Returning from the battle of Potidaea, Socrates reenters the city
only to find it changed, with new leadership in the making.
Socrates assumes the mask of physician in order to diagnose the
city's condition in the persons of the young and charismatic
Charmides and his ambitious and formidable guardian Critias.
Beneath the cloak of their self-presentations, Doctor Socrates
discovers a profound and communicable disease: their incipient
tyranny, "the greatest sickness of the soul." He thereby is able to
"foresee" their future and their role in the oligarchy (The Thirty
Tyrants) that overthrows the democracy at the end of the
Peloponnesian War. The unusual diagnostic instrument of this
physician of the city: the question of sophrosyne (customarily
translated as moderation). The analysis of the soul of this popular
favorite uncovers a distorted development with little prospect of
self-knowledge, and that of the guardian, a profound disabling
ignorance, deluded and perverted by his presumed practical wisdom.
Alongside on the bench sits Socrates whose ignorance, by contrast,
shows itself to be enabling, measured and prospective. In this way,
the profound ignorance of the tyrant and the profound ignorance of
the philosopher are made to mutually illuminate one another. In the
process, Levine brings us to see Plato's extended apologia or
defense of Socrates as "a teacher of tyrants" and his
counter-indictment of the city for its unthinking acceptance of its
leaders. Moreover, in the face of modern skepticism, we are brought
to see how such "value judgments" are possible, how Plato conceives
the prospects for practical judgment (phronesis). In addition we
witness the care with which Plato presents his penetrating
diagnoses even amidst compromised circumstances. Levine, further,
is at pains to situate the specific dialogic issues in their larger
significance for the philosophic tradition. Lastly, the author's
inviting style encourages the reader to think along with Socrates.
The question of tyranny is always relevant. The question of our
ignorance is always immediate. The conversation about sophrosyne
needs to be resumed.
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