“Laches” by Plato (translated by Rosamond Kent Sprague)

This dialogue is on the Greek concept of andreia, literally meaning manliness, but most often translated by moderns as courage. Socrates and his interlocutors begin by seeking to define the concept and then to ruminate on its worth. As in many of Plato’s Socratic dialogues, there is no satisfactory conclusion to the debate. The pretext of the conversation is the proper manner for the general education of two particular noble youth and, only secondarily, the benefits of instilling courage in them. To that end, Socrates initially comments, “I think it is by knowledge that one ought to make decisions, if one is to make them well, and not by majority rule.”

Nicias gives due praise, of sorts, to Socrates’ methods, “Whoever comes into close contact with Socrates and associates with him in conversation must necessarily, even if he began by conversing about something quite different in the first place, keep on being led about by the man’s arguments until he submits to answering questions about himself concerning both his present manner of life and the life he has lived hitherto. And when he does submit to this questioning, you don’t realize that Socrates will not let him go before he has well and truly tested every last detail…. I think that a man who does not run away from such treatment but is willing, according to the saying of Solon, to value learning as long as he lives, not supposing that old age brings him wisdom of itself, will necessarily pay more attention to the rest of his life.”

For Socrates, it is necessary to strip away the layers and to get down to the nature of the thing in itself—in this case, courage. “Whenever a man considers a thing for the sake of another thing, he is taking counsel about that thing for the sake of which he was considering, and not about what he was investigating for the sake of something else.” As is his want, Socrates leads the debate around in circles, questioning conclusions just previously agreed to and pushing the point of argument to all its extremes, “Now foolish daring and endurance was found by us to be not only disgraceful but harmful, in what we said earlier…. But now, on the contrary, we are saying that a disgraceful thing, foolish endurance, is courage.” There is no conclusion to this dialogue, but Socrates does propose, “In addition to courage, I call temperance and justice and everything else of this kind parts of virtue. Don't you?”

“Charmides” by Plato (translated by Rosamond Kent Sprague)

This dialogue is a long digression on the definition of temperance and on its possible worth. The editor, John M. Cooper, interjects, “The subject of discussion is the virtue of ‘sophrosune’, here translated ‘temperance’—but there is no adequate translation in modern European languages. Sophrosune means a well-developed consciousness of oneself and one’s legitimate duties in relation to others (where it will involve self-restraint and showing due respect) and in relation to one’s own ambitions, social standing, and the relevant expectations as regards to one’s own behavior. It is an aristocrat’s virtue par excellence, involving a sense of dignity and self-command.” The dialogue ends without being adequately resolved, but the reader goes on quite the journey, as Socrates guides through many twists and turns of thought along the way.

First, Socrates tries to confirm with Critias a working definition of temperance, “Then only the temperate man will know himself and will be able to examine what he knows and does not know, and in the same way he will be able to inspect other people to see when a man does in fact know what he knows and thinks he knows, and when again he does not know what he thinks he knows, and no one else will be able to do this. And being temperate and temperance and knowing oneself amount to this, to knowing what one knows and does not know.” Socrates continues, “Let us now grant this point, that the existence of a science of science is possible…. If this is perfectly possible, is it any more possible to know what one knows and does not know? We did say, I think, that knowing oneself and being temperate consisted in this?” Socrates is still perplexed, “I still don’t understand how knowing what one knows and does not know is the same thing as knowledge of self…. If temperance is only the science of science and absence of science, it will not be able to distinguish the doctor who knows the particulars of his art from the one who does not know them but pretends or supposes he does, nor will it recognize any other genuine practitioner whatsoever, except the man in its own field, the way other craftsmen do.”

Socrates is still not satisfied with their concept of temperance, “If, as we assumed in the beginning the temperate man knew what he knew and what he did not know (and that he knows the former but not the latter) and were able to investigate another man who was in the same situation, then it would be of the greatest benefit to us to be temperate. Because those of us who had temperance would live lives free from error and so would all those who were under our rule…. If temperance really ruled over us and were as we now define it, surely everything would be done according to science…. But whether acting scientifically would make us fare well and be happy, this we have yet to learn.”

