thing the lawgiver1 gave that name of self-control. And yet we have conceded many points which did not follow from our argument. We conceded that there was a knowledge of knowledge, although the argument denied it and claimed [c] there wasn’t. We conceded that this knowledge knew the products of the other knowledges too (although the argument denied this as well), just to have the self-controlled man in possession of the knowledge that he knows what he knows and that he does not know what he does not know. We made that terribly generous concession without even considering the impossibility of a man’s knowing in some sort of way what he does not know at all; for we allowed that he knows what he does not know, and yet I think nothing would seem stranger than that. All the same, although the investigation has found us so very good-natured and compliant, it has still [d] been no more able to discover the truth, but has made such sport of it as to demonstrate to us quite brutally the uselessness of self-control as we defined it in those fictions we agreed on for so long. I’m not annoyed so much for myself as for you, Charmides,’ I said, ‘because you, who have such good looks and are in addition very self-controlled of soul, will not profit from that self-control, and because despite its presence in you, it [e] won’t bring you any benefit at all in life! I’m even more annoyed about the charm I learned from the Thracian2 – that I went on taking great pains to learn the charm for a thing which is worth nothing. In fact, I really don’t think that this is the case at all, but that I’m an awful investigator– because I do think that self-control is a great good, and that if you do possess it, you are fortunate. See whether you do possess it and have no [176a] need of the charm – because if you do possess it, I’d advise you instead to consider me a fool, incapable of investigating anything in a reasoned argument, and yourself the happier the more self-controlled you are.’
Charmides said, ‘But heavens, Socrates, I don’t know whether I possess it or whether I don’t. How can I know it, when, on your own admission, not even you and Critias are able to discover what on earth it is? Still, I don’t really believe you at all, Socrates, and I really do think I need the [b] charm; and as far as I am concerned, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be charmed by you every day, until you say I’ve had enough.’
‘All right,’ said Critias. ‘But, Charmides, by doing that, you’ll prove to me that you are self-controlled – if you turn yourself over to Socrates for charming, and don’t disappoint him in anything either great or small.’
‘Rest assured that I will follow him and won’t disappoint him. I’d be behaving terribly if I didn’t obey you, my guardian, and didn’t do what [c] you tell me.’
‘I am telling you,’ he said.
‘Well then, I’ll do it,’ said Charmides, ‘starting today.’
‘What are you two plotting to do?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Charmides. ‘We’ve done our plotting.’
‘Are you going to resort to the use of force, without even giving me a preliminary hearing in court?’ I asked.
‘I certainly am,’ he replied, ‘since Critias here orders me to – which is why you should plot what you’ll do.’
‘But there’s no time left for plotting,’ I said. ‘Once you’re intent on [d] doing something and are resorting to the use of force, no man alive will be able to resist you.’
‘Well then,’ he said, ‘don’t you resist me either.’
‘I won’t,’ I said.