In the previous chapter we have seen how, for Plato, philosophical understanding and philosophical progress are in an important sense contextual. The partial grasp of the truth that is the lot of most people most of the time is an understanding from a particular, situated perspective; it is the goal of the more advanced philosopher in leading ­elenctic dialectic to move his interlocutor from that partial understanding to a deeper insight into the truth. In the Charmides, Plato has Socrates undertake such an investigation into what the Greeks called σωϕροσύνη. Said to be the quintessentially Greek virtue, σωϕροσύνη cannot be easily translated into any modern European language. English translations of the word range from temperance, moderation, and self-restraint to ­sensibleness and sound-mindedness; I generally leave the word untranslated. Particularly because of its unfamiliarity to modern readers, it will be important to survey the various ways of thinking about σωϕροσύνη that were present in Greek culture at Plato’s time, and which furnished the content of unreflective views about the virtue and, in dialectical argument, the starting points for an investigation toward a more reflective conception. Further, since Plato’s Socrates interrogates not just the general cultural views of the time but also those views as they are held by specific interlocutors, often (as in the Charmides) prominent figures in recent Greek history who would be recognized by Plato’s first audience, it is important to understand, so far as we can, what information about those characters Plato may have presumed his expected audience to bring with them to a reading of the dialogue. In this chapter, I deal first with this latter question, focusing on Socrates’ chief interlocutors, Critias and Charmides. Then I turn to a brief overview of the more general Greek views about σωϕροσύνη that serve as the cultural context of the discussion in our dialogue.