Tyranny and self-knowledge : Critias and Socrates in Plato's 'Charmides'
By: STERN, Paul
.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, June 1999American Political Science Review 93, 2, p. 399-412Abstract: Plato's Charmides presents a conversation about sophrosune (usually translated as moderation) between Socrates and two future tyrants, Critias and Charmides. Socrates' discussion with these most immoderate of political actors can still help us formulate a theoretical reply to the totalitarian tyrannies of our own century. This claim may seem peculiar in light of the very influential contemporary response to totalitarianism which maintains that Plato is himself the source of the "totalizing" thought responsible for these tyrannies. In particular, thinkers such as Levinas and Derrida claim that those tyrannies which aimed to eradicate all difference in the name of some purportedly universal ideology are the heirs, remote in time but close in intention, to Plato's initial rationalization of the world.(1) But I will argue that this characterization of Plato's thought is unfortunate because his reflections on tyranny in fact provide a necessary corrective to a problematic aspect of this contemporary response to tyranny.(2)
Plato's Charmides presents a conversation about sophrosune (usually translated as moderation) between Socrates and two future tyrants, Critias and Charmides. Socrates' discussion with these most immoderate of political actors can still help us formulate a theoretical reply to the totalitarian tyrannies of our own century. This claim may seem peculiar in light of the very influential contemporary response to totalitarianism which maintains that Plato is himself the source of the "totalizing" thought responsible for these tyrannies. In particular, thinkers such as Levinas and Derrida claim that those tyrannies which aimed to eradicate all difference in the name of some purportedly universal ideology are the heirs, remote in time but close in intention, to Plato's initial rationalization of the world.(1) But I will argue that this characterization of Plato's thought is unfortunate because his reflections on tyranny in fact provide a necessary corrective to a problematic aspect of this contemporary response to tyranny.(2)
Click on an image to view it in the image viewer
There are no comments for this item.