From the book
Charmides
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordEpithymia is desire or appetite; hēdonē pleasure.
- In the CharmidesAt 167e Socrates asks whether there is a desire directed at itself and other desires but at no pleasure.
- In this editionThe edition distinguishes “desire” for epithymia from “wish” for boulēsis and “love” for erōs.
- A place to readDesire for desires but for no pleasure rejected.
Meaning
Epithymia is desire or appetite; hēdonē pleasure. In this local example desire is treated as directed toward pleasure. The statement functions as a premise of an analogy, not a complete account of every human motive.
Use in the book
At 167e Socrates asks whether there is a desire directed at itself and other desires but at no pleasure. Critias answers emphatically that there is not. The precise restriction matters. A modern example of wanting to want something does not automatically contradict the passage: such a second-order desire may still concern an anticipated pleasure, the value of its object, or the satisfaction of an ordinary first-order desire. Socrates' hypothetical excludes the normal object altogether.
The passage belongs to a sequence extending beyond sensory powers to wishes, love, fear and opinion. That breadth is intended to make the supposed exception for knowledge require explanation. But at 168a Socrates explicitly refuses to insist that the proposed knowledge does not exist. The negative answer about desire is an accepted analogy, not a completed universal argument against higher-order attitudes.
The erotic prologue supplies a dramatic context in which desire is far from an empty abstraction. It is reasonable to hear an echo, but the epithymia example itself does not analyze Socrates' attraction or identify it with Critias' knowledge.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition distinguishes “desire” for epithymia from “wish” for boulēsis and “love” for erōs. Preserving those terms makes the three assigned objects, pleasure, good and beautiful, visible.
ἐπιθυμία
Attested: ἐπιθυμία (epithymia). Desire; in the relational example its normal object is pleasure, contrasted with a supposed desire only for desires. References: 167e. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐπιθυμία. See Desire as a relative.
ἡδονή
Attested: ἡδονῆς (hēdonēs). Pleasure; the ordinary object of desire in the reflexivity example. References: 167e. Lexical identification: lemma: ἡδονή. See Desire as a relative.