Notas a Rosen, The Ancients and the Moderns. E.U.A.: Yale University Press, 1989.

Preface

- “What I wish to defend is the thesis that it is difficult to be a modern. I would therefore reject the
facile assertion, popular in some quarters, of a quarrel between antiquity and modernity as an
opposition between austere nobility on the one hand and sophistry on the other. / In the first place,
the opposition between the noble and the base, or between philosophy and sophistry, already
defines the structure of antiquity.” (viii)

- In Hegel’s language, the substance of the first negation becomes the subject of the second
negation. This means, not that antiquity is replaced by modernity, but that modernity is the self-
consciousness of antiquity. / We do not need to be Hegelians in order to draw the moral from this
Hegelian lesson. In the postanthropological, postmetaphysical, postmodernist epoch, there is no
more substance or subject, hence no self-consciousness, and neither antiquity nor modernity.
Accordingly, there is no more postmodernism, since post- draws its sense from what precedes it,
namely, modernity, which is in turn defined by reference to antiquity.” (viii-ix)

Chapter 1. A Modest Proposal to Rethink Enlightenment

- “I want now to argue on behalf of a modified or moderate enlightenment. Underlying this

argument is the presupposition that the differences between the ancients and the modems are
contingent, or that there are ancients and moderns in both epochs.” (3)

- “The defense of the ancients is today most strikingly formulated by those who call themselves
conservatives. (I disregard the expression neoconservative, with its self-vitiating implication of
radical revision- ism, or of making the past "up to date" while at the same time it remains the past.)
This defense is articulated as a celebration of prudence, which is itself identified as the
aforementioned ‘noble simplicity of the ancients.’ It is thereby taken for granted that revolutionary
tactics and intricate political strategy, unless they point backward or support the status quo, can be
neither prudent nor noble.” (4)

- “Conservatism, in the present sense of the term, is therefore based upon a perception of the
limitations or defects of human nature. At the same time, this perception is linked to an ambiguous
understanding of nature. Whereas man is the rational animal, he is not sufficiently rational to live in
accordance with nature—or more specifically, with his nature. From this it follows that either man
or nature is irrational or that nature is divided within itself. Nature in the cosmic sense is thus an
enemy rather than a friend of mankind. The result is inevitably a doctrine of the supernatural or of a
radical split between theory and practice. In this way, man transforms himself from the rational to
the active animal. Paradoxically enough, this is also the precondition for the advent of liberalism,
that is, of the Enlightenment. / This thumbnail sketch of the progress of conservatism suggests that
it transforms itself into its opposite by its own inner rhythms. […] For the moment, I merely note
that, according to the conservative, homo sapiens (as opposed to some few individual human
beings) is the passionate animal, in whom reason is an instrument for the unending process by
which we attempt to satisfy our desires, a process in which we must inevitably consume ourselves.
The double identity of nature underlies the distinction between the few and the many, as well as the
not-so-secret philosophical conviction that the many are to be preserved from self-destruction by
the deification of the few. The philosopher returns to the cave as a god or lawgiver; more precisely,
he returns in the form of his exoteric traces. / This point must be emphasized in view of the
widespread contemporary misunderstanding of Platonism, or of the history of metaphysics as the
ostensible domination of presence. To the extent that conservatism and Platonism converge, one
must say that the philosopher is present only as absent, either as a divine being who does not know
whether his neighbor is a human or a beast, or else as a fallen god who must curtail (not to say
abstain from) the pursuit of wisdom in order to tend the herd-animal ‘man’ with a judicious mixture
of rhetoric and force. In either case, the Platonic philosopher cannot Jive within the city as a
philosopher. The absence of the philosopher is a direct consequence of the inaccessibility of
wisdom to human discourse. In the imagery of Plato's Phaedrus, enlightenment is impossible
because the soul, described as a winged charioteer leading a team of horses, one good and the other
the opposite, is prevented by the jgnoble horse of passion from gaining a steady and uninterrupted
vision of the hyperuraruan beings or Platonic Ideas.” (5)

- “To be somewhat more candid, it was Socrates who taught us that the unexamined life is not
worth living, just as it was presumably Socrates who first gave a full account of political
conservatism. In my opinion, Socrates was, rather than any kind of a conservative, an enlightener
who spoke, not just ad captum vulgi, but to the circumstances of his day. What we today call
conservatism must seek its ancestor in Aristotle, not in Plato. Aristotle does not bring philosophy
down into the city, as is evident from his distinction between theoretical and practical wisdom.” (7)
- “The conservative philosopher cannot remove philosophy entirely from the city without
suppressing himself and thereby returning the nonphilosopher to a semibestial condition of herd
existence. Not even the Aristotelian distinction between theoria and phronesis is enough to
overcome the fact that this distinction is made in public, in the presence of gentlemen and not
merely of philosophers.” (7)

