Critias

Use in the book

Critias mediates Socrates' approach to Charmides. He supplies the youth's pedigree, praises his intellectual and moral promise, summons him through an attendant, and devises the doctor's pretext. As cousin and guardian he legitimates the adult conversation while also shaping the expectations under which his ward must answer. His assurances that Charmides is exceptionally temperate are public claims about his own household as well as compliments to the boy.

The shift at 162c–e exposes how this social authority interacts with argument. After Charmides offers the formula about doing one's own business, Critias initially denies being its source. Socrates' subsequent narration, however, concludes that it almost certainly came from him. When the youth glances at him and jokes that its author may not understand it, Critias can no longer contain himself. His concern to shine before both Charmides and the assembled company is the narrator's diagnosis. The simile of poet and inept actor represents his attempt to reclaim an account mishandled in another person's mouth.

His successive defenses are not interchangeable. First he separates making from doing and working, appealing to Hesiod and reserving the latter terms for beneficial production. Then he rejects the implication that a temperate person might be unaware of being temperate. Rather than concede it, he explicitly withdraws his earlier position and offers knowing oneself, supported by an interpretation of the Delphic inscription. When Socrates asks for the product of such knowledge, Critias correctly challenges the assumption that every expertise leaves a separate tangible product. His mathematical counterexamples force a move from products to objects. The ensuing claim, that temperance alone knows itself and other kinds of knowledge, is therefore a further specification that must itself be tested.

Critias' philosophical contributions are substantial even when his dramatic posture is unflattering. He identifies good and bad as the knowledge most relevant to happiness at 174b. He also attempts to distinguish supervisory benefit from direct production at 174d–e2. Neither contribution should be erased by treating him simply as a villain whose arguments are empty. Conversely, his commitment to knowledge is not enough to exempt his reasoning from scrutiny. At 169c–d he shares Socrates' perplexity but hides it to preserve his reputation. At 166c he charges Socrates with seeking his personal refutation, prompting a defense of inquiry in which the identity of the defeated party should not matter.

At the end he interprets Charmides' willingness to remain with Socrates as proof of temperance and turns it into a command. That closure gives obedience an immediate criterion after conceptual definition has failed. Readers acquainted with his subsequent political career can hear a dangerous concentration of authority in this exchange. Xenophon identifies Critias as one of the Thirty and records his death in the same battle as Charmides. The historical evidence establishes the later connection; the extent to which Plato intends accusation, apology, tragic irony, or some combination remains an interpretive question. No claim that Socrates endorses the later regime follows from the present conversation.

Places to read

1. 153cSocrates is seated beside Critias son of Callaeschrus
2. 154a–158b234567He introduces, praises, and arranges the examination of his ward
3. 161b–163e2345Authorship is teased into the open and the formula receives a lexical defense
4. 164c–166e2345He replaces the earlier account with self-knowledge and then knowledge of knowledge
5. 169b–dHe is addressed by patronymic and depicted concealing perplexity
6. 174b–175a2Knowledge of good and bad and the attempted defense of supervisory benefit
7. 176b–dHe commands Charmides to submit to the charm

Translation in this edition

The edition's biographical notes supply the subsequent oligarchic history; it is not spoken in the dialogue. At 162d the referent of “he had been refuted” is grammatically debatable, so the narrator's description should not be paraphrased as an unambiguous formal verdict against one named person.

Κριτίας

Attested: Κριτίαν (kritian). Critias, son of Callaeschrus, beside whom Socrates sits on his return; he later introduces his cousin and ward Charmides and takes over the discussion. References: 153c. Lexical identification: lemma: Κριτίας. See Critias.

ὑπογελάω

Attested: ὑπεγέλα (hypegela). He smiled slightly or slyly; Charmides glances toward Critias while disclaiming knowledge of the saying. References: 162b. Lexical identification: lemma: ὑπογελάω. See Critias.

κατέχων (katechōn)

Holding himself back; Critias can no longer restrain his intervention. References: 162c. Lemma: κατέχω. See Critias.

ὑπεκίνει (hypekinei)

Was stirring or prompting; Charmides provokes Critias into taking responsibility for the answer. References: 162d. Lemma: ὑποκινέω. See Critias.