Being and substance

Use in the book

When the company praises Charmides' figure, Socrates calls him invincible on one condition, that "where his soul is concerned" he be "in fact well made" (154d–e). The same verb is "endowed" when Socrates makes the boy's blessedness hang on his being "well enough endowed for temperance and the rest" (158b; see Adequacy and deficiency).

Critias leans on the same verb to defend his definition. Asked for temperance's work, he objects: "This knowledge is not by nature like the other kinds of knowledge, any more than they are like each other" (165e). Pressed for its object, he says that it alone is knowledge of the other kinds of knowledge and of itself (166c; see Art and craft). Socrates then states the aim of the examination: "Or is it not a common good, do you think, for practically all men, that each of the things that are should become plain, as it really is?" Critias agrees (166d).

Critias then grants that this knowledge "has a certain power such that it is of something", as the greater is greater than something smaller (168b). Socrates generalizes: "Whatever has its own power in relation to itself, will it not also have the character toward which its power was directed?" If hearing is to hear itself, it "will hear itself as having a sound", and sight, to see itself, "must have some color" (168d). Hearing and sight, and indeed "motion moving itself and heat burning itself", "would raise disbelief in some people, though perhaps not in others" (168e–169a). It needs a great man, Socrates says, to determine "whether none of the things that are is by nature able to have its own power in relation to itself, but only in relation to something else; or whether some are and some are not", and whether knowledge is among them (169a; see Adequacy and deficiency).

At the end the things that are return twice. Of the man who knows everything, Socrates asks which knowledge makes him happy: "The one by which he knows what, of the things that are and have been and are going to be?" Critias names the knowledge of good and bad (174a–b2; see Art and craft). And Socrates admits that they "cannot discover to which of the things that are the lawgiver gave this name, temperance" (175b): the name is known, the thing it names is not.

These words name what the inquiry seeks: each of the things that are, made plain as it is; what a thing is, and can do, by nature; and the character a power is directed toward, which the power would have to have if turned on itself. Applied to the knowledge Critias calls temperance, the principle of 168d can be read as requiring that a knowledge which knows itself be itself a thing known, as a hearing that heard itself would be a thing heard. Socrates does not draw that inference; to keep the argument moving, he grants for now that there can be knowledge of knowledge (169d; see Agreement and concession).

Places to read

1. 154d–eCharmides would be invincible if, where his soul is concerned, he were also well made.
2. 158bIf Charmides is also well enough endowed for temperance, Socrates says, blessed is the child his mother bore.
3. 165e–166c2Critias: this knowledge is not by nature like the other kinds of knowledge, but is knowledge of the others and of itself.
4. 166c–dSocrates examines arguments, his own included, and calls it a common good that each of the things that are should become plain, as it is.
5. 168b–e2Whatever has its power in relation to itself must have the character its power is directed toward: a hearing that heard itself would have a sound, a sight that saw itself a colour.
6. 168e–169aWhether any of the things that are is by nature able to have its power in relation to itself, and whether knowledge is among them, needs a great man to determine.
7. 174a–b2The man who knows everything that has been and is and will be: which knowledge makes him happy?
8. 175bThey cannot discover to which of the things that are the lawgiver gave the name temperance.

Translation in this edition

Οὐσία is "character" at its one place (168d), and the edition's note there glosses it as "being or nature". The perfect of φύω is "well made" (εὖ πεφυκώς, 154e) and "well enough endowed" (ἱκανῶς πέφυκας, 158b) when it is said of Charmides, and "by nature" when it is said of the knowledge Critias calls temperance (165e) and of the things that are, "is by nature able" (169a). Τῶν ὄντων is "the things that are" at each of its places (166d, 169a, 174b, 175b), and τὰ νῦν ὄντα "everything that is now" (174a). At 166d "as it really is" renders ὅπῃ ἔχει, literally "how it stands".

οὐσία

Attested: οὐσίαν (ousian; 168d). Being, nature; here, character. Socrates asks, "Whatever has its own power in relation to itself, will it not also have the character toward which its power was directed?" (168d): a hearing that heard itself would have a sound, a sight that saw itself a colour. Lemma: οὐσία.

