Laches & Charmides

From Goodreads

Laches & Charmides
Plato

Plato's dialogues are incredibly well written and tend to circle round and round the stated objective of the dialogue without ever quite hitting the bullseye. His linkage of knowledge and virtue seems to always play a central theme. At times he critiques his characters for having definitions that are too narrow to serve as the definition. At others he gets on to them for having definitions that are so vague they barely distinguish one thing from the other.

Plato is harsher with those who seem too cocksure. He blasts rigid dogmatics whenever he encounters it. With those who seem more flexible he still corrects, but generally not as harshly as with others.

I still think a of his game is to play with play with language. He often lampoons Prodicus for his sophistry in definitions while using language in a way that would make Prodicus proud. Of the two, Charmides is more complex in its philsophy. But, I find the characters of Laches more compelling. The two Generals, Nicias and Laches are much more of an interesting pair than Critias and Charmides.