The Socratic elenchos in Xenophon's work plays a central role even though it may seem to have a secondary part. The following article aims to work on the xenophontic characterization of the Socratic elenchos, as well as his assessment from the point of view of its educational qualities. In this sense, the socratic elenchos potentialities will be analyzed in three directions: first, the strictly formative dimension; secondly, its role for acting in political affairs; and, finally, his contribution to the acquisition (...) of the sophrosyne. Through this analysis I will explain why the portrait made by Xenophon of the Socratic elenchos should be understood as supplementary to the portraits made by others and not as an alternative to them. (shrink)

In contrast to the abundance of discussion of Plato’s portrayal of the Socratic elenchos, relatively little work has been done on the elenchos as it appears in Xenophon. The reason is obvious: Xenophon makes much less use of the elenchus than Plato and what he does offer is not as interesting philosophically. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to look more closely at Xenophon’s portrait. It provides a corrective to the excessively intellectualizing portrait of the elenchus found in Plato’s writings, and (...) exhibits an educational quality that is characteristic of ancient Greek attitudes but not always stressed in treatments of Socrates. In the introduction to Bandini and Dorion 2000-2010, cxviii-clxxxii, Louis-André Dorion offers a probing analysis of the term elenchos as used by Xenophon and a broad survey of the elenchoi in Xenophon’s Socratic writings. Although Xenophon’s Socrates sometimes uses argumentation reminiscent of his Platonic cousin, this is only a minor part of his over-all conversational repertoire. Education is accomplished not by interrogation but by the direct and open communication of doctrine and by the practice of virtue (askēsis: see Mem. i 2.23, ii 1.1). Rather than employing the elenchos, Xenophon’s Socrates generally spends his time offering abundant useful advice to his friends. According to Dorion, Xenophon’s scant use of the elenchos is a result of his deep skepticism about its educational value. As a result of this skepticism, Xenophon creates an alternative portrait of Socrates in which interrogation plays a much smaller role. Dorion is certainly right to note that the elenchos is far less important for Xenophon than for Plato, but his conclusion is somewhat extreme. Although Xenophon does not focus on the Socratic elenchos, he does offer some portraits of it and he does not contest Plato’s fuller portrait of it either. This is because the elenchos does have some value for Xenophon, even if this value differs from what we may assume is its value in the Platonic portrait. As Morrison 1994 has shown, the elenchos serves a valuable role in selecting or preparing students for more substantive lessons. It can also play a valuable role in training for and acting in political affairs. And the elenchos can serve an educational role in another way, by contributing directly to the acquisition of virtue (sophrosune) by the interlocutor. I shall trace these significant roles of the elenchos for Xenophon. (shrink)

파레시아(parrhēsia)는 통상 발화자가 권력자 앞에서 위험을 무릅쓰고 용기를 발휘해 자신의 생각을 있는 그대로 솔직하게 말하는 것으로 이해되며, 소크라테스는 그런 파레시아를 행하는 자의 전형으로 평가된다. 그러나 플라톤의 대화편에서 보여지는 소크라테스의 모습은 과연 그러한가? 이 논문에서는 첫째, ‘솔직하게 말하기’만으로는 플라톤의 파레시아를 온전히 이해하기 어려움을 밝힌다. 플라톤은 무분별하게 ‘무엇이든 모두 말할 자유’를 경계하며, 그의 파레시아는 언제나 진실 탐구라는 목적과 관련하여 작동하기 때문이다. 파레시아는 단순히 솔직하게 말하기가 아닌 진실을 구하기 위해서라면 무엇이든 말하는 행위이며, 여기에는 ‘말하지 않음’의 발화 행위와 아이러니의 사용 등도 포함된다. 둘째, 플라톤에 (...) 따르면 진실은 논박당하지 않는 것으로, 그 내용은 나라와 시민들에게 ‘좋은’ 것이어야만 한다는 점을 밝힌다. 그러한 진실을 말하기 위해서 필요한 덕목은 절제(sōphrosynē)이며, 이는 발화자와 청자 모두에게 요구된다. (shrink)