φύω

Attested: πεφυκώς (pephykōs; 154e), πέφυκας (pephykas; 158b), πέφυκεν (pephyken; 165e, 169a). Only the perfect occurs, "be by nature". Twice it is said of Charmides, whether he is "well made" where his soul is concerned (154e) and "well enough endowed for temperance" (158b); then of the knowledge Critias calls temperance, which "is not by nature like the other kinds of knowledge" (165e); and in Socrates' question whether any of the things that are "is by nature able to have its own power in relation to itself" (169a). Socrates' "Extraordinarily" (ὑπερφυῶς, 154d), of Charmides' face, is from the same root and is not listed; the noun φύσις, "nature", does not occur in the dialogue. Lemma: φύω.

εἶναί (einai)

Attested: ὄντων (ontōn; 166d, 169a, 174b, 175b), ὄντα (onta; 174a), εἶναί (einai; 176a). To be. With the article the participle is "the things that are" (166d, 169a, 174b, 175b), and at 174a, in τὰ νῦν ὄντα, "everything that is now". Elsewhere the verb is the everyday copula and is not listed, except at 176a, where it carries Socrates' closing judgement on temperance, which takes the conditional blessing of 158b as his own: "For I do think that temperance is a great good, and that if you have it you are blessed" (175e–176a; see Blessed). Lemma: εἰμί.

Elsewhere in Plato

In the Phaedrus Socrates makes "motion moving itself", one of the doubted cases of Charmides 168e–169a, the mark of soul, and introduces the proof as one the clever will not believe and the wise will (245c). Only what moves itself, since it never abandons itself, never stops moving, and it is the fountain and origin of motion for everything else that is moved; whoever says that this very thing is the being (οὐσία) and the account of soul need not be ashamed (245c–e). In the Laws the unnamed Athenian visitor asks Clinias of Crete to think of three things about each thing: its being, the account of its being, and its name. "Even" is a name, and "a number divided into two equal parts" its account; and for the thing whose name is "soul" the account is "the motion that is able to move itself" (895d–896a).

The same three can be read in the Charmides' last failure, where Socrates and Critias have the name, temperance, but neither its account nor the thing itself (175b). The lawgiver who gave the name is the figure the Cratylus makes the maker of names, "the rarest of craftsmen among men" (388e–389a).

Later readings

Aristotle, Plato's pupil, made οὐσία the first of his categories, the word his English translators render "substance": in its strictest sense it is what is neither said of a subject nor present in one, this man or this horse.² Seneca, the Roman Stoic of the first century AD, wanting a Latin word for οὐσία, "a thing we cannot do without, a nature that holds the foundation of all things", asked leave to use essentia, for which he names Cicero as his authority.³

Aristotle also faced the same difficulty as Charmides 168d, without naming the dialogue. We perceive that we see, he argues, and must do so by sight or by some other sense; but if by another sense, either the senses run on without end or some sense perceives itself, and we may as well grant that to sight itself. The difficulty is that if perceiving by sight is seeing, and what is seen is colour, or what has colour, then if anyone is to see the seeing, the seeing will itself have to have colour. Aristotle's answer is that perceiving by sight is not one thing, since by sight we also judge darkness and light when we are not seeing, and that what sees is in a way coloured, since each sense-organ receives what it perceives without the matter.⁴ The answer can be read as granting the Charmides' principle and meeting it: in perceiving, sight takes on the character of its object.

Use in the book

The opening heading asks what God’s essence is. The physical account of aether calls it the substance of heaven and the stars. In the discussion of souls after punishment, the Platonists are said to release souls from coming-to-be into being. These are distinct uses within the anthology.

Places to read

1. I.1.headingThe divine essence is among the chapter’s questions.
2. I.40.1.5Aether is the substance of the heavens.
3. I.49.65.16Being is contrasted with coming-to-be in an account assigned to the Platonists.

Translation in this edition

The rendering follows the relation expressed: “essence” in a question about what a thing is, “substance” in many physical accounts, and “being” in opposition to genesis. The Greek remains available for comparison.