Overview
The catalogued short title names Charmides, Euthyphron, Parmenides, but the volume itself is a larger German-language collection of Platonic dialogues in Friedrich Schleiermacher’s translation. It is not a single continuous treatise by Schleiermacher; it is a translated corpus volume, gathering several shorter Socratic dialogues together with the Apology, Kriton, and a group of shorter works whose Platonic authorship was already debated in antiquity. The volume also includes Schleiermacher’s annotations.
Its contents move from definitional and ethical dialogues to the trial and prison dialogues of Socrates, then to shorter pieces on expertise, gain, law, and prayer, and finally to the Parmenides, one of Plato’s most formally difficult works. The collection is therefore best approached as a sequence of separate dialogues, each with its own dramatic setting and philosophical inquiry, rather than as a work with a single argumentative arc.
The Dialogues
Charmides
The Charmides is a Socratic conversation about sophrosyne—temperance, moderation, or self-control. Socrates returns from military service and visits a wrestling school, where he is introduced to the beautiful young Charmides. Charmides is praised for his looks and noble family, but Socrates turns the conversation toward the state of his soul and the question of what temperance actually is. With Critias also participating, several definitions are proposed: temperance as quietness, as modesty, as “doing one’s own business,” and as self-knowledge. Each definition is examined and found problematic. The dialogue ends in aporia: the participants have not established what temperance is, and Charmides is left still desiring to learn from Socrates.
Euthyphron
The Euthyphron takes place outside the court where Socrates is awaiting trial. Socrates meets Euthyphro, who is prosecuting his own father for manslaughter. Euthyphro claims to have precise knowledge of piety and impiety, and Socrates asks him to define piety. Euthyphro offers several answers: that piety is prosecuting wrongdoers, that it is what is loved by the gods, and that it is a kind of service to the gods. Socrates presses the difficulty that the gods disagree, and then the more fundamental problem of whether something is pious because the gods love it or loved by the gods because it is pious. The dialogue ends without a satisfactory definition; Euthyphro leaves, and Socrates is left dissatisfied.
Parmenides
The Parmenides is the most formally complex dialogue in the volume. It is narrated through a frame: Socrates, then young, meets the Eleatic philosophers Parmenides and Zeno. Socrates defends a theory of separate Forms, but Parmenides raises a series of objections—about participation, about the relation between Forms and particulars, and about the “third man” difficulty. Parmenides then leads a long dialectical exercise concerning the One and the Many, examining what follows if the One is and if it is not. The dialogue is notoriously difficult and does not end with a simple doctrinal resolution; it is as much a demonstration of philosophical method as a statement of doctrine.
Vertheidigung (Apology)
The Apology is Socrates’ defense speech at his trial. He answers the charges that he corrupts the young and does not recognize the gods of the city. Socrates explains that his philosophical activity began with the Delphic oracle’s statement that no one was wiser than he; he interpreted this as a command to examine himself and others, and found that those reputed wise were not wise. His questioning made him unpopular. He argues that he has never charged fees, that he has a divine sign, and that he cannot abandon philosophy, since the unexamined life is not worth living. After being convicted, he proposes a penalty and finally speaks to the court about death, refusing to beg or to compromise his philosophical mission.
Kriton
The Kriton is set in Socrates’ prison cell, where Crito urges him to escape before his execution. Crito argues that Socrates’ friends will be disgraced if they fail to save him, and that Socrates is wrong to abandon his children and accept an unjust death. Socrates responds by asking whether one should return wrong for wrong, and whether one owes obedience to the laws of Athens. He imagines a speech by the Laws, which argue that he has been nurtured by the city and has accepted its benefits, and that escaping would violate his tacit agreement to obey its laws. Socrates concludes that he should remain and die rather than act unjustly.
