Acknowledgements
This book, though relatively quick in the writing, has been long in gestation. More years ago than either of us would probably care to remember, M. M. McCabe invited me to contribute a volume on the Charmides for her then incipient series on the dialogues of Plato; she has awaited the result with the patience of a saint. Although, having read not one but two versions of the manuscript and presented me with a wealth of helpful comments along the way, she is responsible for none of the book’s flaws, it is fair to say that it would not exist without her encouragement and advice, even more so without the example set in her own work of how to read, write and think about Plato. For all this I owe MM an irredeemable debt.
I am much indebted also to Verity Harte and Fiona Leigh, friends of long standing, who took the time to read, respectively, a complete draft of the book and its first three chapters and whose comments helped me enormously in the revision process. My thanks too to an anonymous reader for Cambridge University Press, whose searching comments prompted a fresh round of rewriting.
I have had the opportunity to air my ideas about the Charmides at a number of venues, foremost among them the wonderful London ancient philosophy graduate seminar, which was kind enough to devote time to reading the whole of the dialogue over the course of a Covid-hit 2020. My thanks to the participants – colleagues and students alike – for stimulating discussion.
Versions of what became part of this book were read at: the 2019 Cambridge Graduate Conference in Ancient Philosophy; a session of the 2020 Lyceum Society Summer Work-in-Progress seminar; the 2021 Trinity Plato Centre conference on Eros and Philia in Plato and Aristotle; a meeting of the King’s College London philosophy department staff seminar in 2021; and the 2022 Tartu-Stanford Workshop in Ancient Philosophy. I benefitted greatly from discussion at all these events.
Special thanks for conversations about the Charmides to Merrick Anderson, Joachim Aufderheide, Rachel Barney, Amber Carpenter, Niels Christensen, David Ebrey, Branislav Kotoc, Fiona Leigh, M. M. McCabe, Taichi Miura, Jessica Moss, Vasilis Politis, Frisbee Sheffield, Sol Tor, Jorge Torres and Voula Tsouna, whose Plato’s Charmides: An Interpretative Commentary appeared in print as this book was taking its final form.
Last but not least, my thanks to Michael Sharp and his colleagues at Cambridge University Press for their tact and patience in shepherding the book through its various stages of production.
