A Socratic dialogue on self-control (sophrosyne), staged as Socrates courting the beautiful young Charmides with a 'charm' that turns out to be philosophical conversation.
Charmides is one of Plato's early dialogues, set just after Socrates returns from the battle at Potidaea. In the wrestling school of Taureas, Socrates is introduced to Charmides, a strikingly handsome young Athenian, cousin and ward of Critias. Socrates offers to cure a headache Charmides has by teaching him a 'charm,' which turns out to be a pretext for questioning him about sophrosyne — self-control, temperance, or sound-mindedness — on the premise that the soul must be treated before the body.
What follows is a chain of definitions offered and refuted. Charmides first suggests self-control is a kind of quietness, then modesty, then 'doing one's own business.' Critias, growing impatient with his young cousin's failures, takes over the argument himself and proposes that self-control is self-knowledge, and finally that it is 'knowledge of what one knows and does not know' — a reflexive, second-order knowledge. Socrates presses this into deeper trouble: can any knowledge really be of itself and of other knowledges, rather than of some distinct external subject matter (as medicine is of health, geometry of figures)? Even granting such a self-referential knowledge could exist, Socrates argues it would not obviously make anyone happier or more beneficial in action, since knowing that one knows is not the same as knowing the actual subjects themselves.
The dialogue ends in aporia — no definition survives, and Socrates declares the whole inquiry has failed to find what self-control actually is, even though everyone agreed at the start that it is a great good. Charmides, unbothered, decides to keep 'being charmed' by Socrates daily regardless of the outcome. The dialogue is prized less for a doctrine than for its display of the elenctic method, its meditation on self-knowledge (echoing the Delphic 'Know Yourself'), and its vivid, historically loaded cast — Critias and Charmides would later be central and disastrous figures in the oligarchic coup of the Thirty Tyrants, a fact that darkens the dialogue's charm in retrospect.
“We had come back the evening before from the camp at Potidaea, and since I'd been away so long, I was glad to head straight for my usual haunts.”
— Charmides · read this chapter →
“the soul, my good man, he said, is treated with certain charms, and these charms are beautiful words”
— Charmides · read this chapter →
“'modesty is no good companion for a needy man'?”
— Charmides · read this chapter →
“'Know yourself' and 'Be sound-minded' are, as the letters say and I agree, the very same thing”
— Charmides · read this chapter →
“But, by Zeus, Socrates, I myself don't know whether I have it or not.”
— Charmides · read this chapter →
It is a dialogue in which Socrates questions the beautiful young Charmides, and then Critias, about the nature of self-control (sophrosyne). Several definitions are proposed and refuted, and the dialogue ends without settling what self-control is.
Charmides is a handsome young Athenian, ward and cousin of Critias. Both men later became notorious as leaders of the Thirty Tyrants, the brutal oligarchy that briefly ruled Athens in 404 BCE, which gives the dialogue's youthful charm a grim historical undertone.
No definition survives scrutiny in the dialogue. Candidates include quietness, modesty, 'doing one's own business,' and finally Critias's proposal that it is knowledge of what one knows and does not know — all are refuted, and the dialogue ends in aporia.
Critias connects the Delphic inscription 'Know Yourself' to self-control, arguing the two are 'the very same thing,' and reads the inscription as the god's own advice rather than merely a greeting to visitors.
Socrates concludes that none of the definitions of self-control examined has held up, despite everyone agreeing self-control is a great good. Charmides, unfazed, decides to keep coming to Socrates for his 'charm' regardless.
Socrates claims to know a charm for Charmides' headache, but reveals the charm is really philosophical conversation — treating the soul with 'beautiful words' before the body can be healed.
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