DIALECTICAL APPROACHES OF TEMPERANCE IN THE PLATONIC DIALOGUE CHARMIDES (157C-158E)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate how the discussion in Plato’s Charmides is formed with respect to a) the ontological and epistemological approaches of the virtue of temperance and b) how the transition from a general definition of a virtue to its presence to a person is accomplished. We rely on Plato’s Charmides. After a concise presentation of those discussed in the passage 156d-157c, where we follow Plato’s views on the soul to that time, we focus on how dialectics between Socrates and Charmides develops in the passage 157c-158e. Our article includes, apart from an introduction and an epilogue, two chapters. The first one is mostly analytical and the second is mainly formed by synthetic judgements. They are both crucial mostly for methodological reasons, since through them we can follow how temperance turns gradually into a question to be investigated and how the Athenian philosopher attempts to set the foundations of a discussion based on rational reason with the main reference focusing on the criteria which someone can use to prove that he possesses temperance.