Finally, Socrates admonishes Critias for leading him astray, after all, “All this time you’ve been leading me right round in a circle and concealing from me that it was not living scientifically that was making us fare well and be happy, even if we possessed all the sciences put together, but that we have to have this one science of good and evil…. Then this science, at any rate, is not temperance, as it seems, but that one of which the function is to benefit us. For it is not a science of science and absence of science but of good and evil. So that, if this latter one is beneficial, temperance would be something else for us.” Socrates concludes, “We conceded that there was a science of science when the argument did not allow us to make this statement. Again, we conceded that this science knew the tasks of the other sciences, when the argument did not allow us to say this either, so that our temperate man should turn out to be knowing, both that he knows things he knows and does not know things he does not know. And we made this concession in the most prodigal manner, quite overlooking the impossibility that a person should in some fashion know what he does not know at all—because our agreement amounts to saying he knows things he does not know…. It has very insolently exposed as useless the definition of temperance which we agreed upon and invented earlier.”

“Euthydemus” by Plato (translated by Rosamond Kent Sprague)

In this dialogue Socrates discusses with his friend, Crito, the teachings of two Sophists, Euthydemus, and his brother, Dionysodorus. On the surface, Socrates seems to be praising their style of argumentation. He even recommends that he and Crito go to the brothers to take lessons in reasoning. Socrates states, “These two are first of all completely skilled in body, being highly adept at fighting in armor and able to teach this skill to anyone else who pays them a fee; and then they are the ones best able to fight the battle of the law court and to teach other people both how to deliver and how to compose the sort of speeches suitable for the courts…. They have now mastered the one form of fighting they had previously left untried; as a result, not a single man can stand up to them, they have become so skilled in fighting in arguments and in refuting whatever may be said, no matter whether it is true or false.” The reader might already question whether this is damning them with faint praise.

In the course of relating to Crito the back and forth between the Sophists and him, Socrates describes the preeminent value of the right kind of wisdom. He argues, “Even if all the gold in the world should be ours with no trouble and without digging for it, we should be no better off—no, not even if we knew how to make stones into gold would the knowledge be worth anything. For unless we also knew how to use the gold, there appeared to be no value in it…. Nor does there seem to be any value in any other sort of knowledge which knows how to make things, whether money making or medicine or any other such thing, unless it knows how to use what it makes…. Again, if there exists the knowledge to make men immortal, but without the knowledge of how to use this immortality, there seems to be no value in it, if we are to conclude anything from what has already been settled.”

Socrates also discusses with Crito those advisors to politicians who wish to dip their toes into both the worlds of knowledge and action. “These are the persons, Crito, whom Prodicus describes as occupying the no-man’s-land between the philosopher and the statesman. They think that they are the wisest of men, and that they not only are but seem to be so in the eyes of so many, so that no one else keeps them from enjoying universal esteem except the followers of philosophy…. They regard themselves as very wise, and reasonably so, since they think they are not only pretty well up in philosophy but also in politics. Yes, their conceit of wisdom is quite natural because they think they have as much of each as they need; and, keeping clear of both risk and conflict, they reap the fruits of wisdom…. Plausibility, is just what it does have, Crito, rather than truth. It is no easy matter to persuade them that a man or anything else which is between two things and partakes of both is worse than one and better than the other in the case where one of the things is good and the other evil; and that in the case where it partakes of two distinct goods, it is worse than either of them with respect to the end for which each of the two (of which it is composed) is useful…. Now if philosophy is a good, and so is the activity of the statesman (and each has a different end), and those partaking of both are in between, then these men are talking nonsense, since they are inferior to both.”

Socrates concludes by defending philosophy from the philosophers, not to mention the Sophists. “In every pursuit most of the practitioners are paltry and of no account whereas the serious men are few and beyond price…. Pay no attention to the practitioners of philosophy, whether good or bad. Rather give serious consideration to the thing itself.”