Chapter 5 Notes
1. John Burnet in his note on Plato’s Crito 45b4 and on 45b5 remarks that a number of men interested in philosophy from Thebes, Megara, Phlius, and Cyrene visited Socrates after the war ended, as can be seen from Plato’s Crito and Phaedo and from Aeschines of Sphettos (one of Socrates’ closest disciples), as quoted by Diog. Laert. ii.65): ‘It is quite clear then that, before the Peloponnesian War, that is, when he was still in his thirties, Socrates had a reputation all over the Greek world, and especially in Pythagorean and Eleatic circles. During the War Thebes, Megara and Phlius were cut off from Athens, but the admirers of Socrates did not forget him, and those of them who could do so came to Athens to see him again when peace was concluded. No account of Socrates can claim to be historical which does not take these things into consideration. It may be added that the doubts of the loyalty of Socrates to the dêmos which moved Anytus [to instigate the indictment and ascertain the conviction of Socrates, J.T.] would only be confirmed by the way in which men who had recently been enemy aliens flocked to Athens to see him as soon as they safely could.’ John Burnet, Plato: Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, edited with notes by John Burnet, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1924, reprinted 2002, p. 264.
2. Donald Watt, ‘Introduction to Charmides’ in Plato: Early Socratic Dialogues, Penguin Books, London 1987, p. 167. Gerhard Müller on the other hand maintains that Plato did not take the political role of Critias into consideration at all in the Charmides, ‘for it was beneath the theme of the dialogue’. This view allows Müller a much more sensitive interpretation of the dialogue than can be offered by those who superimpose a denigration of Critias on the dialogue, but in its own way it is equally misleading, for the political role of Critias was very much on Plato’s mind, the concept of the best government is explicitly brought forward in the dialogue, and it makes a profound impact on the behaviour of Critias in the closing scene. (Cf. Gerhard Müller, ‘Philosophische Dialogkunst Platons (am Beispiel des Charmides)’, Museum Helveticum, 33, 1976, p. 133.)
3. In the Charmides Socrates elicits from his interlocutors attempts at definitions of the virtue of sôphrosunê, which he then subjects to his refutations; as such it has been considered to be an early Socratic dialogue. Those who view it in this way maintain that when Plato wrote it, he knew nothing of the Forms. Yet in the latter part of the twentieth century a number of scholars have realized that the early dialogues, and in particular the Charmides, can be properly appreciated only if seen against the background of the theory of Forms. (See e.g. Hans Herter, ‘Selbsterkenntnis der Sophrosyne. Zu Platons Charmides.’ Festschrift Karl Vretska, Heidelberg 1970, pp. 79-80: ‘Betrachtet man nämlich den Tatbestand auf der Folie der Ideenlehere, so ergibt sich, daß die Sophrosyne Idee ... ist ...Wilamowitz und andere haben sich dagegen verwahrt, in dem Frühdialoge die Ideenlehre vorauszusetzen, während andere, neuestens besonders Untersteiner und Erbse, dafür eingetreten sind.’) Gerhard Müller concluded that the Charmides must be later than those dialogues in which the theory of Forms is propounded. (Gerhard Müller, op. cit. p. 144: ‘In Wahrheit steht die ganze platonische Metaphysik hinter ihm [sc. hinter dem Charmides].’ The price he pays for his more perceptive view of its Platonic character is the elimination of the Socratic element from the dialogue. Modern interpreters emphasize either the Socratic features of the Charmides at the expense of the Platonic ones, or vice versa. I shall argue that both the Socratic and the Platonic dimension of the Charmides can be given due weight, and further important questions about it can be raised and solved if we date it as a follow-up to the Phaedrus.
4. See Xenophon, Hellenica II.ii.8.
5. C.J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedrus, Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 1986, n. on Phaedrus 259c.
6. P. Friedländer, Plato, ii. The Dialogues: First Period, London 1964, p. 80.
7. Guthrie observes that Socrates in this introductory scene ‘is the philosophical lover of the Phaedrus’, but he is blissfully unaware of the philosophic consequences of his observation. What makes a man into ‘the philosophical lover of the Phaedrus’ is the Recollection of the Forms of Beauty and Sôphrosunê. See Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy, iv: Plato, the Man and His Dialogues: Earlier Period, Cambridge 1975, p. 164.
