Plato: Laches & Charmides (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews Plato: Laches & Charmides. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Rosamond Kent Sprague. (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1973, pp. ix+ 102. $2.50) This volume is a useful addition to the Library of Liberal Arts series of texts in Classical Philosophy. The volume consists of new translations of, introductions to, and notes on two of Plato's early dialogues, the Laches and the Charmides. These two dialogues are of value for several reasons. They are the earliest philosophical discussions of two virtues: courage and temperance. These discussions are of importance since Plato raises some central questions concerning virtues and human conduct in general; because they throw light on Plato's later discussion of the same virtues--in particular the discussions in the Republic--as well as on Aristotle's treatment of these virtues; and lastly, because they give us some of the liveliest portraits of Socrates engaged in his favorite activity: searching for and examining proposed definitions of moral concepts. Sprague has translated the texts of the Laches and the Charmides as given by John Burnet in the Oxford Editions of Plato's dialogues (Platonis Opera, vol. 3, Oxford Classical Texts). The translations seem to be on the whole more readable than those of the Loeb Classical Library, and more accurate than those by Jowett. The introductions, although by no means detailed analyses of the arguments of the two dialogues, nonetheless contain useful remarks about the dates and persons, as well as brief accounts of the general structure of the argument of each of the dialogues. In the introduction to Laches, the author raises an interesting question about the title of the dialogue: Why is it named after Laches and not after the other major character of the dialogue, Nicias--especially since the latter seems to be the more philosophically astute? The author claims that "the dialogue is called Laches because Laches shows a more promising reaction to the Socratic elenchus than does Nicias" (p. 6). Nicias, Sprague notes, never felt the full force of the elenchus: "he seems no less satisfied with his own intellectual state than he was in the beginning" (p. 8). Laches, on the other hand, as a result of the elenchus, realizes his ignorance and is angry with himself for it. Sprague concludes, "I think Plato means us to feel that whereas Nicias may be the more gifted, his philosophical progress will be less than that of Laches since it is unlikely that he will ever be made to feel angry with himself. Hence I believe that Laches is the right title for the dialogue. The reader will, however, want to form his own opinion on this point" (p. 8). Regarding the Charmides (as well as the Laches and other early dialogues), the author points out that by associating temperance (and virtue in general) with knowledge Plato "has involved himself in the mechanics of the term 'knowledge' as well as in the question of defining the various virtues" (p. 53). Now "knowledge" is a "tinosword : (literally, an 'o/-what'-word) a word that appears to be complete but is not, since it demands another word or words to explain it" (pp. viii-ix). So to use the term "knowledge" ("science," "art") is to raise the question "knowledge of what?" There are however two types of art (knowledge, science): (1) First-order art--an art that possesses a recognizable scope or product, such as carpentry, medicine, etc.; (2) second-order art--an art the scope of which comprises arts of the first order, such as rhetoric, sophistry or statesmanship. The last, and very difficult, account of temperance in the Charmides is that it is a science of sciences--a second-order art. A great deal of [102] BOOK REVIEWS 103 what Plato says about temperance (and the virtues in general) can be better understood by seeing that what he is often doing is examining the similarities and differences between the two types of art. The above distinctions and comments alone by no means solve the problems surrounding the definition of temperance in the Charmides as a science of sciences, but they perhaps point in a fruitful direction. Of particular value...