Plato's Charmides

Plato's Charmides is a rich mix of drama and argument. Raphael Woolf offers a comprehensive interpretation of its disparate elements that pays close attention to its complex and layered structure, and to the methodology of reading Plato. He thus aims to present a compelling and unified interpretation of the dialogue as a whole. The book mounts a strong case for the formal separation of Plato the author from his character Socrates, and for the Charmides as a Platonic defence of the written text as a medium for philosophical reflection. It lays greater emphasis than other readings on the centrality of eros to an understanding of Socratic procedure in the Charmides, and on how the dialogue's erotic and medical motifs work together. The book's critical engagement with the dialogue allows a worked-out account to be given of how temperance, the central object of enquiry in the work, is to be conceived.

• Sets out an explicit methodology for reading the Charmides, providing resources for thinking about how to read a Platonic dialogue
• Enhances understanding of how the Charmides is written by playing close attention to the dialogue's structure
• Offers a worked-out account of how temperance is conceived in the dialogue, thereby contributing to our understanding of the relation between self-knowledge and the human good in Plato