Dada la cantidad de referencias a koinōnía en los diálogos de Platón, llama la atención que la frase “bien común” sea usada solo una vez – en el Cármides 166d. Sócrates pregunta a su interlocutor Critias: “¿No crees que es por el bien común, para casi todos los hombres, el que deba descubrirse cómo son todos los seres?”. La pregunta surge después de que Critias ha afirmado que sōphrosýnē es autoconocimiento, lo cual luego especifica como un “conocimiento de todos los (...) demás conocimientos y de sí mismo”. En este artículo, sostengo que no es casualidad que Sócrates mencione el “bien común” precisamente en este momento en su discusión con Critias. La noción de sōphrosýnē que Critias defiende es incoherente debido a lo que este afirma que es su característica distintiva – su reflexividad. Debido a su total reflexividad, no apunta a ningún fin más allá de sí mismo y, por lo tanto, es incapaz de revelar “los seres” ni de estar conectado a ningún bien fuera de sí mismo. El bien común que Sócrates menciona aquí está, por ende, esencialmente relacionado al reconocimiento de la ignorancia que motiva a asombrarse de un bien más allá del amor de nuestras propias cosas. Por lo tanto, sugiero una explicación para la curiosa adición de “casi” en el comentario de Sócrates aquí: Critias mismo muestra que, a menos que él pueda admitir la ignorancia y experimentar tal asombro, entonces él no está constitucionalmente incluido en este bien común. (shrink)

Plato in the Laws proposes a simulation of nearly ideal conditions regarding the experts’ persuasion and observes that even in these circumstances some citizens will not agree with the epistemic authorities. In this paper, such situations are labelled as exhibiting persistent dissent. Plato maintains that persistent dissenters lack the virtue of sōphrosynē, but its meaning is notoriously difficult to decipher. This paper offers to examine the role of sōphrosynē in tackling persistent dissent in light of Plato’s reflections on civic participation. (...) This angle will not only uncover the epistemic aspect of sōphrosynē that lays the groundwork for persuasion, but it will also give a less optimistic assessment of the civic theory of the Laws, whilst simultaneously widening our own understanding of the range of disagreements between the experts and the non-experts and the difficulties in removing them. (shrink)

La sensatez o moderación (sophrosyne/σωφροσύνη) es un tema central que atraviesa diversos diálogos de Platón, en los cuales esta virtud se presenta en relación con el amor (erôs), el conocimiento de sí y la política. Esta virtud es abordada por Walter T. Schmid en su artículo “Socratic Moderation and Self-Knowledge”, publicado en el volumen 21 del Journal of The History of Philosophy, como resultado del seminario The Philosophy of Sócrates, organizado en 1981 por Gregory Vlastos, explorando la exposición del (...) término sophrosyne no solo en el Cármides, sino a través de distintos diálogos (Apología, Laques, Sofista). (shrink)

En 1942 Gadamer publicó su ensayo Platos Staat der Erziehung. En este artículo interrogará la mutua relación entre pólis y psyché, así como entre política y filosofía en el diálogo República de Platón. El presente texto se propone exponer de modo crítico el análisis que el autor realizó, en el ensayo mencionado, de la dikaiosýne entendida como “hacer propio” en los diálogos platónicos, así como el rango político de la educación filosófica. Para ello se pondrá énfasis en el papel que (...) desempeñan en su elaboración las nociones de andreía y sophrosýne. Finalmente, en las conclusiones se mostrará cómo en la lectura de Gadamer la educación filosófica de los guardianes y de los líderes se inscribe en una interpretación inescindible de una caracterización utópica de la kallípolis, que problematiza la cuestión del poder en el pensamiento platónico. (shrink)