8. T.G. Tuckey writes: ‘The kaloi logoi which constitute the charm ... clearly refer to the Socratic method of elenchos whereby he convinced men of their own ignorance and of the necessity of psuchês epimeleia, the essential prerequisite of virtue.’ T.G.Tuckey, Plato’s Charmides, Cambridge 1951, pp. 18-19.
9. Cf. Thomas A. Szlezák, Platon und die Schriftlichkeit der Philosophie, de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1985, p. 143 and n. 29. Szlezák quotes R. Dieterle (Platons Laches und Charmides, Diss. Freiburg i. Br. 1966, 149f.) whose view on the Charmidian epôidê appears to be similar to the view of Tuckey. Dieterle argues that the charm is contained within the dialogue, for temperance is created in Charmides’ soul within the dialogue itself. Against this Szlezák points out that Dieterle has mistaken Charmides’ natural aptitude for temperance with temperance itself. Szlezák argues that although Charmides is turned towards temperance in the dialogue, the charm that is to instil temperance is to be applied only after this turning has been achieved; the charm and the dialogue are thus clearly held apart.
10. See e.g. P. Friedländer, op. cit. pp. 67-81; Guthrie, op. cit. pp. 155-74; D. Watt, op. cit. pp. 165-174.
11. Cf. Szlezák, op. cit. p. 148: ‘Können wir uns ... der Notwendigkeit entziehen, den vorliegenden Dialog [i.e. the Charmides] im Licht des viel später geschriebenen Phaidros zu lesen? Keineswegs.’
12. Cf. Szlezák, l.c.: ‘Sokrates ... hat die Besprechung bereits ... ‘gelernt’ meta pollês spoudês (175e4 - es war dies wohl jene kalliôn spoudê, von der er Phdr. 276e5 spricht) ... Sokrates hat die Besonnenheit als Ergebnis der kaloi logoi, d. h. nicht nur als Naturanlage wie Charmides, sondern als philosophisches Wissen von der Ideen, von der Seele, und damit auch von sich selbst.’
13. W.R.M. Lamb, LCL edition of Plato, vol. viii (1955), p. 48, n.1.
14. In the Phaedrus no proper elenchus can be found. Lysias’ Eroticus is examined in the Phaedrus only indirectly, by questioning Lysias’ lover Phaedrus concerning it. In a similarly indirect way are examined the views on rhetoric that Phaedrus has learned, but does not hold as his own.
15. Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 987b1-8.
16. Cf. Aristotle’s remark that Plato believed that the semblances of the Forms, perceptible to the senses, were named according to the Forms (Metaphysics 987b7-10).
17. See esp. Plato, Alcibiades 129a-133b.
18. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea 1144b28-30.
19. Cf. Müller, op.cit. pp. 135-6: ‘Wenn nach einem sonderbaren Wissen gesucht wird, das mit keiner bekannten Wissensart identisch sein kann, dann muss jeder ernsthafte Platonleser an das Ideenwissen denken. Das Wissen des Wissens, auch Wissen des “grossen Mannes” (169a) genannt, kann nur das noetische sein.’
20. In the previous versions of the chapter on the Charmides, originally simply an unpublished paper on the dialogue, I wrote ‘It has long been recognized that the key to this sentence can be found in Odyssey xix, 563-7, where true dreams are said to come through the gate made of horn, false ones through the gate made of ivory. But Bernd Witte is the only one to have realized that Plato’s reference to the Odyssey throws light on the dialogue itself’. To this sentence I appended a note: ‘Cf. Witte, op. cit. pp. 131-134.’ Before putting the revised version on the website I realized that the note in which I quoted Bernd Witte’s work is missing. I tried to find it in the preceding versions, but it is missing in all the versions I have preserved. Since I live far removed from any library to which I could take recourse, and since I live on pension credit, that is on the existential minimum afforded to me by the British social system, I cannot afford myself to go to Oxford and try to find the reference in the Bodleian Library. What I nevertheless can and must do is emphasize my gratitude to Bernd Witte for his focussing my thought on the question of the relevance of the dream for the interpretation of the dialogue. I do not even remember whether Witte’s work was an article or a book. The only thing I know is that prior to my reading Witte’s interpretation of the dialogue neither my previous reading of the Odyssey, nor Lamb’s remark in his Loeb edition of the Charmides which says simply that the line in which Socrates speaks of his dream refers to Odyssey xix. 562, induced me to give Plato’s reference serious thought. Witte’s work did, and for that I want to thank him.
|