Attention

Use in the book

Attention in the Charmides is something Socrates first gives and then asks for, and its object moves. When Charmides comes in, Socrates turns from him to his watchers: "But I watched the boys too, and not one of them was looking anywhere else" (154c; see Age and maturity). Socrates attends to the boys' gazing, and a moment later proposes to strip Charmides' soul and look at it before his figure (154e).

The second time, attention is turned inward. The first definition, temperance as quietness, has failed (159b–160d234), and Socrates says: "Then once more, Charmides … pay closer attention and look within yourself. Consider what sort of person temperance makes you by being present … then put all this together and tell me, properly and like a man, what it seems to you to be" (160d–e). In the Greek this is one sentence with one command, "tell me" (εἰπέ, eipe), and four participles leading up to it: paying attention, looking in, considering, putting together. It puts to work Socrates' assumption at 158e–159a, that temperance, if it is really in Charmides, "must give rise to some sense". He pauses, thinks it over to himself "very much like a man", and answers: temperance "makes a person feel shame and makes him bashful", and is modesty (160e; see Modesty and shame).

The third time the object is the argument. "You are trying to refute me, and letting go of what the argument is about," Critias complains (166c). Socrates answers that he refutes him for the reason he would scrutinize himself: "for fear that I might ever, without noticing, think I know something when I don't" (166d). Then he tells Critias, "say goodbye to whether it is Critias or Socrates who is being refuted. Just pay attention to the argument itself, and look to see what will become of it under refutation" (166d–e2; see Refutation). "All right," Critias says, "I'll do that; you seem to me to be talking sense" (166e). His fear and his instruction are one practice: each man must watch the argument, not which of them is refuted. Critias can be read as failing it three pages later, when, "ashamed in front of the company", he keeps covering up his perplexity rather than concede what he cannot do (169c–d; see Reputation and ambition).

Next Socrates turns Critias' attention to experience. He asks him to consider whether there is a sight which sees itself and the other sights but sees no colour (167c–d), and goes on through hearing, the senses, desire, wish and love to fear: "And have you ever yet come across a fear which fears itself and the other fears, but fears not one of the things that are dreadful?" "I haven't come across one," Critias answers (167e–168a2; see Sight and colour). Only this last question asks what he has met with. Socrates also names his own attention. Doubting their agreement that it would be a great good if each man did what he knew and handed over what he did not know to others who knew it (172d), he says, "it was with my eye on this very point that I said just now that some strange things were coming to light for me" (172e).

Ἄνοια, the want of νοῦς, comes once, in the principle by which Socrates explains the charm: good doctors say that to imagine one could treat the head apart from the whole body is "sheer folly" (156b–c; see Acceptance and taking over). The Thracian doctor who taught Socrates the charm carries the principle, on the word of Zalmoxis, the Thracians' god and king, from the body to the soul (156d–e; see Whole and part). Set beside the instructions on attention, the doctors' rule can be read as saying what sense attends to: folly fixes on the part alone, and sense sees the part in its whole.

Places to read

1. 154cSocrates watches the boys, who are all gazing at Charmides as if he were a statue.
2. 156b–cGood doctors say that to imagine one could treat the head apart from the whole body is sheer folly.
3. 160d–eSocrates bids Charmides pay closer attention, look within himself and consider what temperance makes him; Charmides thinks it over and answers that it is modesty.
4. 166c–e2Accused of trying to refute Critias, Socrates says he refutes him as he would scrutinize himself, and bids him pay attention to the argument, not to who is refuted; Critias answers that Socrates is talking sense.
5. 167c–168a2Asked to consider whether there is a sight of sight, Critias thinks not, and he has never come across a fear of fears.
6. 172d–e2With his eye on their too-easy agreement, Socrates fears they have not been looking into temperance correctly.