- “The blunt realism or pessimism of the ancients is not a populist repudiation of reason but rather a
doctrine of necessary compromise. Philosophers must rule because nonphilosophers are incapable
of ruling themselves. In Aristotelian terms, the same may be said of the possessors of practical
intelligence. The condemnation of passion, in short, is a tacit admission of the preferability of an
open to a closed city. Far from being utopians, then, the ancient philosophers were reconciled to the
impossibility of the truly best city. A city in which philosophers are shepherd kings is thus a
practical compromise or attenuation of the true paradigm of a city in which all men are
philosophers.” (7-8)

- “We may begin our reply with a brief consideration of contemporary physical science. The most
‘liberal’ progressives today favor the restriction and elimination of all scientific research that may
be directed toward the destruction of the human race. It should by now be plain that what we call
progressive liberalism is in fact the voice of conservatism, that is, of the critic of the Enlightenment.
To express this in a parenthetical manner, fairness to all requires a steady descent into the
abolishment of the intellect.” (8)

- Rosen muestra de forma bastante chistosa las consecuencias del ataque conservador hacia la
Ilustración (y por conservador entiende más bien a los que hoy dicen ser los más liberals, es decir,
aquellos que están en contra de las violencias y desigualdades traídas por la ciencia y la possible
desaparición del mundo): destruir la ciencia significa destruir todo possible científico, es decir,
destruir a todos los niños presents y futuros. Toda respuesta prudente o prácticamente asequible
debe dares en un marco de progreso científico.

- “My point is that this deliberation can take place only within the context of scientific progress and
hence by something more than a token or symbolic appearance of the philosopher in the
marketplace. It is not possible to extirpate the moral and political dangers of modern science
without enacting the very consequences we fear.” (9)
- Rosen ahora muestra las supuestas consecuencias de restaurar el pensamiento político clásico. Es
decir, ¿qué tendríamos que hacer en un nivel práctico, gubernamental, si quisiéramos volver a traer
a cuenta a Platón y Aristóteles? Las consecuencias son evidentemente ridículas.

- “There cannot be the slightest doubt that the actual imposition of this paradigm would require the
destruction of Western civilization from the fourth, and strictly speaking, from the fifth century s.c.
onward.” (10)

- “But it is far from trivial, and certainly not preposterous, for m ; to state plainly and simply what
that paradigm actually entails of those who would conform to it. If the paradigm is itself absurd,
then it cannot serve as a noble or prudent standard by which to rectify our own baseness.” (10)

- “The securing of the common good will require ever stricter regulation of public life. The
preservation of virtue, in view of the radically defective human nature insisted upon by the classical
sages, demands the steady transformation of the city into an armed camp, as Aristotle describes
Plato's just city.” (10)

- “And so, by steady stages, we return to the extreme consequences of our initial paradigm. The
secure preservation of virtue depends ~o~ann.x and barbarism. Not even the ancients were
prepared to enforce such an extreme paradigm of wisdom. Not even the daring Plato permits
himself to state with full rigor the implications of his city of philosopher kings.” (11)

- “Since the defenders of antiquity are in any event agreed that it is inadvisable to adopt an extreme
paradigm such as the one I have sketched, it is time to tum away from the obvious to consider what
the aforementioned representatives of classical wisdom claim is their actual intention: a moderate
defense of moderation.” (11)

- “The main conclusion of the previous section is as follows: The relation beteen theory and
practice, precisely on the classical or acnient view, is such that we canot apply the classical doctrine
of virtue as a standard for imporving modern moral and political life except by transforming that
life beyond recognition, and indeed, in the extreme case, by destroying it. If this is right (and it
would certainly be denied by the contemporary ‘ancients’), then there is something immoerate
about classicalmoderation. That is to say, it is not moderation that is at fauls but the attempt to
transfer its classical historical embodiement to the modern world.” (11)
- “If radical conservatism leads to tyranny and radical enlightenment to nihilism, then perhaps it is
radicalism that should be avoided. Let us consider the possibility that there is no practical difference
between moderate conservatism and moderate liberalism, provided that the emphasis is in both
cases on moderation rather than upon conservatism or liberalism. In this instance, differences in the
perception of nobility are caused by mistaking theoretical extremism for thoroughness and
profundity. / The moderate conservative is cautious about change, which is to say that he accepts a
change for the better. But the principle of moderate liberalism is the same, namely, prudent
enlightenment” (12-13)

