Thoughts on Charmides

 

              Charmides is the next shorter ethical work and it is also a definitional dialogue whose object is to investigate the virtue of sophrosyne. What is sophrosyne? Well, they never reach a satisfactory definition by the end of the dialogue, but we can start with a working definition. It is the Greek virtue par excellence. It is like temperance and self-control, basically the opposite of pleonexia (“wanting too much’) which is THE cardinal sin for the Greeks. It means to restrain the impulses we have towards unrestricted freedom, to have all things in perfect harmony and measure so that our lives will become excellent. This virtue underlies all of Plato’s work, in my opinion. It is why freedom means discipline. It can not only be seen to have benefits in your life as you go through it, but it makes logical sense as well. Think about times when you have deviated from the happy medium of things – it usually ends in failure, maybe not immediately, but surely it will someday. I can attest to many examples in my own life. When I’ve drank too much, I’ve gotten hungover and become useless for days. I always prided myself on being athletic and fit, and one day I woke up and I was 255 lbs., 100 lbs. heavier than when I was at my fittest. You can even have too much of seemingly good things. You can work out too much and drive your body to ruin that way. You can read and study too much and miss the world and its attendant charm and beauty flowing all around you. You can spend too much time around others and not have enough for introspection and soul-searching to purify your soul. You can spend too much time alone and not have connection with others.

I can go on and on – but just like the Buddhists who talk of the middle way, the Greeks also thought that having balance or sophrosyne would greatly help us to lead a better, more fulfilling life. Not just for ourselves, but for those around us as well. Knowing more about the context of the dialogue also shows the crucial importance of sophrosyne for a life well-lived. Socrates’ two main interlocutors who think they possess the virtue (although they do not), ended up becoming cruel and bloodthirsty despots. Critias became the leader of the Thirty Tyrants who conducted a terrible reign of terror on Athens after the Peloponnesian war (404-403 BC). He was Charmides first cousin. Charmides was Plato’s uncle and was also involved with this group. Socrates and Plato actually possessed the virtue of sophrosyne and were not part of this group and I think that is definitely significant. Humble Socrates didn’t even have enough money to pay a 1 mina fine as we learn in the Apology. We must also keep in mind that, for Plato, being a tyrant was the worst thing you could be, as we learn in Gorgias and Statesman. The reason is because they may do what pleases them, but they don’t do what they want/will. This is because they seek to establish peace and have a good life, but this escapes them. The real way to have a good life and find peace is to be humble and giving, and to possess sophrosyne. This is part and parcel with Plato’s teaching that it is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one. Just look how different the lives of Critias and Socrates turned out. Socrates may have died by a corrupt government unjustly sentencing him to drink hemlock, but at least he went to his death happy with the comfort that he did no wrong and with the hope he would be united to loved ones and heroes of the past. He was loved by many. Critias became a diabolical and murderous tyrant, hated by all. See how a small difference in belief can radically change the contours of a life.

The dialogue begins with Socrates just returning from the battle of Potidaea, whereupon he asks if any of the youth have become know for wisdom and/or beauty in his absence. Critias says there is one who encapsulates both inner and outer beauty, a real poet and philosopher, his cousin Charmides. Socrates lures him into a debate by saying he can cure his headache. He segues this into the dialectical realm by saying, “You ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul” (156e). He says it is a great error to treat the body and soul separately, for they are really a unity – we must have a more holistic view – never disregard the whole person. Socrates says he possesses “charms” that will implant the virtue of sophrosyne in a man’s soul and this will in turn heal his body. I’m not sure what to make of this. I do think it is more evidence that shows Socrates is not quite the person modern materialists think him to be. He wasn’t just some rationalist. It seems he literally believed he could cast a spell with his words that would implant virtue in a man’s heart. I’m not sure that’s possible, but what do I know? Socrates seemed to believe it, maybe it’s true.

To see if he should try to use his charms, he first asks Charmides if he possesses sophrosyne. Charmides chooses a diplomatic answer. He can’t say yes or no because if he said no it would be a lie and it would make Critias look like a fool since Critias claims he does. He can’t say yes because that would be immodest bragging and not concordant with a possessor of such virtue. Therefore, Socrates says they must investigate what sophrosyne is, to see if he does possess it. Charmides’ first definition is that it is a kind of quietness (159b). Socrates doesn’t buy this because he says that we consider it better when people do things faster rather than slower and he equates quietness with slowness. I don’t quite understand why he equates slowness quietness, so I’m not sure I agree with this, but I also don’t know Greek, so I can only reserve judgment. At any rate, Socrates gives young Charmides good advice on how to answer the question, “fix your attention and look within yourself” (160e). His second definition is that it is modesty. Socrates shows that this also can’t be right since sophrosyne is always good. Modesty, however, is not always good. As Homer writes, “Modesty is not good for a needy man.” I agree with this conclusion. The third definition given is that sophrosyne is “doing your own business” (161b). This was given voice by Charmides but was really Critias’ idea and he gets incensed and embarrassed as Socrates logically dismantles it. He says it is a terrible definition because a state would never be well-ordered if people only looked out for themselves and the very substance of sophrosyne is that it makes things well-ordered. Selfishness is never good. Socrates already demolished Ayn Rand style libertarianism all those years ago.