El ensayo que presentamos a continuación consta de dos actos y un excurso. Los dos actos están dedicados al análisis del Cármides de Platón. En el primero, introducimos al tema del diálogo, la sophrosyne o sensatez, y mostramos el tránsito que se da, en el diálogo mismo, de la pregunta por la sensatez a la pregunta por el conocimiento. En el segundo, desarrollamos más detenidamente el tema de nuestro interés: las conclusiones respecto del conocimiento que van desprendiéndose de la (...) indagación respecto de la sensatez y, principalmente, que un saber que se precie de ser un saber de sí mismo o un saber del saber no solo nos conduce a sinsentidos, sino que resulta ser inútil. Estas conclusiones no parecen ser del todo percibidas por los interlocutores de Sócrates, y muy probablemente sea por ello que no pasan a un nivel mayor de análisis. De este modo, si bien el diálogo no llega a una definición cabal de la sensatez (ni, asimismo, del conocimiento), pensamos que sí pueden extraerse de él consideraciones fundamentales respecto del conocimiento, las cuales serán brevemente reseñadas al final de nuestro trabajo. En el excurso pretendemos presentar una suerte de ejercicio que consiste en usar esta refutación de la posibilidad y utilidad de un conocimiento exclusivamente reflexivo que arroja el Cármides de Platón para examinar las primeras meditaciones metafísicas de Descartes. Nos interesa evaluar con estas pistas, y de manera sumamente breve y libre, qué resultado puede obtener una empresa como la que pretendió realizar, varios siglos después, el filósofo francés. (shrink)

No hubo que esperar el Renacimiento florentino para que se produjera una revolución en la concepción del artista. Casi un siglo antes, en 1359[1], el escultor Andrea Orcagna esculpió un discreto medallón, situado en un ángulo inferior del tabernáculo de la iglesia de Orsanmichele en Florencia[2] que constituye todo un manifiesto visible sobre el nuevo estatuto del artista y su misión: en aquél se asoma, en medio de un pequeño marco trilobulado, una figura femenina con un gran compás de dos (...) puntas en la mano, muy visible (el objeto puede tener más de setenta centímetro de alto), que una inscripción identifica como la Templanza (en griego Sôphrosyne). Se trata de una alegoría de una de las cuatro virtudes cardinales cristianas (las que daban acceso a los cardines, las juntas de las puertas del cielo), junto con la Prudencia, la Justicia y la Fortaleza, tomadas en último término de la “teología” (o lista de virtudes necesarias para la vida del alma) platónica -una de las grandes aportaciones de Platón a la comprensión y la importancia de de la vida interior-. (shrink)

Philosophos Agonistes: Imagery and Moral Psychology in Plato's Republic RICHARD PATTERSON THE COMPETITIVE IMPULSE in its simplest, first and best expression -- be best and first in everything, as Peleus advised Achilles -- seems foreign to the spirit of philosophy for a number of reasons. The most important of these finds metaphorical expression in a "Pythagorean" gnome of uncertain provenance: "Life, said [Pythagoras], is like a festival; just as some come to the festival to compete, some to ply their trade, (...) but the best people come as spectators, so in life the slavish go hunting for fame or gain, the philosophers for the truth" . Plato's celebrated tripartite soul of the Republic provides a psychological underpinning for these observations about the festival crowd, and in particu- lar the distinction between the agonistes -- the competitor hunting victory and fame -- and the philosophical seeker after truth. Bk. IV distinguishes a reason- ing, a spirited, and an appetitive part or aspect of the soul, each having its own proper function and the three together providing a basis for Socrates' discus- sion of the virtues of wisdom, courage, sophrosyne, and justice. Bk. IX is explicit about all three parts having their own particular and natural pleasures and desires: the two lower parts, "spirit" and "appetite," appear respectively as lovers of victory and glory, on the one hand, and money, food, drink, and sex, on the other;.. (shrink)

Abstract:Since Homeric times, psychotherapy has been an essential part of the medical act. Initially, the word of physicians had a magical character. Plato rationalizes this in many of his dialogues. In "Charmides," he dives deeper into this matter and proposes to apply it to every disease. Analysing this dialogue has fundamental consequences for psychotherapy: 1) Remedy and epodé (charm) must be applied in every doctor–patient relationship. 2) The body can only be healed if the soul is cured first by a (...) charm. Patients must "offer" their souls to the physician, which implies the need for confidence and the unavoidable asymmetry which characterize doctor–patient relationships. 3) The openness of the patient's soul to the physician and the physician's "beautiful speech" to the patient will enable the latter to reach the state of sophrosyne (temperance), the condition of the possibility of true health. In the discussion of the meaning of sophrosyne, Socrates questions every one of the disciples' propositions and concludes that the only thing one can be sure of is that sophrosyne is a way of searching for virtue (areté). Later, in Theaetetus, Plato adds another element: temperance is a homoiosis theó, that is, the assimilation of patient with God. With this, Plato seals the ethical character of psychotherapy forever. (shrink)

The Charmides, searching for a definition of temperance, constantly confronts problems of reflexivity, transparency and opacity. Transparency and opacity structures the Charmides, from the dramatic beginning of Socrates peeking inside Charmides’ cloak, to Charmides’ initial depiction of sôphrosynê as concealing what one can do. The final two proposed definitions of temperance in the Charmides, self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge, are explicitly reflexive. That reflexivity is best understood by juxtaposing it to transparency and opacity, in the issue of whether someone (...) with knowledge of, say, the science of medicine, also knows the subject of medicine, health, or whether health is opaque to that second-order knowledge, and whether such opacity would be a defect or an advantage. In identifying self-knowledge with the knowledge of knowledge, as in many other things, Critias is a parody of Socrates. Critias’s knowledge of knowledge is a form of architectonic knowledge that, because of opacity, makes unnecessary any appeal to an objective truth and goodness beyond their political determinations. As such, it creates a serious challenge to Socratic claims that such appeals are unavoidable. (shrink)

Both Heraclitus and Democritus, as the philosophers of historia peri phuseôs, consider nature and human character, habit, law and soul as interrelated emphasizing the links between phusis, kinesis, ethos, logos, kresis, nomos and daimon. On the one hand, Heraclitus’s principle of change (panta rhei) and his emphasis on the element of fire and cosmic motion ultimately dominate his ethics reinforcing his ideas of change, moderation, balance and justice, on the other, Democritus’s atomist description of phusis and motion underlies his principle (...) of moderation and his ideas of health and measured life. In this series, particularly referring to the main principles of motion, moderation and justice, I attempt to describe a coherent pre-Socratic ethical perspective based on the Heraclitean and Democritean fragments. I explore the connections between their physics and ethics also borrowing from Nietzsche’s lectures and writings on the Pre-Socratics. I redefine such Heraclitean and Democritean concepts as harmony, order, perfection, health, self-control, contentment, cheerfulness, concord, sound judgment, wisdom, measure and balance and discuss them under the principles of motion (phusis), moderation (sophrosyne) and justice. In doing so, I also expose the relevance of the Heraclitean notion of logos (interpreting it as the underlying categorical principle of transition between phusis and ethos) in bringing together these ideas and principles. Finally, based on this pre-Socratic Weltanschauung, I assess the possibility of a coherent picture of humanity, its nature and conduct as extending from or fitting into or extending-from-when-fitting-into the cosmos of moving forces and atoms. (shrink)

The broad focus of the dissertation is mankind's problem of soul. The narrow focus is the nature of philosophy. The narrow focus evaluates the nature of philosophy by showing how philosophy makes the claim to resolve mankind's problem of soul by allowing us to overcome our experience of separation while preserving our distinctness. ;The philosophical standpoint allows us to overcome our experience of separation while preserving our distinctness by providing us with a fulfilling relation to the sources of intelligibility that (...) assimilates the soul's relation to the sources of life and order. The model form of this fulfilling relation to intelligibility allows the soul a fulfilling relation to what are truly the sources of life and order without the vulgar madness, the loss of distinctness, that threatens the non-philosopher. Philosophy in its model form is a divine madness that is characterized by both this comprehensive claim of fulfillment and a means of self-control, or sophrosyne, which preserves the soul's distinctness in relation to the sources of the cosmos. The narrow focus of the dissertation takes its bearings from the Platonic account of the unity of divine madness and self-control in the Phaedrus; the broad focus is oriented towards the Greek polis in relation to which the philosopher's comprehensive standpoint is most clearly visible. ;The success of philosophical fulfillment is purchased at the price of suppressing what is distinct, but not separate from, the zenith of intelligibility. The consequence of such a cost is that the philosophical standpoint leaves us with an irreducible residue of resistance to our drive to overcome the resistance of a lack of manageability and "shareability" to our experience. The last chapter explores the nature of the actual telos of human fulfillment, or what it would mean to overcome the limitations of the philosophical standpoint through the process of deification. (shrink)

This article was inspired by Georges Didi-Huberman’s keynote lecture “Que ce qui apparaît seulement s’aperçoit” delivered in 2015 at Charles University in Prague during the “Dis/appearing” conference organized by the Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie. Didi-Huberman’s lecture consisted of various reflections concerning the meaning of the image as instances of flaring up and fading away. During his talk, Didi-Huberman used evocative images – recollections – which he had collected over the years; impressions while walking in the streets, melancholic musings (...) about love, and thoughts gathered from literature en route. From this, the article identifies seven cases through which Didi-Huberman has conceptualized images; the nymph, the butterfly, the passer-by, the surface, the dance, the silence, and sophrosyne. These cases attest to the influence of Aby Warburg on the writing of Didi-Huberman and, taken together, identify what these cases of the image have in common; namely, that images occupy an interspace: the fleeting instant of appearance/disappearance. Didi-Huberman explains images – “Dante’s Beatrice and Baudelaire’s fleeting beauty” as “the paradigmatic ‘passer-by.’” Through these cases, this article poetically draws the reader’s attention to what Didi-Huberman calls “non-knowledge”; those fleeting, mobile, paradoxical aspects of images that resist clear categorization and can be thought of as fireflies against the night sky. The article asks: is it possible to characterize this genre? To denominate the collection of thoughts that welcome the image as a witness to the history of thought? The study of images can be understood, following Giorgio Agamben’s interpretation of Aby Warburg’s oeuvre, as “the nameless science.”. (shrink)

In the context of today.s moral and ecological crisis, and the accelerated advance of information and communication technologies, when human beings intensively experience their own fragility, a major question is that of well-being. That raises the issue of moral health, which represents, in an axiological and normative sense, a basis for the human being to find proper opportunities for remaking and protecting the beingness' equilibrium in face of a variety of risks in a society of excesses. We consider that a (...) significant element of moral health lies in the old Greek value of sophrosýne. In this essay, we highlight its meaning and role. We do this by reviving the core of a wise learning coming from Ancient philosophy about one of the moral excellences. Sophrosýne is approached as a necessary factor in human well-being; it is pursued in the prophylactic and therapeutic potential for the maintenance of human health; finally, it is developed inits fundamental action of allowing happiness in a well-functioning and self-fulfilling life of the human being. (shrink)

The Greek notion of beauty encompasses not only nature and artifice, but also the Good. This paper explains the connection by interpreting Plato in a way that allows his theory to be developed beyond the confines of his philosophy. It is argued that we could read his theory of beauty as based on fineness of appearance. This arises when a sensory particular transcends itself and suggests the presence of its sustaining Form, or when sophrosynē in human agency discloses the Good’s (...) power to transform the sensible world. In both cases, there is a pleasure in how certain phenomena or agents manifest the influence of the Forms at the sensory level. Beauty centres on an Ideal relation. By critically revising Plato’s position and taking it beyond the context of exegetical debate, a generally viable explanation of the grounds of Ideal beauty is formulated. This clarifies how such beauty is based on both the fundamental conditions of knowledge, as such, and our existence as free beings. Ideal beauty is shown, also, to be an aesthetic concept with enduring importance. (shrink)

A timeless rule for the community’s well-being consists in the compliance of the social rules that regulate the city’s arrangement. However, what would happen if those rules were broken? The Hippolytus of Euripides reflects the social inaptness of the central character, Hippolytus, who consciously neglects the rules of his community, mainly the divine nomoi, setting off his own death and the ruin of the other characters of the play.

In the genre of inspirational works, emphasizing the immanence of God, Mrs. Palmer maintains that Christ claimed no powers for himself which other men in principle do not possess, thus placing her thought in the humanistic interpretation of Christianity. Thought is supposed to have power over the body, and its exercise makes possible the enjoyment of the present as present. Unfortunately, the author's concept of sophrosyne remains cloudy, and consequently her argumentation is not so persuasive as it might be.—P. (...) S. (shrink)

This brief volume is the first in a series of monographs designed to introduce the main types of ethical theory from ancient Greece to the present. The series provides an historical purview for the beginner, brief but accurate, interspersed with critical evaluation from a modern analytic point of view. Huby's volume on Greek Ethics is more expository than evaluative in nature, with most attention directed toward Plato and Aristotle. Some of the virtues of the volume, in spite of the lack (...) of critical comment, are: 1) The attempt to show the historical continuity of problems. ; 2) A careful treatment of Greek terms, notably physis, nomos, arete, dikaios, sophrosyne, philia, eros, emphasizing multiple meanings and connotations and, where necessary, indicating any differences between Greek and present day usage which might tend to confuse the reader.—C. L. H. (shrink)

Prior to the appearance of this work, the posthumously published book, Plato's "Charmides" by T. G. Tuckey was the only book-length commentary in English on the Charmides. Unlike Tuckey and the more recent German writers on this dialogue Hyland has broader aims than explicating Plato's analysis of sophrosyne, although he does that as well. Hyland sees the present philosophical and cultural scene pervaded by the two apparently opposite but intimately interrelated stances of mastery and submission. To these he proposes (...) an alternative--the interrogative stance maintained by Socrates in the Platonic dialogues. Such an orientation maintains "a precarious balance" between mastery and submission. One neither accepts any answer as completely satisfactory nor does one despair of any meaningfulness to the range of answers available. Thus one avoids imposing a theory upon the facts as well as being overly submissive to whatever events are present as the manifestation of Being. This attitude, also called "responsive openness," is believed by Hyland to be the real meaning of sophrosyne, the virtue investigated in the Charmides. Such a stance is the existential attitude adopted by the philosopher; indeed, it is the virtue of philosophy. In the Charmides Socrates is presented as the mean between the submission exhibited by Chaerephon, who too uncritically accepts Socrates' way of life, and Charmides and Critias, who exhibit potential tyrannical qualities in their attempts to master those around them. (shrink)

In the context of today.s moral and ecological crisis, and the accelerated advance of information and communication technologies, when human beings intensively experience their own fragility, a major question is that of well-being. That raises the issue of moral health, which represents, in an axiological and normative sense, a basis for the human being to find proper opportunities for remaking and protecting the beingness' equilibrium in face of a variety of risks in a society of excesses. We consider that a (...) significant element of moral health lies in the old Greek value of sophrosýne. In this essay, we highlight its meaning and role. We do this by reviving the core of a wise learning coming from Ancient philosophy about one of the moral excellences. Sophrosýne is approached as a necessary factor in human well-being; it is pursued in the prophylactic and therapeutic potential for the maintenance of human health; finally, it is developed inits fundamental action of allowing happiness in a well-functioning and self-fulfilling life of the human being. (shrink)