Carmedes - A Review

Plato's choice to write in dialogue gives him the opportunity to produce literary effects we don't expect from philosophy. Young carmides suggests that temperance is doing one's own business, Socrates finds this perplexing. But on the other hand, he isn't quite sure what he does mean. It emerges that this is a definition of temperance. The theme becomes explicit after some more platonic theatre. Carmides will become the follower of the tyrant critias, not socrates.