- “The paradigm of modern enlightenment must recognize the claims of its classical counterpart
even while observing an implicit deference within ancient wisdom to the essence of the modern
claim. To the Platonist, the modern spokesman says: ‘It cannot be noble to submit to a hostile and
tyrannical nature if one has the means to defend oneself.’ To the Aristotelian, the reply is slightly
different: ‘Your prudent separation of theory from practice is rooted in the immoderate surrender to
the tacit Platonic principle that nature is hostile to enlightenment. What you call teleology is, at
bottom, subservience to nature.’ ” (13)

- “the aforementioned contention is an oversimplification, because it ignores the intrinsically

enlightening nature of philosophy itself, and therefore of ancient philosophy. When Socrates
brought philosophy down from the heavens into the cities of mankind, he engaged in a revolution
that cannot be concealed by attempts to regulate its dangerous consequences. An undiluted
conservatism would have preserved the separation from the city of the sage as sage, or, in other
words, the totally esoteric status of philosophy. Clearly Socrates believed that undiluted
conservatism is either undesirable or
impossible , or both . The Socratic dilemma is how to balance the madness of philosophy with the
sobriety of politics. But this is exactly the modern dilemma. We should not allow ourselves to be
deluded by the fact that this dilemma takes on a different appearance in different historical ages.”
(14)

- “As others have suggested, the moderns raise courage to a higher status than is accorded it by the
classical sages. What the contemporary ‘ancients’ do not admit, so far as I can see, is that the
modern philosophical courage is not simply that of the vulgus or of the imagination of poets, but
that it expresses a perception of nobility. Modernity is not grounded in a rejection of nobility; it is
grounded in the charge that the ancients lacked nobility.” (14)

- “Classical playfulness and aloofness or Heiterkeit are rooted in despair, and so too is the
assessment of the unimpor- tance of human affairs. This should be an obvious inference from the
thesis that modern optimism is rooted in courage, or that human life, and so history, become central
when nature is transformed into the accessible order of mathematics. / It is not quite true to say that
in the late twentieth century modern man has lost his self-confidence, or for that matter his self-
consciousness (as is at least recommended by partisans of the postanthropological epoch). On the
other hand, there can be no doubt that we are experiencing a crisis of confidence. In my view, the
most visible and important sign of this crisis is the contemporary relevance of the quarrel between
the ancients and the moderns. I mean by this that the champions of antiquity, after having been
relegated to the status of ineffectual aestheticism, are today enjoying a renaissance. As it seems to
me, this is due to the extreme rigor with which twentieth-century spokesmen for the Enlightenment
banished the ancients from a position of respect.” (15)
 Evidentemente, esto es respecto a la afirmación de Strauss sobre que el existenciliasmo e
historicismo contemporáneo ha perdido la confianza del proyecto ilustrado.

- Rosen concibe la discusión sobre la querella entre antiguos y modernos como una consecuencia
del derrumbamiento del hegelianismo. Hegel es la síntesis entre lo antiguo y lo moderno.

- “The rejection of the ideal of completeness as represented, for example, by Goethe may also serve
to indicate my point. In our time this ideal has resurfaced in the somewhat superficial but not
entirely mistaken debate about the two cultures and the plea for their reunification. The solution is
not that each of us become both poet and scientist; nor am I implying that the proper resolution of
the contemporary crisis is by a new synthesis of antiquity and modernity. / My thesis is rather that
there is no resolution to the contemporary crisis, if that means to remove it completely and to revert
to the noble resignation of antiquity or the virile optimism of the seventeenth century. Crisis is
intrinsic to human existence, ancient or modern. Crises must be negotiated; this is not the same as to
eradicate them. And negotiation requires moderation, but not the moderation that is embodied in the
paradigm of classical virtue now being pressed upon us by the so-called conservatives.” (17)

- “It would be fatal to construct a paradigm of moderation that goes to extremes in its
indefiniteness: ‘Nothing too much’ is as vacuous as the injunction to ‘go to the roots.’ One may
arrive at the roots with a bulldozer or a spade; which instrument to use depends upon the
circumstances.” (17-18)
 Pero Rosen mismo se pone el pie, porque ese “depende de las circunstancias” es tan
ambiguo o vacuo como el “Nada en exceso” que reclamara la moderación clásica.

