Abstract

Assuming that Alcibiades was deemed a failure in Socrates’ pedagogical project, I intend to revisit Plato’s Symposium, juxtaposed with Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, to analyze the role of passions in the controversial Athenian general and politician. Alcibiades is a passionate disciple of Socrates whose psychological structure lay between the realm of desires directed towards appetites and individual glory. In his eagerness to live intensely, Alcibiades reveals a conscious pleasure in being a non-philosopher who engages in dialogue but fears the discourse of the philosopher, represented by Socrates. Therefore, I propose that Alcibiades’ inability to become a philosopher is due to his failure to reach the final stage of the scala amoris, despite his intense desire for Socrates, his beloved, who lacked physical beauty. Nevertheless, Alcibiades recognized and praised Socrates’ virtuous actions, which suggests that he attained the sphere of the beauty of the souls.