Charmidean researches

[plato-charmides]

[plato-charmides]

Cydias (155d5)

Watt 1987, 180n1, claims a floruit of c. 500, and cites Edmonds' Loeb Lyra Graeca III, p. 68, fr. 2.

But note this abstract of a paper by N. Rynearson:

Socrates as Critic: Charmides 155d-e

This paper examines Plato’s representation of Socrates as a reader of poetry. The main focus is the intersection of the critical reading of poetry with self-knowledge and self- presentation in Socrates’ citation of the lyric poet Cydias in the Charmides. Plato puts Socrates in the position of reader and critic of the poet in relation to his own experience of erôs. What kind of reader is Socrates and how does his reading of Cydias relate to his understanding of his own desire for Charmides and to his first-person narration of the dialogue as a whole? How does the relationship of Socrates to the words of Cydias relate in turn to the dialogue’s themes of sôphrosunê and self-knowledge?

Socrates’ experience of desire thus renders the self available as an object of investigation both for himself and, through first-person narration, for the reader - an unveiling parallel to the metaphorical stripping of Charmides through dialectic. As others have noted, one effect of this ‘ autobiography in miniature’ is to raise the question of sôphrosunê’ s relationship to strong passions, suggested by Socrates’ interpretation of Cydias’ verse as a warning about the dangers of erôs. More significantly, Socrates’ reading of Cydias as a way of reading and expressing his own desire is implicated in the question of self- knowledge to which the investigation of sôphrosunê leads. But since self-reflection here takes a detour through the language of another, it stages a triangulation in which poetry intercedes between self as subject and self as object. The scene thus invites an investigation of the relationship of interpreting poetry to both ‘reading’ and displaying the self, a relationship shaped by a longstanding archaic tradition that links critical response to poetry with self-presentation in elite contexts such as the symposium. Finally, Socrates adds a layer of complexity to Plato’s well-known hostility to poetry by attributing superlative wisdom to Cydias, an attribution all the more pointed because it falls within the field that constitutes a singular exception to Socrates’ own disavowal of knowledge, ta erôtika.

[plato-charmides]

What is discipline?

From Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James (p. 25):

My own bad habits got worse--talking back in class, cracking jokes, never bothering to do my homework. I was a quick learner, though, and one of the priests, Brother Timothy, took an interest in me.

"You have an exceptional mind, James," he said. "But you lack discipline."

"What's discipline?" I asked.

"Making yourself do things you don't want to do."

"Well," I said, "I don't want to do discipline."

"That's just the point. Without discipline, there's no achievement."

"What's achievement?"

"Getting things done. Finding a way through the world."

[plato-charmides]

μαντεύομαι as 'vision [of something important]'

Socrates nears the summary of the discussion of the Philebus:

Our discussion would then continue as follows: 'Will you have any need to associate with the strongest and most intensive pleasures in addition to the true pleasures?' we will ask them. 'Why on earth should we need them, Socrate?' they might reply, 'They are a tremendous impediment to us, since they infect the souls in which they dwell with madness or even prevent our own development altogether. Furthermore, they totally destroy most of our offspring, since neglect leads to forgetfulness. But as to the true and pure pleasures you mentioned, those regard as our kin. And besides, also add the pleasures of health and of temperance and all those that commit themselves to virtue as to their deity and follow it around everywhere. But to forge an association between reason and those pleasures that are forever involved with foolishness and other kinds of vice would be totally unreasonable for anyone who aims at the best and most stable mixture or blend. This is true particularly if he wants to discover in this mixture what the good is in man and in the universe and to get some vision of the nature of the good itself (πέφυκεν ἀγαθὸν καὶ τίνα ἰδέαν αὐτὴν εἶναί ποτε μαντευτέον)" (Phlb. 63d2-64a3)

[plato-charmides]

Argument for sôphrosunê as 'discipline'

Its opposite is akolasia:

 Prot. 349d7, Grg. 507c6: ὁ ἐναντίως ἔχων τῷ σώφρονι, ὁ ἀκόλαστος, Aristotle EN 3.10.1117b23-1119b18.