The last definition given is that sophrosyne is self-knowledge (164d). This sounds good, but upon investigation also shows itself to be really weird and complex. If sophrosyne were a type of knowledge, it must have an object different from its subject. For instance, the art of measurement has heavy and light things as its object, but it isn’t equivalent to heavy and light things. Critias replies that sophrosyne is in a transcendent category all by itself. It is the only thing that is the knowledge of knowledge and of itself (166c). This is extremely strange because it would be like saying that vision can’t see colors, but rather vision itself or as Socrates says, “if hearing hears itself, it must hear a voice, for there is no other way of hearing” (168d). It would mean that you could know if a doctor is practicing medicine correctly without any having any knowledge of medicine yourself. Seems ridiculous and impossible (169b). It would mean that you would know if you had knowledge or not, but you wouldn’t know what the knowledge is that you had or did not have. “Then wisdom or being wise appears to be not the knowledge OF the things which we do or do not know, but only the knowledge THAT we know or do not know” (170d)?

Socrates then discusses what he thinks are the benefits of wisdom. If you had it, you would always know what to do and wouldn’t make any mistakes and this would make you happy. As he puts it, “with truth guiding and error eliminated, in all their doings men must do nobly and well and doing well means happiness” (172a). The key to wisdom is knowledge, for “if you discard knowledge, you will hardly find the crown of happiness in anything else” (173d). But it still remains to be seen what the object of such knowledge is. The object of the knowledge of medicine is the human body and how it functions. The object of the knowledge of gardening is how plants grow and what they need to survive, etc. So, what is the object of the knowledge needed for wisdom? Hearkening back to the end of Statesman, it must be that knowledge which allows us to discern good from evil (174b). We need to have knowledge of the Good itself in order to be wise. At any rate, it seems like wisdom is not the same as sophrosyne since sophrosyne isn’t the knowledge of good and evil. Also, the knowledge that knows what it knows and doesn’t know, but not the content of its knowledge seems useless. He is left in aporia. He thinks wisdom and sophrosyne are good things and worthy to possess but can’t define them. As Charmides aptly muses, “how can I know whether I have a thing, of which even you and Critias are, as you say, unable to discover the nature” (176a)? I still am not quite clear on the purpose of the many aporia in the dialogues, but I am now leaning towards the idea that they are not saying what they seem to be saying at the surface level – that we can’t have a virtue if we can’t define it. I think they are pointing out that it is strange how we can embody or know something and yet not be able to articulate it. I also think that the inability to define single virtues abstracted from all the others is Plato’s way of showing us that the virtues are in fact a unity. That’s why it’s impossible to define them-- because they make no sense on their own, only when they are joined together as the unity that they really are. At the end, Charmides and Critias jokingly threaten to use violence to get the definition out of Socrates. Though it is in jest, it is a sinister foreshadowing of the evil and selfish men they would end up becoming. We see the seed here that grew to the great evil fig tree later on.

I think about this dialogue often when I reflect on choices in my own life. I also owe a lot to the book Sovereignty of the Good and to Plato’s dialogues for helping me to make sense of these reflections. Specifically, when considering this dialogue, I ponder how my life may have turned out differently had I known about and taken to heart the virtue of sophrosyne. I honestly have no idea how it would have turned out but think it probably would have gone better. I do know that I wouldn’t regret some decisions, like failing out of engineering school and not pursuing a master’s and doctorate. I have the brains for it, but at the time I didn’t commit enough and lacked sophrosyne, so I failed. My last year in California, I planned a magnificent list of hikes to go on to see before I left the state for a long time, but I was unable to do almost all of them because eating pizza, drinking, smoking cigarettes, and playing video games consumed more of my time than they should have. I didn’t learn and did the same things when I moved to Colorado. I let life slip right by me. I haven’t paid enough attention to my wife, friends, family, or pet at times and I bitterly regret it. It is excruciatingly difficult and painful to abandon a lifetime of bad habits, overcome childhood trauma, and install good habits in their place.

I’ve always held that my greatest fear was disappointing or failing those I care about. I’ve realized that fear more than I care to admit. What Sovereignty of the Good taught me was that none of these individual choices were the culprit. It was rather habits and ways of life, the “in-between times,” that led me to these places which I did not want to go. In the moment we may think, what the hell, why not have that extra slice of pizza or one more beer. Many of my friends have had that mentality and they are now dead. I thought the same way and regret many things and could’ve died many times. I’d love to be a father someday and am terrified that I won’t be a good one. I get worried that I’m not being the best husband, son, brother, and friend that I can be to people. I’ve learned things that have given me hope that I won’t always let others down. It’s the little everyday things we do and the things we give our attention to on a consistent daily basis that shape our lives.

We should reflect and observe how we are living and see if some things should be cut out or added to in order to improve our souls. What seems to be an utterly innocuous and small decision reverberates throughout our lives like the fabled butterfly whose wings flapping in China cause a tornado in Kansas. We must be ever vigilant and watchful at all times to make sure that we follow the maxim, “Never too much.” Also, “Never too little.” There is too much waste and consumption in this world. We would do well to live more simply and beautifully. It will enrich our souls, the souls of those around us, and the cosmos we inhabit and on which we depend. This dialogue led me to much fruitful reflection that I hope will bear fruit in my life, and no higher praise can be given to any piece of philosophical literature. I have the firmest hope that I will improve because I genuinely want to, in my better moments, and I know that the Lover of all mankind is guiding me and all others to Himself. The bard said it best through his magnificent character Hamlet, "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will” (Act V, Scene II).