2 h 26 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if self-control is harder to understand than it is to praise?
In Plato’s Charmides, Socrates returns from a hard campaign at Potidaea and visits a wrestling school in Athens. There, a beautiful young man named Charmides becomes the focus of a searching conversation. Socrates asks him what temperance means: self-control, moderation, or soundness of mind. A familiar virtue suddenly becomes a question that demands more than a familiar answer.
Charmides offers answers, and Socrates puts each one to the test. Then Charmides’ guardian, Critias, takes up the argument. Is temperance quietness, shame, or minding your own business? Does knowing yourself mean knowing what you know and what you do not? Behind these questions lies another: what makes knowledge useful, and how might care for the soul matter to the whole person?
What you’ll discover
- Socrates at work Follow questions that expose the gaps in answers that first seem clear.
- A cure for the soul Explore Socrates’ account of physicians who link healing the body with healing the soul.
- Familiar virtues under scrutiny Watch quietness, shame, and minding your own business become ideas worth questioning.
- Knowledge that knows itself Meet Critias’ strange proposal that self-knowledge includes knowing the limits of your knowledge.
- The question of benefit Consider whether knowledge of knowledge can help us, and what makes understanding valuable.
Who will love it
For readers who love exploring self-control, self-knowledge and how Socrates argues, and anyone curious about a first step into Plato.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A beautiful boy and a cure
- Heal the soul, and the whole person
- Quietness and shame fail as answers
- Minding your own business is a riddle
- A knowledge that knows itself
- Knowledge of good, and an open end
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Carmide
by Platone
In an Athens wrestling school, Socrates turns a headache cure into a search for what makes a sound mind.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Charmides is a short dialogue by Plato, written in Athens in the early part of the fourth century BC. It asks one plain question: what is temperance?
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A beautiful boy and a cure
The dialogue opens with Socrates back in Athens after the battle at Potidaea. He visits the wrestling school of Taureas and is pressed by his friend Chaerephon for news of the war. Socrates is more interested in the young men, and asks who is now admired for wisdom or beauty. Everyone points to Charmides, the cousin of Critias and an uncle of Plato himself.
When Charmides walks in, the crowd around him is so thick that Socrates feels shaken by the sight. Socrates then finds a way to speak with him. He says he knows a remedy for the headache that Charmides has been suffering from. It is a leaf, he says, but it only works when joined with a charm.
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What is Charmides about?
It is a dialogue in which Socrates asks what temperance is. He talks with a handsome young man, Charmides, and his guardian Critias. They try several definitions, and each is tested and found lacking.
What does sophrosyne mean in Charmides?
Sophrosyne is the Greek word usually translated as temperance. It also carries the sense of self-control, moderation, soundness of mind and knowing oneself.
Who were Charmides and Critias?
Both were real Athenians, related to Plato. Charmides was a young man admired for his looks, and Critias was his cousin and guardian. Both later took part in the oligarchic rule of the Thirty in 404 BC.
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