LSJ:

ἀκόλᾰσ‑τος, ον, undisciplined, unbridled, δῆμος Hdt.3.81; ὄχλος E.Hec.607; στράτευμα X.An.2.6.10, cf. Ar.Nu.1348, Pl.Prt.341e, etc. 2. esp. incontinent, licentious, S.Fr.744; opp. σώφρων, Pl. Grg.507c, Arist.EN1117b32, al.; περί τι Id.HA572a12; πρός τι 582a26. Adv. ἀκολάστως, ἔχειν Pl.Grg.493c: Comp. ‑οτέρως‑ ἔχειν πρός τι X.Mem.2.1.1, cf. Aen.Tact.26.2, dub. in Vett.Val.153.32, 271.12 (leg. ἀκοπιάστως).

κολάζω, fut. κολάσω And.1.136, Lys.31.29, X.Cyr.7.5.8, Pl.Lg. 714d, etc.: aor. ἐκόλασα Ar.V.927, Th.3.40:—Med., fut. κολάσομαι Theopomp.Com.27, X.HG1.7.19; twice contr. in Ar., 2sg. κολᾷ Eq.456, part. κολωμένους V.244: aor. ἐκολασάμην Th.6.78, Pl.Mx. 240d:—Pass., fut. -ασθήσομαι Th.2.87, etc.: aor. ἐκολάσθην Id.7.68: pf. κεκόλασμαι Antipho 3.4.8, D.20.139:—check, chastise, τὰς ἐπιθυμίας Pl.Grg.491e; τὸ πλεονάζον Plu.2.663e, etc.; τὴν ἀμετρίαν Gal.6.29:—Pass., to be corrected, τὸ ἐν μέλιτι χολῶδες ‑άζεται Hp. Acut.59, cf. X.Oec.20.12: pf. part. Pass., chastened, εὐπειθὲς καὶ κεκολ. Arist.EN1119b12; δίαιτα Luc.Herm.86; ῥήτωρ κεκ. Poll.6.149; ἰσχὺς κ. ἐς ῥυθμούς Philostr.VS1.17.3; also of an athlete, ἀπέριττος τὰ μυώδη καὶ μὴ κεκ. Id.Gym.31. 2. chastise, punish, τινα E.Ba.1322, Ar.Nu.7, etc.; τὰ σέμν’ ἔπη κόλαζ’ ἐκείνους use your proud words in reproving them, S.Aj.1108: c. dat. modi, λόγοις κ. τινά ib.1160; θανάτῳ E.Hel.1172, Lys.28.3; πληγαῖς, τιμωρίαις, Pl. Lg.784d, Isoc.1.50; ἀτιμίαις Pl.Plt.309a:—Med., get a person punished, Ar.V.406, Pl.Prt.324c, v.l. X.Cyr.1.2.7:—Pass., to be punished, etc., Antipho 3.3.7, X.Cyr.5.2.1, etc.; of divine retribution, Plu.2.566e; suffer injury, Ael.NA3.24. 3. of a drastic method of checking the growth of the almond-tree, Thphr.HP2.7.6:—Pass., Id.CP1.18.9; cf. κόλασις I.

