What do you know when you know yourself? – Knowing oneself in Plato’s Charmides 165a7 ff.
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This article concerns Socrates’ wisdom and his recognition of his own ignorance –featured as a model of embodying the Delphic saying, “Know thyself”. While Socrates has generally been regarded as such an ideal, many of the recent commentators have raised an undue criticism against him, e.g. issues involving so called Socratic irony, and his pretence of his own ignorance, according to such lines of interpretation Socrates is a man who disguises his ignorance, hiding his real intention; but such interpretations have missed the author’s ultimate intention - not keenly considering the context upon which the argument is brought forward. In order to do justice to Socrates, and to show how his position is to be understood positively without ascribing any negative conclusion of the dialectical discussion to him, I reconsider how Socrates would have proposed to understand ‘knowing oneself’ within the context of a single dialogue, Plato’s Charmides –focusing on the following question: precisely what specific claim/argument is to be ascribed to whom? As a result, I show that there actually are two different views about ‘knowing oneself’ –represented by Critias and Socrates respectively; and that Socratic ideal of knowing oneself –understood as knowing that one knows what one know and that one does not know what one does not know– can be understood in a fairly positive way,by establishing a case where there is a significant conformity between (1)what one can read off from what each interlocutor is doing, (2) the actual argument and its consequence, (3) what can be inferred from an implicitly hinted hypothetical suggestion, (4) Socrates’ own assessment of the examination –in showing how these components of the dialogue are tightly interwoven one another. But we need to keep in mind that Socratic ideal of knowing oneself is attained only in reference to the objective criterion of knowledge, which is ultimately from god, neither from arbitrary selfconviction nor from self-reflection as we moderns are likely to expect. All in all, Socrates is described by Plato as embodying and approximating the ideal by insistent effort with a proper recognition of his own limit in every course of his life. I hope this will lead to further discussions about how the ancients conceptualise knowledge, and how theoretical investigation is to be united into ethical/political practice in Plato’s philosophy.
Abstract
This article concerns Socrates’ wisdom and his recognition of his own ignorance –featured as a model of embodying the Delphic saying, “Know thyself”. While Socrates has generally been regarded as such an ideal, many of the recent commentators have raised an undue criticism against him, e.g. issues involving so called Socratic irony, and his pretence of his own ignorance, according to such lines of interpretation Socrates is a man who disguises his ignorance, hiding his real intention; but such interpretations have missed the author’s ultimate intention - not keenly considering the context upon which the argument is brought forward. In order to do justice to Socrates, and to show how his position is to be understood positively without ascribing any negative conclusion of the dialectical discussion to him, I reconsider how Socrates would have proposed to understand ‘knowing oneself’ within the context of a single dialogue, Plato’s Charmides –focusing on the following question: precisely what specific claim/argument is to be ascribed to whom? As a result, I show that there actually are two different views about ‘knowing oneself’ –represented by Critias and Socrates respectively; and that Socratic ideal of knowing oneself –understood as knowing that one knows what one know and that one does not know what one does not know– can be understood in a fairly positive way,by establishing a case where there is a significant conformity between (1)what one can read off from what each interlocutor is doing, (2) the actual argument and its consequence, (3) what can be inferred from an implicitly hinted hypothetical suggestion, (4) Socrates’ own assessment of the examination –in showing how these components of the dialogue are tightly interwoven one another. But we need to keep in mind that Socratic ideal of knowing oneself is attained only in reference to the objective criterion of knowledge, which is ultimately from god, neither from arbitrary selfconviction nor from self-reflection as we moderns are likely to expect. All in all, Socrates is described by Plato as embodying and approximating the ideal by insistent effort with a proper recognition of his own limit in every course of his life. I hope this will lead to further discussions about how the ancients conceptualise knowledge, and how theoretical investigation is to be united into ethical/political practice in Plato’s philosophy.
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