Charmides (163-167)

Those of others also. And are they temperate in not making their own things only?Yes: what reason is there against it? he said.None for me, I replied; but there may be for him who, after assuming that temperance is doing one’s own business, proceeds to say there is no reason against those also who do others’ business being temperate. And have I, pray, he said, admitted that those who do others’ business are temperate? Or was my admission of those who make [*] things? Tell me, I said, do you not call making and doing the same? No indeed, he replied, nor working and making the same either: this I learnt from Hesiod, who said,

Work is no reproach.

Hes. WD 309 Now, do you suppose that if he had given the names of working and doing to such works as you were mentioning just now, he would have said there was no reproach in shoe-making or pickle-selling or serving the stews? It is not to be thought, Socrates; he rather held, I conceive, that making was different from doing and working, and that while a thing made might be a reproach if it had no connection with the honorable, work could never be a reproach. For things honorably and usefully made he called works, and such makings he called workings and doings; and we must suppose that it was only such things as these that he called our proper concerns, but all that was harmful, the concerns of others. So that we must conclude that Hesiod, and anyone else of good sense, calls him temperate who does his own business. Ah, Critias, I said, you had hardly begun, when I grasped the purport of your speech—that you called one’s proper and one’s own things good, and that the makings of the good you called doings; for in fact I have heard Prodicus drawing innumerable distinctions between names. [*] Well, I will allow you any application of a name that you please; only make clear to what thing it is that you attach such-and-such a name. So begin now over again, and define more plainly. Do you say that this doing or making, or whatever is the term you prefer, of good things, is temperance? I do, he replied. Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate? And do not you, my excellent friend, he said, think so? Leave that aside, I said; for we have not to consider yet what I think, but what you say now. Well, all the same, I say, he replied, that he who does evil instead of good is not temperate, whereas he who does good instead of evil is temperate : for I give you the doing of good things is temperance as my plain definition.

And there is no reason, I daresay, why your statement should not be right; but still I wonder, I went on, whether you judge that temperate men are ignorant of their temperance. No, I do not, he said. A little while ago, I said, were you not saying that there was no reason why craftsmen should not be temperate in making others’ things as well? Yes, I was, he said, but what of it ? Nothing; only tell me whether you think that a doctor, in making someone healthy, makes a helpful result both for himself and for the person whom he cures. I do. And he who does this does his duty? Yes. Is not he who does his duty temperate? Indeed he is. Well, and must the doctor know when his medicine will be helpful, and when not? And must every craftsman know when he is likely to be benefited by the work he does, and when not?Probably not. Then sometimes, I went on, the doctor may have done what is helpful or harmful without knowing the effect of his own action; and yet, in doing what was helpful, by your statement, he has done temperately. Or did you not state that? I did. Then it would seem that in doing what is helpful he may sometimes do temperately and be temperate, but be ignorant of his own temperance? But that, he said, Socrates, could never be: if you think this in any way a necessary inference from my previous admissions, I would rather withdraw some of them, and not be ashamed to say my statements were wrong, than concede at any time that a man who is ignorant of himself is temperate. For I would almost say that this very thing, self-knowledge, is temperance, and I am at one with him who put up the inscription of those words at Delphi. For the purpose of that inscription on the temple, as it seems to me, is to serve as the god’s salutation to those who enter it, instead of Hail!—this is a wrong form of greeting, and they should rather exhort one another with the words, Be temperate! And thus the god addresses those who are entering his temple in a mode which differs from that of men; such was the intention of the dedicator of the inscription in putting it up, I believe; and that he says to each man who enters, in reality,

Be temperate !

But he says it in a rather riddling fashion, as a prophet would; for Know thyself! and Be temperate! are the same, as

the inscription [*] and I declare, though one is likely enough to think them different—an error into which I consider the dedicators of the later inscriptions fell when they put up

Nothing overmuch

[*] and

A pledge, and thereupon perdition.

[*] For they supposed that

Know thyself!

was a piece of advice, and not the god’s salutation of those who were entering; and so, in order that their dedications too might equally give pieces of useful advice, they wrote these words and dedicated them. Now my object in saying all this, Socrates, is to abandon to you all the previous argument— for, though perhaps it was you who were more in the right, or perhaps it was I, yet nothing at all certain emerged from our statements—and to proceed instead to satisfy you of this truth, if you do not admit it, that temperance is knowing oneself. Why, Critias, I said, you treat me as though I professed to know the things on which I ask questions, and needed only the will to agree with you. But the fact of the matter is rather that I join you in the inquiry, each time that a proposition is made, because I myself do not know; I wish therefore to consider first, before I tell you whether I agree or not. Now, give me a moment to consider. Consider then, he said. Yes, and I am considering, I said. For if temperance is knowing anything, obviously it must be a kind of science, and a science of something, must it not? It is, he replied, and of itself. And medicine, I said, is a science of health? Certainly. Then if you should ask me, I said, wherein medicine, as a science of health, is useful to us, and what it produces, I should say it is of very great benefit, since it produces health; an excellent result, if you allow so much. I allow it.And so, if you should ask me what result I take to be produced by building, as the builder’s science, I should say houses; and it would be the same with the other arts. Now it is for you, in your turn, to find an answer to a question regarding temperance—since you say it is a science of self, Critias—and to tell me what excellent result it produces for us, as science of self, and what it does that is worthy of its name. Come now, tell me. But, Socrates, he said, you are not inquiring rightly. For in its nature it is not like the other sciences, any more than any of them is like any other; whereas you are making your inquiry as though they were alike.

