Plato on Virtue: Definitions of [sophrosune] in Plato's Charmides and in Plotinus, Enneads 1.2 (19)

WHEN INTERPRETING PLATO’S DIALOGUES we are confronted with a number of difficulties that we rarely meet when looking at the works of any other philosopher in antiquity. The most important reason for these difficulties can be found in the literary form that Plato has chosen for all his extant works, the dialogue. Instead of developing his theories in systematic treatises, as at least some of the pre-Socratic philosophers and most of the philosophical later writers we know of did, Plato prefers to display philosophical conversations, usually with Socrates as the main interlocutor. The advantage of this literary form is that it conveys a sense of immediacy and vividness as does a drama on stage; 1 it involves readers in the discussion and lets them experience the process of dialectic going on in the conversation. 2 Nevertheless, Plato’s dialogues raise a number of questions for those who do not read them only as pieces of literature but who want to analyze their philosophical content, especially where the socalled early dialogues 3 are concerned: How are we to interpret the figure of Socrates? Is he supposed to represent the historical Socrates or is he only Plato’s mouthpiece, or both? Are the aporiai of the early dialogues really insoluble or are there hints at possible solutions? Are we allowed to refer to later Platonic dialogues, in which metaphysical theories such