Charmides

Charmides

Author: Plato

Publisher: Hackett Publishing

Published: 1986-01-01

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 9780872200104

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A literal translation, allowing the simplicity and vigor of the Greek diction to shine through.


Plato's Charmides

Plato's Charmides

Author: Voula Tsouna

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-02-17

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1316511111

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A close text commentary showing the interplay of the philosophical issues, the characters and the dialectic across the dialogue.


Profound Ignorance

Profound Ignorance

Author: David Lawrence Levine

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-10-30

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 149850177X

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Returning from the battle of Potidaea, Socrates reenters the city only to find it changed, with new leadership in the making. Socrates assumes the mask of physician in order to diagnose the city’s condition in the persons of the young and charismatic Charmides and his ambitious and formidable guardian Critias. Beneath the cloak of their self-presentations, Doctor Socrates discovers a profound and communicable disease: their incipient tyranny, “the greatest sickness of the soul.” He thereby is able to “foresee” their future and their role in the oligarchy (The Thirty Tyrants) that overthrows the democracy at the end of the Peloponnesian War. The unusual diagnostic instrument of this physician of the city: the question of sophrosyne (customarily translated as moderation). The analysis of the soul of this popular favorite uncovers a distorted development with little prospect of self-knowledge, and that of the guardian, a profound disabling ignorance, deluded and perverted by his presumed practical wisdom. Alongside on the bench sits Socrates whose ignorance, by contrast, shows itself to be enabling, measured and prospective. In this way, the profound ignorance of the tyrant and the profound ignorance of the philosopher are made to mutually illuminate one another. In the process, Levine brings us to see Plato’s extended apologia or defense of Socrates as “a teacher of tyrants” and his counter-indictment of the city for its unthinking acceptance of its leaders. Moreover, in the face of modern skepticism, we are brought to see how such “value judgments” are possible, how Plato conceives the prospects for practical judgment (phronȇsis). In addition we witness the care with which Plato presents his penetrating diagnoses even amidst compromised circumstances. Levine, further, is at pains to situate the specific dialogic issues in their larger significance for the philosophic tradition. Lastly, the author’s inviting style encourages the reader to think along with Socrates. The question of tyranny is always relevant. The question of our ignorance is always immediate. The conversation about sophrosyne needs to be resumed.


Plato's Charmides

Plato's Charmides

Author: T. Godfrey Tuckey

Publisher: CUP Archive

Published: 1968

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13:

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A dialogue of Plato, in which Socrates engages a handsome and popular boy named Charmides in a conversation about the meaning of sophrosyne, a Greek word usually translated into English as "temperance," "self-control," or "restraint." When the boy is unable to satisfy him with an answer, he next turns to the boy's mentor Critias. In the dialogue, Charmides and then later Critias champion that Temperance is "doing one's own work" but Socrates derides this as vague. The definition given next of "knowing oneself" seems promising but the question is then raised if something can even have the knowledge of itself as a base. As is typical with Platonic early dialogues, the two never arrive at a completely satisfactory definition, but the discussion nevertheless raises many important points. The Charmides is one of Plato's most homoerotic dialogues. Socrates admires Charmides' beauty at the beginning of the dialogue, saying "I saw inside his cloak and caught on fire and was quite beside myself."


Plato’s Charmides

Plato’s Charmides

Author: Thomas M. Tuozzo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-09-12

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1139497952

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This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights. Through careful, contextually sensitive analysis of Plato's arguments concerning the virtue of sophrosyne, Thomas M. Tuozzo brings the dialogue's lines of inquiry together, carrying Plato's argument forward to a substantive conclusion. This innovative reading of Charmides reverses misconceptions about the dialogue that stemmed from an impoverished conception of Socratic elenchus and unquestioned acceptance of ancient historiography's demonization of Critias. It views Socratic argument as a tool intended to move its addressee to substantive philosophical insights. It also argues, on the basis of recent historical research, a review of the fragments of Critias' oeuvre and Plato's use of Critias in other dialogues, that Plato had a nuanced, generally positive view of Critias. Throughout, readers are alerted to textual difficulties whose proper resolution is crucial to understanding Plato's often abstract arguments.