[plato-charmides]

Gerson on Thracian medicine

Lloyd Gerson (Knowing Persons, 2003), pp. 21-2, is trying to understand Socrates' claim that we should care for the soul and not for the things of the body, or rather, that the 'Socratic paradoxes' are true. G. quotes Chrm. 156d8-157a3, where the Thracian makes the analogies between eye-head, head-body, and body-soul, and says "all good and evil, whether in the body or in the whole human being [παντὶ τῷ ἀνθώπῳ] originates in the soul...". Gerson remarks:

The distinction between body, soul, and 'whole human being' is not entirely clear here. Straightforwardly, what seems to be implied is that soul is to body as head to eye and body to head. And this would make 'soul' evidently equivalent to the 'whole human being.' [fn.12: disagreement with Robinson 1995, 5, who equates soul and whole man.] But this cannot be correct, for well-being in the 'whole human being' originates in the soul; it is not equivalent to well-being in the soul. Socrates is here, in fact, making a rather commensensical claim that a pain, namely Charmides' headache, ought to be dealt with first by treating the soul. In addition, he is making the somewhat less commensensical claim—at least not so well known to Greek physicians—that one should start with the soul in treating the whole man. The disregard of these physicians for the whole human being is indeed disregard for the soul—not, however, because the soul is the whole human being but because in disregarding the most important part, they disregard the whole human being.

[plato-charmides]

Xenophon on Socrates on Callias on sôphrôn Autolycos

Socrates says that Callias loves Autolycus who "is not marked by dainty elegance nor wanton effeminacy, but shows to the world physical strength and stamina, virile courage and sobriety" (X. Symp. 8.8)

οὐχ ἁβρότητι χλιδαινομένου οὐδὲ μαλακίᾳ θρυπτομένου, ἀλλὰ πᾶσιν ἐπιδεικνυμένου ῥώμην τε καὶ καρτερίαν καὶ ἀνδρείαν καὶ σωφροσύνην

[plato-charmides]

Whatever dreams are divine and foretell evil or good to communities or to private persons have interpreters who are in possession of an art concerning such matters. But whatever physical symptoms the soul foretells – surfeit, depletion, excess of what is natural, change to what is unaccustomed–these things, too, have intepreters, and sometimes they chance to get it right, but at other times they miss the mark. (On Regimen 4.87)

[plato-charmides]

"He kept on speaking, but said nothing clear…."

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/02/errol_morris_on_rumsfeld_the_truth_and_the_unknown_known/

[plato-charmides]

Strengths of the virtue of temperance

http://www.amazon.com/Character-Strengths-Virtues-Handbook-Classification/dp/0195167015

[plato-charmides]

Interpretation of wise men's thinking

Protagoras 345d6-e4 is in the midst of Socrates' analysis of Simonides' poem:

Simonides was not so uneducated as to say that he praised all who did nothing bad willingly, as if there were anyone who willingly did bad things. I am pretty sure that none of the wise men thinks that any human being willingly makes mistakes or willingly does anything wrong or bad. They know very well that anyone who does anything wrong or bad does so involuntarily. (tr. Trivigno 2013, 523)

Earlier, Socrates had given a minimal interpretation of the 'Know yourself,' as first fruits of the Sages' wisdom. (He is not obviously saying that they treat those sayings as advice. And he does not distinguish between the main grammata.)

[plato-charmides]

ἀμήχανος in Simonides

In Simonides' song to Scopas, quoted in Plato's Protagoras, Simonides says:

ἄνδρα δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστι μὴ οὐ κακὸν ἔμμεναι | ὅν [ἂν] ἀμήχανος συμφορὰ καθέλῃ (Prot. 344c4-5)

"But it is not possible for the man not to be bad | whom irresistible events throw down."

Does ἀμήχανος have a wrestling context here? More generally, is the sense always "not possible to deal with some offensive/powerful force"?

[plato-charmides]

Δ. Τίνι γὰρ δοκεῖ σοι διαφέρειν μάλιστα ὁ σώφρων ἀνὴρ καὶ

φιλόσοφος ἡμῶν τῶν πολλῶν τε καὶ <εἰκῇ> φερομένων;

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Sommerstein, "Euphemism in Aristophanic Comedy," Talking about Laughter (Oxford, 2009), 79-80

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Richards 1902, 13-14.

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Van Herwenden 1907: only this one page of notes on Chrm.

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Athens and Thrace (CJ-Online 2014.05.01)