Translation in this edition

The idiom προσέχειν τὸν νοῦν is "watched" in Socrates' narration (154c, προσέσχον), "pay closer attention" for μᾶλλον προσέχων (160d) and "pay attention" for Socrates' instruction to Critias (166e). Ἐννοεῖν is "consider" at both its places (160d, 167c), κατανοεῖν "come across" in question and answer (167e, 168a), and πολλὴν ἄνοιαν "sheer folly" (156c). Μέτρια λέγειν is "talking sense" (166e), as are εἰκότα λέγειν (158d) and ὀρθῶς λέγεις (161c), so that "talking sense" in the English does not always stand for the same Greek. Ἀποβλέπειν is "glanced toward" (153d), "looked across at" (162b) and "with my eye on" (172e); ἐμβλέπειν is "gave me a look" (155c), "look within" (160d) and "fixed his eyes on him" (162d). Other words of the family have other English: the simple νοεῖν (noein) is "mean", of the man who said that temperance is doing one's own business (161d, 162b, 162d; see Doing one's own business), διάνοια (dianoia) "mind" (157c–d), διανοεῖσθαι (dianoeisthai) "had in mind" (164e; see Advice and greeting), and ἀγχίνοια (anchinoia) "quick-wittedness", which Charmides agrees is "a kind of sharpness of the soul" (160a; see Quickness and slowness). "Sense" in the edition renders other words besides: αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), both the sense to which temperance, if present, "must give rise" (159a) and the senses of 167d (see Perception); and φρόνιμος (phronimos), in "anyone else of sense" (163c).

ἄνοια

Attested: ἄνοιαν (anoian; 156c). Want of sense, folly. Good doctors say that to imagine one could ever treat the head on its own, apart from the whole body, is "sheer folly" (156c). Lemma: ἄνοια.

κατανοέω

Attested: κατανενόηκας (katanenoēkas; 167e), κατανενόηκα (katanenoēka; 168a). To observe, to take note of, and so to come to know. "And have you ever yet come across a fear which fears itself and the other fears, but fears not one of the things that are dreadful?" Socrates asks; "I haven't come across one," Critias answers (167e–168a2). Lemma: κατανοέω.

μέτριος

Attested: μέτρια (metria; 166e). In measure, moderate, reasonable; μέτρια λέγειν is to say reasonable things. Agreeing to attend to the argument and not to which of them is refuted, Critias says, "you seem to me to be talking sense" (166e). Lemma: μέτριος.

νοῦς

Attested: νοῦν (noun; 154c, 160d, 166e). Mind, sense; in the Charmides only in the idiom προσέχειν τὸν νοῦν, to pay attention. Socrates "watched" the boys (154c), and bids Charmides "pay closer attention" (160d) and Critias "pay attention to the argument itself" (166e). Lemma: νοῦς.

προσέχω

Attested: προσέσχον (proseschon; 154c), προσέχων (prosechōn; 160d, 166e). To hold toward, to apply; with τὸν νοῦν, to turn the mind to something. Its objects change from place to place: the boys gazing at Charmides (154c) and the argument (166e); at 160d none is named, and the attention goes with Charmides' look into himself. Lemma: προσέχω.

ἀποβλέψας (apoblepsas)

Attested: ἀποβλέψας (apoblepsas; 153d, 172e), ἀπέβλεπεν (apeblepen; 162b). To look away from other things toward one, to fix one's eyes on, and so to have regard to. Twice it is a glance: Critias "glanced toward the door" and saw the young men coming in (153d–154a), and Charmides, laughing slyly, "looked across at Critias" (162b). At 172e it is attention to a point in the argument: "it was with my eye on this very point," Socrates says, "that I said just now that some strange things were coming to light for me." Lemma: ἀποβλέπω.

ἐννοέω

Attested: ἐννοήσας (ennoēsas; 160d), ἐννόει (ennoei; 167c). To have in mind, to consider. Socrates bids Charmides, "Consider what sort of person temperance makes you by being present" (160d), and Critias, "Consider whether you think there is a kind of sight which is not sight of the things the other sights are of, but is sight of itself and of the other sights" (167c). Lemma: ἐννοέω.

