Socrates’ dialectical examination of σωϕροσύνη with Charmides and Critias constitutes a single progressive investigation of the virtue. That investigation is given its direction by Socrates’ intent on leading his interlocutors to greater insight into σωϕροσύνη; the particular path it takes is determined in part by Socrates’ interlocutors, whose cognitive-moral states provide the starting points of the investigation. But the dialogue does not treat these cognitive-moral states as fixed, so that it would be Socrates’ goal simply to bring them forth to the light of day (and reveal their inadequacy). Rather, they are treated as subject to change, and it is precisely Socrates’ aim to bring about such change. When Socrates brings Charmides to a level beyond which he is not prepared to go, Critias takes over, and the discussion soon becomes quite abstract – a sign, not of Critias’ evasiveness, but of his intellectual sophistication. In the course of the discussion, considerable progress is made toward greater insight into σωϕροσύνη, and the path is indicated whereby the reader can get further in the quest for such insight.

Socrates starts then from Charmides’ current cognitive-moral condition. We get some insight into this both from the accounts of σωϕροσύνη he offers Socrates and from the byplay in the opening scene. As we have seen, immediately before the dialectical inquiry gets under way, Socrates asks Charmides whether he possesses σωϕροσύνη “sufficiently.” Charmides sees the potentially self-undermining nature of ascribing that virtue to oneself and avoids it as follows: