Plato's Charmides

Plato's Charmides is a rich mix of drama and argument. Raphael Woolf offers a comprehensive interpretation of its disparate elements that pays close attention to its complex and layered structure, and to the methodology of reading Plato. He thus aims to present a compelling and unified interpretation of the dialogue as a whole. The book mounts a strong case for the formal separation of Plato the author from his character Socrates, and for the Charmides as a Platonic defence of the written text as a medium for philosophical reflection. It lays greater emphasis than other readings on the centrality of eros to an understanding of Socratic procedure in the Charmides, and on how the dialogue's erotic and medical motifs work together. The book's critical engagement with the dialogue allows a worked-out account to be given of how temperance, the central object of enquiry in the work, is to be conceived.

Product details

• Authors: Raphael Woolf, Raphael (King's College London) Woolf, Raphael (King''s College London) Woolf, Woolf Raphael
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.07.2023
• EAN: 9781009308199
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0930819-9
• No. of pages: 282
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 237 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Print on Demand; Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato; Cambridge Studies in the Dialo
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; Ancient Greece, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Ancient & Classical, Classical texts, Ancient World, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500, Ancient Greek and Roman literature