For tell me, he said, what result is there of the arts of reckoning and geometry, in the way that a house is of building, or a coat of weaving, or other products of the sort that one might point to

in various arts? Well, can you, for your part, point to any such product in those two cases? You cannot. To this I replied: What you say is true; but I can point out to you what is the peculiar subject of each of these sciences, distinct in each case from the science itself. Thus reckoning, I suppose, is concerned with the even and the odd in their numerical relations to themselves and to one another, is it not?Certainly, he said. And you grant that the odd and the even are different from the actual art of reckoning? Of course. And once more, weighing is concerned with the heavier and the lighter weight; but the heavy and the light are different from the actual art of weighing: you agree? I do. Then tell me, what is that of which temperance is the science, differing from temperance itself? There you are, Socrates, he said: you push your investigation up to the real question at issue—in what temperance differs from all the other sciences—but you then proceed to seek some resemblance between it and them; whereas there is no such thing, for while all the rest of the sciences have something other than themselves as their subject, this one alone is a science of the other sciences and of its own self. And of this you are far from being unconscious, since in fact, as I believe, you are doing the very thing you denied you were doing just now: for you are attempting to refute me, without troubling to follow the subject of our discussion. How can you think, I said, if my main effort is to refute you, that I do it with any other motive than that which would impel me to investigate the meaning of my own words—from a fear of carelessly supposing, at any moment, that I knew something while I knew it not? And so it is now: that is what I am doing, I tell you. I am examining the argument mainly for my own sake, but also, perhaps, for that of my other intimates. Or do you not think it is for the common good, almost, of all men, that the truth about everything there is should be discovered? Yes indeed, he replied, I do, Socrates. Then take heart, I said, my admirable friend, and answer the question put to you as you deem the case to be, without caring a jot whether it is Critias or Socrates who is being refuted: give the argument itself your attention, and observe what will become of it under the test of refutation. Well, he said, I will do so; for I think there is a good deal in what you say. Then tell me, I said, what you mean in regard to temperance. Why, I mean, he said, that it alone of all the sciences is the science both of itself and of the other sciences.So then, I said, it will be the science of the lack of science also, besides being the science of science? [*] Certainly, he replied.

Then only the temperate person will know himself, and be able to discern what he really knows and does not know, and have the power of judging what other people likewise know and think they know, in cases where they do know, and again, what they think they know, without knowing it; everyone else will be unable. And so this is being temperate, or temperance, and knowing oneself—that one should know what one knows and what one does not know. Is that what you mean? It is, he replied. Once more then, I said, as our third offering to the Saviour, [*] let us consider afresh, in the first place, whether such a thing as this is possible or not—to know that one knows, and does not know, what one knows and what one does not know; and secondly, if this is perfectly possible, what benefit we get by knowing it. We must indeed consider, he said. Come then, I said, Critias, consider if you can show yourself any more resourceful than I am; for I am at a loss. Shall I explain to you in what way? By all means, he replied. Well, I said, what all this comes to, if your last statement was correct, is merely that there is one science which is precisely a science of itself and of the other sciences, and moreover is a science of the lack of science at the same time. Certainly. Then mark what a strange statement it is that we are attempting to make, my friend: for if you will consider it as applied to other cases, you will surely see—so I believe—its impossibility. How so? In what cases? In the following: ask yourself if you think there is a sort of vision which is not the vision of things that we see in the ordinary way, but a vision of itself and of the other sorts of vision, and of the lack of vision likewise; which, while being vision, sees no color, but only itself and the other sorts of vision. Do you think there is any such? Upon my word, I do not. And what do you say to a sort of hearing which hears not a single sound, but hears itself and the other sorts of hearing and lack of hearing? I reject that also. Then take all the senses together as a whole, and consider if you think there is any sense of the senses and of itself, but insensible of any of the things of which the other senses are sensible. I do not. Now, do you think there is any desire which is the desire, not of any pleasure, but of itself and of the other desires ? No, indeed.Nor, again, is there a wish, I imagine, that wishes no good, but wishes itself and the other wishes. Quite so; there is not. And would you say there is any love of such a sort that it is actually a love of no beauty, but of itself and of the other loves? Not I, he replied.