Does Socrates Have a Method?

Does Socrates Have a Method?

Author: Gary Alan Scott

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2009-03-02

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780271046495

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Although "the Socratic method" is commonly understood as a style of pedagogy involving cross-questioning between teacher and student, there has long been debate among scholars of ancient philosophy about how this method as attributed to Socrates should be defined or, indeed, whether Socrates can be said to have used any single, uniform method at all distinctive to his way of philosophizing. This volume brings together essays by classicists and philosophers examining this controversy anew. The point of departure for many of those engaged in the debate has been the identification of Socratic method with "the elenchus" as a technique of logical argumentation aimed at refuting an interlocutor, which Gregory Vlastos highlighted in an influential article in 1983. The essays in this volume look again at many of the issues to which Vlastos drew attention but also seek to broaden the discussion well beyond the limits of his formulation. Some contributors question the suitability of the elenchus as a general description of how Socrates engages his interlocutors; others trace the historical origins of the kinds of argumentation Socrates employs; others explore methods in addition to the elenchus that Socrates uses; several propose new ways of thinking about Socratic practices. Eight essays focus on specific dialogues, each examining why Plato has Socrates use the particular methods he does in the context defined by the dialogue. Overall, representing a wide range of approaches in Platonic scholarship, the volume aims to enliven and reorient the debate over Socratic method so as to set a new agenda for future research. Contributors are Hayden W. Ausland, Hugh H. Benson, Thomas C. Brickhouse, Michelle Carpenter, John M. Carvalho, Lloyd P. Gerson, Francisco J. Gonzalez, James H. Lesher, Mark McPherran, Ronald M. Polansky, Gerald A. Press, François Renaud, and W. Thomas Schmid, Nicholas D. Smith, P. Christopher Smith, Harold Tarrant, Joanne B. Waugh, and Charles M. Young.


Emotions in Plato

Emotions in Plato

Author: Laura Candiotto

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-05-11

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9004432272

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Emotions in Plato, through a detailed analysis of emotions such as shame, anger, fear, and envy, but also pity, wonder, love and friendship, offers a fresh account of the role of emotions in Plato’s psychology, epistemology, ethics and political theory.


Plato's 'Republic'

Plato's 'Republic'

Author: Mark L. McPherran

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-11-25

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0521491908

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The essays in this volume provide a picture of the most interesting, puzzling, and provoking aspects of Plato's Republic.


Plato's Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality

Plato's Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality

Author: Walter T. Schmid

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1998-04-02

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780791437643

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In this book, W. Thomas Schmid demonstrates that the Charmides -- a platonic dialogue seldom referenced in contemporary studies -- is a microcosm of Socratic philosophy. He explores the treatment of the Socratic dialectic, the relation between it and the Socratic notion of self-knowledge, the Socratic ideal of rationality and self-restraint, the norm of holistic and moral health, the interpretation of the soul as the rational self, the Socratic attitude toward democracy, and the connections between dialectic autonomy and moral community. Schmid argues that the depiction and account of sophrosune -- human moderation -- in the Charmides adumbrates Plato's vision of the life of critical reason, and of its uneasy relation to political life in the ancient city.


Plato's Dialogue on Friendship

Plato's Dialogue on Friendship

Author: Plato

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9780801495618

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Originally published in 1979, Plato's Dialogue on Friendship is the first book-length interpretation of the Lysis in English, offering both a full analysis and a literal translation of this frequently neglected Platonic dialogue. David Bolotin interprets the Lysis as an important work in its own right and places it in the context of Plato's other writings. He attempts to show that despite Socrates' apparent failure to discover what a friend is, a coherent understanding of friendship emerges in the Lysis. His commentary follows the dialogue closely, and his interpretation unfolds gradually, as he is providing a detailed summary of the Lysis itself. Mr. Bolotin's translation captures the playfulness and rich ambiguities of the Lysis and its effectiveness as conversational drama. His book, written with precision and clarity, should be useful to students of political philosophy and ancient philosophy.