- “enlightenment is indeed indissolubly connected with ontological presence. / The same, however,
cannot be said of the ancient wisdom, and on this critical point I am forced to contradict Heidegger
and especially Derrida. The fundamental characteristic of the partisans of antiquity is the rejection
of the present, a rejection that is rooted in ontology and not simply in phronesis. Nobility is defined
essentially by human limitation or by the inaccessibility of Being, to put the point in contemporary
jargon. By the same token, the postmoderns also reject the present on ontological grounds, namely,
because of the absence of Being. My earlier argument that postmodernism is a deteriorated version
of the Enlightenment is entirely compatible with the present assertion that postmodernism explicitly
rejects the Enlightenment because of theoretical extremism. / Postmodernism is the Enlightenment
gone mad.” (19-20)

- “Except for those who wish to return, not to Burkean England or Periclean Athens but to
pharaonic Egypt, there is as a matter of moral certitude only one direction in which to move.” (21)

- “Hope becomes steadily less utopian as the present improves, and the present improves as our
power increases. Although we fully recogruze the dangers and obstacles, it is noble to strive for the
increase of human power, not in the vain desire to become gods but in the reasonable desire not to
be slaves.” (21)

Chapter 5. Sōphrosynē and Selbstbewusstsein

- “The master-slave dialectic fulfills itself or is aufgehoben within the rational state: hence the
overcoming of alienation and the previous separation between theory and practice. Impulse and
desire are thus the human forms of the logical excitation of negativity, the engine that drives the
development of Geist toward wisdom or absolute self-knowledge. Hegel's ‘negative work’ achieves
its goal as the Platonic Eros cannot.” (86, n7)

- “the first philosophical discussion of what looks like the problem of self-consciousness, in the
Platonic dialogue Charmides, arises in conjunction with the nature of sōphrosyē as the connection
between virtue and knowledge. In fact, Socrates' discussion has to do explicitly with self-knowledge
and implicitly with the difference between self-consciousness and self-knowledge. This difference
becomes visible within an ethical or political context.” (87)

- “According to Socrates, the soul cannot see itself directly but only as reflected in another soul. See
Alcibiades 1: 132c-33b11. This dialogue contains the Socratic version of the master-slave dialectic.
In order to gratify our fundamentally tyrannical desire (represented by young Alcibiades), we must
see or know ourselves. But this takes place only within a political context.” (87, n13)

- “The Platonic separation of self-consciousness as a phenomenon from its archē constitutes in

Hegelian terminology the alienation of man. At the same time, Plato attempts to overcome, or at
least to mitigate, the negative consequences of this alienation by recourse to sōphrosynē. Self-
knowledge in the strict sense of epistēmē is impossible. But the attempt to develop a conception of
self-knowledge in the sense of practical intelligence perpetuates the separation between theory and
practice and leads to a radical ambiguity with respect to the unity of man.” (87-88)
 “See Republic 6:519a11- b5. The difference between the vision of shrewd but evil men
and that of the virtuous philosophers is described in terms of a turning around of the soul's vision
toward true beings. This turn is inward in the sense of noetic intuition of Ideas. It is obviously
related to the turning around of the released prisoner in the cave at 515c7. Only those can turn
around who are capable of turning or looking inward. Again, self-consciousness is connected with
virtue and arises in a political context.” (88, n14)

- “The just city is possible only by an injustice to philosophers (to say nothing here of the
nonphilosophers over the age of ten); they must turn away from their own business to attend to the
business of the nonphilosophers. In addition to the ambiguity concerning the difference between
justice and temperance, there is evidently a difference between philosophical and nonphilosophical
justice or virtue. The self-consciousness of the philosophers, even though it arises in a political
context, is at odds with political existence. / It is impossible to mind one's own business unless one
knows what is one's own: One must possess self-knowledge. The only truly just man is therefore the
wise man.” (88-89)

- “Wisdom qua science is in turn possible only if there is a logos of the soul, the arena within which
the whole (or the good) becomes visible to man. The soul renders the whole accessible because it is
itself a mirror (or mirror-image) of the whole (10:596c4ff.). But every logos about the soul must be
of this or that psychic property: In the language of Fichte and Hegel, discursive or reflective
analysis objectifies the soul. Its results separate us from the unity or intrinsic being of what we seek.
[…] the
thesis of the unity of the virtues is, if not contradicted or canceled outright, transformed into a
Sollen in the sense that Fichte assimilates the Kantian categorical imperative into the doctrine of
infinite striving. The virtues ought to be unitary, but in fact there is a separation between wisdom
and the demotic virtues of justice, temperance, and courage. The factual separation of the virtues is
the political manifestation of the permanent historical alienation of the philosopher from the
community.” (90-91)

