Plato's Politics of Passion

Erôs, Thumos, and Socratic Self-Knowledge in the Charmides, Republic, and Symposium

An original reading of three Platonic dialogues concerned with the soul, tyranny, self-knowledge, and the beautiful.

Guided by the question "What is Socratic self-knowledge," this study begins with Plato's Charmides because it is within this work, more than any other, that the utility of self-knowledge becomes the predominant theme. In this dialogue, Socrates explores the possibility of the very culmination of his philosophical investigations—knowledge of ignorance. This happens through an investigation of the perplexing concept, sôphrosunê. Alan Pichanick's approach offers a new perspective upon the perplexing exploration of sôphrosunê in the Charmides by placing much greater emphasis on the neglected "erotic setting" in the dramatic introduction and argues that our reading of the rest of the dialogue should be done in light of this dramatic setting. The erotic setting of the Charmides combined with the discussion of philosophical wonder in the Symposium and tyrannical erôs in the Republic gives guidance about how to think about the potential connection between Socratic self-knowledge and knowledge of the good and also shows why the characters of Charmides and Critias fail to come to such knowledge. Here we have the Platonic diagnosis of the tyrant, whose soul never wonders at anything beyond itself.

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