A SURVEY OF THE CHARMIDES

The Charmides presents itself as a kind of companion piece to the Laches: an unsuccessful attempt to define temperance (sōphrosunē) matching the unsuccessful attempt to define courage in the Laches. In fact the two dialogues are very different from one another, and the Charmides poses many problems of its own.

A central thread connecting the Charmides with the other threshold dialogues is reflection on the parallel themes of knowledge in the strict sense, as technē, and virtue or moral excellence (aretē). The Charmides pays little attention to the topic of the teaching of virtue, which occupies center stage in the Laches, Protagoras, and Meno, as later in the Republic. The primary concern of the Charmides is to interpret temperance as a beneficial form of knowledge, the kind of knowledge that can make us “do well” (eu prattein) and lead a happy life. The chief peculiarity of the Charmides (aside from the choice of interlocutors) is its preoccupation with the ambiguous claim that temperance must be knowledge-of-knowledge or self-knowledge, not knowledge of anything else.