Abstract

The narrative of Alcibiades I is often read as a secluded attempt, on Socrates part, to seduce the politically ambitious young Alcibiades into philosophy. On this view, the dialogue’s analysis of political influence is primarily taken to be instrumental. Against this view, this paper suggests that this analysis has an independent value and that it is developed to study to what extent social and political influence is conditioned by a collaborative, knowledge dependent and honest form of communication, highly relevant also today. The paper has three parts. First, it outlines three assumptions characterizing Alcibiades’s understanding of political influence: competition, power and deception. Then, it looks at Socrates’s attempts to dismantle these assumptions, and the alternative he articulates in terms of self-knowledge. Finally, it shows that Socrates failed and suggests that Plato thereby wanted to emphasize an important intractability of the task he lets Socrates shoulder.