Elsewhere in Plato

Two verbs of 160d recur in the passage on self-knowledge in the Alcibiades I (see Knowing oneself). Socrates and Alcibiades, the young Athenian aristocrat who was Pericles' ward, are looking for something into which we might look and see at once both it and ourselves, and Socrates opens the search with ἐννοεῖν, "let us consider" (132d). Alcibiades names mirrors. Socrates then asks whether he has noticed (ἐννενόηκας, ennenoēkas, the perfect of the same verb) that when someone looks into another's eye (ἐμβλέπειν, emblepein, the verb of "look within" at 160d), his face appears in it, in what we call the pupil, as in a mirror (132e–133a). An eye, then, sees itself by looking into an eye, at the part where its virtue, sight, comes to be; and a soul, if it is to know itself, must look into a soul, and above all into the region where its virtue, wisdom, comes to be (133a–b). Charmides is told to look within himself, with no second soul to look into, and at 167c–d Critias denies that there is a sight which sees itself and no colour; the Alcibiades I's eye, which sees itself only by seeing something else, can be read as agreeing with him.

The doctors' rule at 156c has its counterpart in the Phaedrus. Socrates asks Phaedrus, his companion in that dialogue, whether one can understand (κατανοῆσαι, the verb of "come across" at 167e) the nature of the soul in a way worth speaking of without the nature of the whole. Phaedrus answers that if Hippocrates is to be trusted, not even the body can be understood without that method (270c). Hippocrates was the physician of Cos (so the Protagoras names him, 311b), and Phaedrus calls him one of the Asclepiads, the families of doctors who traced their descent from Asclepius, the god of healing.

Use in the book

At 105a Socrates says that his account of Alcibiades' ambitions will show how continuously he has kept his mind on him. The claim concerns attentive knowledge of the young man's aims. It also explains why Socrates can use those ambitions to make the need for education intelligible.

At 118e Alcibiades assigns responsibility for his own failure to his lack of attention. This is a significant qualification within the test of Pericles' teaching: education depends on a receptive learner as well as a competent teacher. Socrates nevertheless asks for other successful pupils rather than accepting this single explanation as sufficient vindication of Pericles.

The interrogative “Do you take in?” at 117d marks another dimension of attention. Alcibiades must grasp the connection between his changing answers and mistakes in action, not merely hear the words. The dialogue's repeated requests to answer, examine, and be eager to say seek this kind of active understanding. Attention is therefore an enabling condition of learning and care, while neither being their complete content nor guaranteeing their success.

Places to read

1. 105aSocrates claims sustained attention to Alcibiades’ ambitions
2. 117dThe respondent is asked to take in the practical significance of the diagnosis
3. 118eAlcibiades explains his own educational failure through inattention

Translation in this edition

The full phrase “pay attention” should not be reduced to a technical account of νοῦς. In this idiom the noun participates in an ordinary description of directing one's mind, unlike the subject-specific “medical sense” of 135a.

ἐννοέω

Attested: ἐννοεῖς (ennoeis; 117d); ἐννενόηκας (ennenoēkas; 132e). At 117d: Take in the connection between mistakes in action and ignorance that thinks it knows. At 132e: Have noticed the reflection in another eye, the ordinary observation on which the analogy draws. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐννοέω. See Attention.

προσέχω

Attested: οὐ προσέχων τὸν νοῦν (ou prosechōn ton noun; 118e). At 118e: Failing to pay attention, Alcibiades' own explanation of why Pericles has not educated him adequately. Lexical identification: lemma: προσέχω. See Attention.

Use in the book

Firm attention can see ideas as though they were things, with retinal vision supplying the analogy. A literary prescription then distinguishes calling attention from retaining it: brilliance and clarity are both named as means, alongside the different effects of astonishing the mind and charming taste. The Voltaire remark supplies a pointed counterexample to any automatic praise of concentration. Joubert imagines immense attentive labor spent finding a small irreligious joke; the sustained effort is subordinated to a tendentious aim. The charge remains his literary judgment, not an independently verified report of Voltaire’s reading.

Places to read

1. I, p. 384, entry 6, ¶1Firm attention sees ideas by analogy with eyes seeing objects.
2. II, p. 656, entry 7, ¶1Calling and holding attention are distinct artistic tasks.
3. II, p. 877, entry 4, ¶1An imagined feat of attentive reading serves a narrow polemical aim.

Translation in this edition

The English translation keeps the retinal image and differentiates brilliance from clarity. The conditional “would have read” is essential in the Voltaire passage; the source editor locates that remark only in the earlier notebook.