- “The unity of the soul depends upon the unity of theory and practice or of the four cardinal virtues.
But the unity of theory and practice is, as we have seen, a Sollen: It rests upon an indemonstrable
hypothesis or discursively inaccessible vision of the unity of the good. […] We have a practical
assurance of the soul as a harmony but no theoretically valid demonstration. For reasons such as
these, Socrates and Glaucon each refer to their discussion of the soul as a ‘speculation’ skemma:
4:435c4, 445a6).” (91)

- “No mention is made here of temperance; we are told that there are three forms in the city and the
soul: wisdom, courage, and justice (4:441c4ff.). Some lines later, Socrates restates his conclusion
by defining wisdom, courage, and temperance. […] Temperance is said to mark the individual, and
so the city, when here is friendship and harmony among the parts or functions, when all submit
peacefully to the rule of the rational element (4·442c1o-d1). In short, temperance is evidently
indistinguishable from justice, to say nothing of wisdom. Intelligence and spiritedness must be able
to exercise their own functions without being temperate or just. ” (92-93)

- “Intelligence and spiritedness, by doing their own work, are just. But precisely by doing their own
work, they are not just, but wise and brave. This is a generalized example of the internal vacillations
and contradictions in Socrates' analysis of the parts of the soul. I will simply restate the dilemma in
terms of temperance. If temperance is restricted to bodily desire, then it cannot be a harmony or
friendship of ruler and ruled. If it characterizes the whole, then it becomes indistinguishable from
justice and perhaps wisdom. In conclusion: Socrates defines the virtues as both one and diverse.
They ought to be one, but this is impossible because of the inaccessibility of wisdom and the
undefinability of the soul. The impossibility of self-knowledge leads to the separation of the
philosopher from himself and thereby from the community of nonphilosophers, because the only
genuine virtue is the pursuit or love (but not the possession) of wisdom. Until wisdom is publicly
accessible within the laws and customs of the city, the self-consciousness of the philosopher must
be the unhappy consciousness. The philosopher's political responsibility takes him away from the
pursuit of knowledge, especially self-knowledge, and so from happiness. The only sense in which
Socrates can define the unity of virtue is by identifying it with philosophy; and this, to repeat,
separates the philosopher from the nonphilosopher, who is marked by demotic virtue. To assert the
unity of virtue is therefore to divide virtue in half. This is no doubt why Aristotle was led to
distinguish between theoretical and practical virtue.” (93)

- “The prudent man knows what to do, and he is sober rather than mad. We should bear in mind,
however, that prudence, as the opposite of madness, is in conflict with Eros, and so with the divine
madness that gives us philosophy.” (94)
 Cfr. Jenofonte, Memorabilia, 3.9, 4-7.

- “If theory is mathematical and practice is productive-technical, then there is no room for practical
virtue or a nonepistemic type of knowledge. Similarly, the ‘fine arts,’ or at least poetry, which
produces speeches rather than bodies, acquire a problematic status in the division just noted. Let us
say merely that poetry and prophecy, classified in the Phaedrus under madness, have a subterranean
and somewhat inconsistent connection to sōphrosynē understood as prudence or practical
intelligence. And yet, the exclusion of nonepistemic or nontechnical knowledge is surely at odds
with the general theme of the Charmides. / Let me rephrase the preceding conclusion. The thesis of
the unity of virtue makes practical intelligence subordinate to, or a kind of, mathematical theory. In
this case, knowledge is always of a determinate form. Consequently, there can be no knowledge of
the whole, none of the soul, and therefore no self-knowledge. The connection with the impossibility
of knowledge is as follows. Since knowledge is a condition or pathos of the soul, it is impossible to
know without knowing that one knows, that is, to know oneself as the knower. If this thought is
developed, it leads to the Hegelian doctrine of Absolute Spirit as the excitation common to knower
and known. In the language or the Charmides, if sōphrosynē is the science of sciences, it must be
the science of itself: to know oneself is then to possess epistemic wisdom. But Socrates, in a manner
related to similar discussions by modem logicians, rejects this possibility. He conceives of sciences
rendered determinate by analogy with the specific form each knows. A form of forms, however, is
out of the question. In the language of the Sophist, every attempt to transform being into a summum
genus, or to describe its attributes, leads to the negation of being or the mention of formal properties
other than being. Hence the previously noted indescribableness of the good, but also, we may add,
or nous, which, as receptive of form, could not have a determinate form of its own. In sum, if
sōphrosynē is knowledge, it cannot be science. But if it is nonscientific knowledge, then the unity of
virtue (and the Platonic conception or theōria and epistēmē) is contradicted.” (96-97)

