Anger

Use in the book

Charmides offers as his third definition something he once heard, "doing one's own business"; Socrates guesses he had it from Critias, who answers, "Certainly not from me" (161b–c). Later, unable to say what the phrase means, Charmides adds, "But perhaps there is nothing to stop even the man who said it from not knowing what he meant", and with that, Socrates narrates, "he laughed slyly and looked across at Critias" (162b). Critias had plainly been "on edge for some time, and eager to shine before Charmides and the company" (162c). The boy "kept prodding him, and made out that he had been refuted" (the Greek does not say which of the two), and then, as Socrates tells it, "Critias would not put up with it: he seemed to me as angry with Charmides as a poet is with an actor who makes a mess of the poet's own verses" (162d). The simile can be read as naming the cause. The poet's anger is over "the poet's own verses" (τὰ ἑαυτοῦ ποιήματα, ta heautou poiēmata), and the definition being mishandled is "doing one's own business" (τὸ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ πράττειν, to ta heautou prattein): Critias, who had disowned the definition, is angered like a poet by the mishandling of his own. Socrates excuses the boy and hands Critias the argument (162d–e; see Age and maturity). Critias' concern for his standing returns at 169c–d, where, "used to being admired on every occasion", he is "ashamed in front of the company" and keeps his perplexity covered (see Reputation and ambition).

Socrates' grievance at the end also answers an affront: the inquiry, he says, "has made such a mockery of the truth" that it has shown their definition, "with the utmost insolence, to be of no benefit" (175d). "For my own part I am less aggrieved," he says; on Charmides' account he is "very aggrieved", if the boy is "to get no profit from this temperance" (175d–e); and, he goes on, "I am still more aggrieved on account of the charm I learned from the Thracian, if I took great pains to learn a charm for a thing worth nothing" (175e). The charm, learned on campaign from a doctor of the Thracian god Zalmoxis, was to bring temperance into the soul (156d–157a). Then he denies the condition and blames himself: "Well, I don't at all think it is so; rather, I am a poor inquirer. For I do think that temperance is a great good" (175e).

The two scenes can be read as a pair, each a response to a slight. Critias turns on the boy because what is, in Socrates' eyes, his own has been mishandled; Socrates is least aggrieved on his own account and most on the charm's, and keeps his belief in temperance by blaming not the argument but himself.

Places to read

1. 161b–cCharmides offers "doing one's own business" as something he once heard; Critias denies that it is his.
2. 162b–dCharmides laughs slyly and looks across at Critias; Critias, eager to shine, can hold back no longer and seems to Socrates as angry as a poet with an actor who mangles the poet's verses.
3. 162d–eSocrates excuses the boy and invites Critias to take the argument over.
4. 169c–dCritias, used to being admired, is ashamed before the company and keeps covering up his perplexity.
5. 175d–eLess aggrieved for himself, very aggrieved for Charmides and still more for the charm, Socrates denies that temperance is worth nothing and calls himself a poor inquirer.

Translation in this edition

The edition renders ὀργισθῆναι "angry" at its one place (162d), and ἀγανακτῶ "aggrieved" at all three, graded as the Greek grades it, "less aggrieved", "very aggrieved", "still more aggrieved" (175d–e), for ἧττον (hētton), πάνυ (pany) and ἔτι μᾶλλον (eti mallon). Οὐκ ἠνέσχετο (ouk ēnescheto) is "would not put up with it" (162d). Before the anger is named, ἀγωνιῶν (agōniōn) is "on edge", φιλοτίμως ἔχων (philotimōs echōn) "eager to shine", and οὐχ οἷός τε ἐγένετο (ouch hoios te egeneto) "could contain himself no longer" (162c); πάνυ ὑβριστικῶς (pany hybristikōs) is "with the utmost insolence" (175d). Θυμός (thymos), "spirit", the Republic's word for the part of the soul with which we grow angry (439e), does not occur in the dialogue; its stem appears only in ἐπιθυμία (epithymia), "desire" (167e).

ἀγανακτέω

Attested: ἀγανακτῶ (aganaktō; 175d twice, 175e). To be vexed, indignant, aggrieved, for oneself or, with ὑπέρ, on behalf of another person or thing. Socrates grades his grievance at the end of the dialogue: least for himself, more for Charmides, most for the charm (175d–e). Lemma: ἀγανακτέω.

ὀργίζομαι

Attested: ὀργισθῆναι (orgisthēnai; 162d). To become angry. Critias "seemed to me", Socrates narrates, "as angry with Charmides as a poet is with an actor who makes a mess of the poet's own verses" (162d). Lemma: ὀργίζομαι.

ἠνέσχετο (ēnescheto)

Attested: ἠνέσχετο (ēnescheto; 162d). To hold out, endure, put up with. Negated, it marks the moment Critias' restraint gives way: when Charmides kept prodding him, "Critias would not put up with it" (162d). Lemma: ἀνέχομαι.

Elsewhere in Plato

Charmides' jibe is close to the charge Socrates brings against the poets in the Apology. When he asked them what their most carefully wrought poems meant, almost anyone in the room could talk about the poems better than the men who had made them, and he concluded that poets compose not from wisdom but from a sort of natural gift and possession, like seers and oracle-singers, who utter much that is fine without understanding any of it (22b–c). In the Ion Socrates places the rhapsode, the professional reciter of Homer, and the actor in the middle of a chain that runs from the god through the poet to the audience, like iron rings held together by a magnet (535e–536a); Socrates' simile for Critias can be read against that chain, with the middle ring spoiling the first one's work, and the first one angry. Critias can also be read as showing the part of the soul that the Republic calls spirited. Socrates and Glaucon, Plato's brother, agree that it is wholly bent on mastery, victory and good repute, and may fitly be called victory-loving and honour-loving (581a–b); both moments of Critias' concern for standing use its words, since "honour-loving", φιλότιμον (philotimon), is the adjective whose adverb, φιλοτίμως, lies behind "eager to shine" (162c), and the verb for good repute, εὐδοκιμεῖν (eudokimein), is the one behind "used to being admired" (169c).