Ion
The Ion is a short dialogue between Socrates and Ion, a rhapsode who recites and interprets Homer. Ion claims to be an expert on Homer and to speak beautifully about him, but Socrates asks whether his skill is a genuine art or a form of divine inspiration. Ion can speak well about Homer but not about other poets, and he cannot explain the principles of his craft. Socrates compares the rhapsode to a magnet and to a chain of inspired rings: the poet is inspired, the rhapsode transmits inspiration, and the audience is moved in turn. The dialogue ends without a firm resolution of Ion’s claim to knowledge.
Hippias D. Kl. (Hippias Minor)
The Hippias Minor is a conversation with the sophist Hippias about truthfulness and wrongdoing. Socrates asks whether the voluntary wrongdoer is better or worse than the involuntary one, and uses examples from Homer—especially Achilles and Odysseus—to explore the difference between lying and being deceived. The argument leads toward the paradoxical conclusion that the voluntary wrongdoer may be superior to the involuntary one, since the voluntary wrongdoer knows what he is doing. Socrates ends in perplexity, and the dialogue is more a display of dialectical difficulty than a settled ethical doctrine.
Hipparchos
The Hipparchos is a short Socratic dialogue about love of gain and the meaning of gain. Socrates and a companion discuss whether gain is inherently good, whether all gain is profitable, and who counts as a lover of gain. The conversation invokes Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, and examines the reputation of gain-seeking. Like several of the shorter dialogues, it is aporetic: the participants do not arrive at a stable definition of gain or of the character of the gain-lover.
Minos
The Minos is a dialogue about law. Socrates and an unnamed companion ask what law is, and whether law is a discovery of reality or a matter of convention. The conversation considers the authority of lawgivers and compares Minos, the legendary Cretan lawgiver, with other figures. It ends without a final definition, leaving the question of law’s nature open.
Alkibiades D. Zw. (Second Alcibiades)
The Second Alcibiades presents Socrates in conversation with Alcibiades about prayer and ignorance. Socrates raises the question whether one should pray for what one thinks is good when one may not know what is truly good. He argues that praying for the wrong things can be dangerous, and that ignorance in such matters is a kind of madness. The dialogue considers education and self-knowledge, and it ends in aporia rather than with a settled answer.
Anmerkungen
The volume closes with Schleiermacher’s annotations. These are not a separate philosophical work but an apparatus attached to the translations, commenting on the texts and assisting the German reader in following Plato’s arguments and dramatic details. The annotations belong to the volume’s character as a scholarly translation edition rather than to the dialogues themselves.
Charmides
The Charmides centers on sōphrosynē—moderation, temperance, or sound-mindedness—and on the Delphic injunction to know oneself. Socrates converses first with Charmides and then with Critias about whether moderation can be defined as quietness, modesty, doing one’s own business, or knowledge of knowledge. The dialogue’s central difficulty is reflexive: if moderation is a kind of knowledge, what is its object, and can knowledge know itself? The discussion remains aporetic, but it displays the Socratic concern with self-knowledge and the unity of virtue.
Euthyphron
The Euthyphron asks what piety is. Euthyphro offers several definitions—prosecuting the wrongdoer, what is dear to the gods, and service to the gods—but each is examined and found inadequate. The most famous difficulty concerns whether pious acts are loved by the gods because they are pious or pious because they are loved. The dialogue is a compact example of Socratic definition-seeking and ends without a stable account of piety, leaving the relation between morality and divine approval unresolved.
Parmenides
The Parmenides is the volume’s most demanding dialogue. It presents a young Socrates defending the theory of Forms against criticisms from Parmenides and Zeno: how can particulars participate in Forms, and what follows if the Forms are separate? The second part turns to a series of dialectical exercises on unity, plurality, being, and non-being. The dialogue does not offer a simple doctrine; instead it exposes the difficulties of Platonic metaphysics and the need for rigorous dialectical training.
Thematic Link
Together, the three dialogues concern the limits of Socratic definition, self-knowledge, piety, and the theory of Forms. The volume presents them as Schleiermacher’s translations, with the dialogues’ aporetic and dialectical character central to their philosophical interest.