- “We should not be prevented by the absence of the terms subject and object from grasping the
fundamental implication of the Charmides; those terms follow from the distinction between knower
and known. The attempt to acquire self-knowledge divides the self into subject and object. In the
language of Fichte, the ego poses itself as the opposition behveen empirical ego (subject) and
nonego (object). Plato no more than Fichte can overcome this opposition in theoretical or discursive
science. Both in effect deny that the activity or work of soul renders visible the essence of soul. This
is the precondition for the Hegelian synthesis of Aristotelian and Christian conceptions of noetic
activity.” (97)

- “He distinguishes between science of science and sōphrosynē by means of a prophetic intuition
concerning the utility and goodness of sōphrosynē (169a-b, esp. b4ff.). This suggests a distinction,
previously suppressed, between theory and practice. But the suggestion is not developed, for the
reason we have already established. If knowing how to do something is not the same as knowing its
utility or goodness, then either we surrender the thesis of the unity of knowledge and virtue, or there
is no knowledge of the useful and the good. Either alternative is disastrous for Platonism. / Socrates
thus associates sōphrosynē even when considering its claim to be the science of science, with the
practical, or with doing well in the domain of individual, family, or political life (171dff.). He
criticizes science of science as useless even if possible, since it would know only that X and Y are
sciences but not who knows them; it would in effect be an ignorance of all selves, or a loss of self-
consciousness (17oc-72b). […] Science and the epistemic function of sōphrosynē are not yet the
good, not yet ‘knowledge of good and evil’ (173d-74d). The distinction between theory and practice
is thus somehow related to, or even contained within, sōphrosynē. But this means that the
distinction is itself inaccessible to discursive theory.” (101)

- “the mind receives, whereas Eros desires; up to a point, at least, one could say that the mind is
passive and Eros is active. But because Eros does not know what it wants (and is thus not self-
conscious), it must itself be directed, not by the noetic or receptive capacity of the mind, but by
sōphrosynē. As we have seen, the unanalyzable nature of prudence leaves the precise relation
between theory and practice unclear. Nevertheless, I believe that sufficient evidence has been
presented to support the suggestion that Plato allows for, if he does not himself assert, the eventual
dominance of practice.” (102)

- “If Eros, sōphrosynē, and nous could be united, the result, I think, would be tolerably close to
Hegel's conception of Geist in its subjective aspect. The impossibility of this union is perhaps best
understood with respect to Eros and is given dramatic illustration in the person of Socrates. In the
absence of a logos of Eros, Socrates turns regularly to prophecy and charms. […] The Charmides is
a comedy, because it shows Socrates conversing about temperance and prudence with a future
tyrant. But from a Hegelian viewpoint it is also a tragedy, because the comedy rests upon an
ironical detachment from the domain of practice and is the prototype for the alienated resignation of
Stoicism” (102)

- “Socrates moderates his Eros for dialectic with a prophetic confidence in the excellence of
sōphrosynē. Glauben, we may say, is invoked in the absence of Wissen. But what of the corporeal
Eros? In order to understand the issue, we have to ask why Socrates talks to Charmides at all. If
Socrates is simply attracted to beauhful youths, then he is a fool. If the corporeal attraction is the
necessary precondition for dialectic (as it cannot be, given the example of Theaetetus), then theory
is subordinate, not merely to practice, but to desire. […] Socrates is attracted to erotic youths
because of their philosophical potentiality, but he is unable to reconcile the philosophical or
theoretical with the tyrannical or practical dimension of Eros.” (103)

- “The Socratic doctrine of form, which serves as the basis for the conception of science or
knowledge throughout western philosophy, renders self-knowledge impossible. At the same time,
however, Socrates introduces a conception of sōphrosynē or reflection upon the intentionality of
Eros, which raises the possibility of self-knowledge in a nontheoretical sense. But this possibility is
never fulfilled by Socrates and his students, because it contradicts the notion of knowledge as
derived from arithmetic and geometry. One of the clearest signs of Socrates' confusion on this
central issue is his vacillation concerning the thesis that virtue is knowledge. Common sense tells us
that this thesis must be true, and yet the philosophical notion of truth tells us that common sense is
mistaken.