Chapter XXIX: Appendix

The dialogue Charmidês is declared to be spurious, not only by Ast, but also by Socher (Ast, Platon's Leb. pp. 419-428; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 130-137). Steinhart maintains the genuineness of the dialogue against them; declaring (as in regard to the Lachês) that he can hardly conceive how critics can mistake the truly Platonic character of it, though here too, as in the Lachês, he detects "adolescentiæ vestigia" (Steinhart, Einleit. zum Charmidês, pp. 290-293).

Schleiermacher considers Charmidês as well as Lachês to be appendixes to the Protagoras, which opinion both Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Charm, p. 121; Proleg. ad Lachet. p. 30, 2nd ed.) and Steinhart controvert.

The views of Stallbaum respecting the Charmidês are declared by Steinhart (p. 290) to be "recht äusserlich und oberflächlich". To me they appear much nearer the truth than the profound and recondite meanings, the far-sighted indirect hints, which Steinhart himself perceives or supposes in the words of Plato.

These critics consider the dialogue as composed during the government of the Thirty at Athens, in which opinion I do not concur.