Plato Charmides 162

  Well then, I went on, do you think a state would be well conducted under a law which enjoined that everyone should weave and scour his own coat, and make his own shoes, and his own flask and scraper, ¹ 162a and everything else on the same principle of not touching the affairs of others but performing and doing his own for himself?
  I think not, he replied.
  But still, I said, a state whose conduct is temperate will be well conducted.
  Of course, he said.
  Then doing one’s own business in that sense and in that way will not be temperance.
  Apparently not.
  So that person was riddling, it seems, just as I said a moment ago, when he said that doing one’s own business is temperance. For I take it he was not such a fool as all that: or was it some idiot 162b that you heard saying this, Charmides?
  Far from it, he replied, for indeed he seemed to be very wise.
  Then it is perfectly certain, in my opinion, that he propounded it as a riddle, in view of the difficulty of understanding what doing one’s own business can mean.
  I daresay, he said.
  Well, what can it mean, this doing one’s own business? Can you tell me?
  I do not know, upon my word, he replied: but I daresay it may be that not even he who said it knew in the least what he meant. And as he said this he gave a sly laugh and glanced at Critias. 162c Now Critias for some time had been plainly burning with anxiety to distinguish himself in the eyes of Charmides and the company, and having with difficulty restrained himself heretofore, he now could do so no longer; for I believe that what I had supposed was perfectly true—that Charmides had heard this answer about temperance from Critias. And so Charmides, wishing him to make answer 162d instead of himself, sought to stir him up in particular, and pointed out that he himself had been refuted; but Critias rebelled against it, and seemed to me to have got angry with him, as a poet does with an actor who mishandles his verses on the stage: so he looked hard at him and said: Do you really suppose, Charmides, that if you do not know what can have been the meaning of the man who said that temperance was doing one’s own business, he did not know either?
  Why, my excellent Critias, I said, no wonder if our friend, at his age, cannot understand; but you, 162e I should think, may be expected to know, in view of your years and your studies. So if you concede that temperance is what he says, and you accept the statement, for my part I would greatly prefer to have you as partner in the inquiry as to whether this saying is true or not.
  Well, I quite concede it, he said, and accept it.
  That is good, then, I said. Now tell me, do you also concede what I was asking just now—that all craftsmen make something?
  I do.
  And do you consider that they make their own things only, or those of others also?