Against Critias' Arrogance: Parmenides Behind the Charmides?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/endoxa.39.2017.16136Keywords:
moderation, knowledge, Parmenides, ignorance, arroganceAbstract
In this paper, I attempt to show how Socrates’ argument is based on Parmenides’ thesis that there is no grasp of what is not. The dialogue aims at refuting Critias’ definition of moderation as ‘science of all sciences and of itself’ in order to diminish his arrogance and to make him understand that he cannnot teach Charmides what moderation is, for he lacks this virtue. As a result of the process, moderation turns out to be a certain awareness of one’s limits. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates’s interlocutors end up in aporia but they are in a way redeemed by Plato as they reach, at least intentionally, a certain self-awareness of their own limits. Although they lack a definition of moderation, they have achieved a certain grasp of the meaning of this virtue in themselves.Downloads
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