Later readings

Aristotle's account of anger in the Rhetoric can be read as a commentary on 162b–d. Anger, he says, is a desire, accompanied by pain, for an apparent revenge for an apparent slight to oneself or to something of one's own, when the slight is undeserved, and it is always felt toward some particular person; insolence is one of the three kinds of slight. Men grow angry, he goes on, with those who deride, scoff at and make fun of them; with those who speak ill of what they care about most, as men whose ambition lies in philosophy are angry when someone speaks ill of philosophy, and far more so if they suspect that they do not have the thing, or not securely, or are not thought to have it; and against friends more than against those who are not friends.¹ Each mark can be read in the scene: Charmides laughs slyly; Critias is "eager to shine", and Aristotle's word for men ambitious in philosophy, φιλοτιμούμενοι (philotimoumenoi), is of the same family as that φιλοτίμως (162c); Critias is soon unable to make the distinctions asked of him (169c–d); and the one who mocks him is his cousin and ward. Socrates too speaks of insolence, since the inquiry, as he tells it, treated their agreement "with the utmost insolence" (175d); but where Aristotle's angry man wants revenge on a particular person, Socrates, whose offender is an inquiry, wants none, and his grievance is least on his own account.

Use in the book

After the discussion of madness and unintelligence, Socrates returns to Oedipus with a more discriminating account. Oedipus did not suppose his request was for good. His anger helps explain the deliberate wish to add harm to an already disastrous situation. That makes him a vivid opening example of prayer’s capacity to harm, but not a sufficient model of the error Alcibiades is likely to commit.

The crucial expansion is to those who are not angry and believe that their petitions seek good. Calmness supplies no guarantee of understanding. The divine offer of tyranny immediately tests this ordinary, apparently rational desire: Alcibiades would rejoice, yet concedes that the possession is unacceptable if it destroys his life or is used harmfully.

The dialogue accordingly does not reduce mistaken prayer to loss of emotional self-control. Anger may direct someone knowingly toward a destructive request; ignorance can direct someone there without recognition. The educational conclusion addresses the second condition as well as the first. The absence of rage leaves the need for knowledge of the best fully in place.

Places to read

1. 138cOedipus calls down additional harm; Alcibiades initially labels him mad.
2. 141aSocrates expressly distinguishes his anger from the calm but mistaken petitions of others.
3. 141a–141cAlcibiades’ delighted response to imagined power illustrates desire without the same anger.

Translation in this edition

The entry is anchored in the explicit orgē phrase at 141a. It should not enlarge that single distinction into a theory of the soul’s parts or a claim that the dialogue derives all bad action from passion. The edition’s in the grip of anger is a contextual rendering.

Use in the book

The Phaedo describes soul as admonishing desires, anger, and fears, as one thing speaking to another. This ruling activity challenges the proposal that soul is merely the harmony of bodily constituents. Anger is one of the responses governed in the argument.

Places to read

1. I.49.13.14Soul’s ability to address anger illustrates its ruling activity.

Translation in this edition

“Anger” is direct; distinguish it from the broader spirited disposition when the text does.

Use in the book

The report attributed to Aristotle figures anger as a soldier rather than a captain; Father André is then reported as calling this a defense of human nature. Joubert’s own closing formulation allows anger its natural place in the blood but denies it value in the mind, where reason cannot endure it. The discussion of public monuments adds a social consequence: viewers need not approach them in the calmer disposition associated with reading and may bring anger or resentment to the encounter.

Places to read

1. I, p. 422, entry 2, ¶1Anger is discussed through the soldier/captain distinction.
2. I, p. 422, entry 7, ¶1Its place in blood is distinguished from its intrusion into mind.
3. II, p. 844, entry 9, ¶2Public images encounter potentially angry viewers.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves the blood/mind contrast and the military comparison. Its note traces the reported comparison through Seneca without treating Joubert’s words as a newly verified verbatim sentence from Aristotle. The monument passage describes a risk, not every visitor’s response.

Resentment

French: ressentiment.

Ressentiment can arise toward those who inspire more trust than they deserve. The fragment about anger purging resentment distinguishes a sustained grievance from the anger that changes it, without supplying a main verb or turning the image into advice to express anger.

Places to read: II, p. 689, entry 2, ¶1; II, p. 629, entry 12, ¶1.

Use in the book

The Cross displays mercy and anger together, making sin visible without cancelling the sinner's value. Elsewhere the person dissatisfied with his own contracted spirit may properly be angry with it. The aim is a change of judgment, not vindictive assertion against another person. The account of becoming a child again also refuses to make innocence simply the short duration of a child's anger: a deeper purification of the whole soul is required. Anger thus belongs within Traherne's account of ordered affections rather than supplying a sufficient explanation of either divine justice or human conversion. In each case the reader must ask what is opposed and toward what good the opposition is directed.

Places to read

1. I.38A person may be angry with the baseness and narrowness of his own spirit.
2. I.59The Cross displays divine mercy and anger together with human sin and value.
3. III.5Childlike purity means more than the brevity and weakness of childish anger.

In this edition

“Wrath” in prayers about Christ's suffering has a theological force that ordinary irritability does not capture. The entry does not equate divine judgment with a human loss of temper.