This translation and commentary is based on the Critical Text and Indices of Proclus: Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, Amsterdam 1954, by L. G. Westerink. Index II has been of great help in the translation, and the commentary is much indebted to the critical apparatus. Dr. Westerink has also been kind enough to forward his views on the relatively few problems which the Greek text has presented. A further debt is owed to the review of Dr. Westerink's (...) text by Prof. E. R. Dodds in GNOMON 1955 p. 164-1, chiefly for some references and some emendations to the Greek text. W. R. M. Lamb's Loeb translation of Alcibiades I has helped considerably in construing the lemmata, which Signor Antonio Carlini has found to have been inserted by a later hand from a Plato MSS. of the W family. Evidence for this is their discrepancy with the text as read in the main body of the commentary (d. Studi Classici e Orientali, vol. x, Pisa 1961). On the personal side, the whole work has received the benefit of constant advice from Prof. A. H. Armstrong. It was he who first suggested the undertaking, and he has been kind enough to read through the translation and commentary, making many corrections and helpful suggestions. In particular lowe him the parallels with Plotinus and thanks for a Socratic patience in my more obtuse moments. (shrink)

The Platonic School regarded the Alcibiades I as the most suitable introduction to Plato. Proclus' wideranging discussion includes later Neoplatonism as well as questions of Aristotelian logic. O'Neill's translation is always readable and his commentary helpful without being fussy.—D. J. B.

Resumen Este trabajo releva la importancia del planteo acerca de la intersubjetividad y la empatía en el diálogo platónico Alcibíades I con el propósito de mostrar su relevancia para la comprensión del decurso de las ideas antropológicas antiguas y su valor como estudio de caso sobre el diálogo entre ideas filosóficas de distintos momentos históricos. Con esa finalidad, se examina la definición de ser humano y el símil de la mirada en su estructura argumental y se los pone en conexión (...) con los desarrollos contemporáneos de cuño fenomenológico acerca de la intersubjetividad y la empatía para iluminar este problema y mostrar la potencia del estudio de los diálogos interepocales como elemento primario de la lógica filosófica.This work highlights the significance of the study on intersubjectivity and empathy in the platonic Alcibiades I to show its relevance for the understanding of the development of ancient anthropology and its value as a case study on the dialogue between philosophical ideas from different historical moments. For this purpose, we will examine the definition of the human being and the analogy of the sight, and we will connect this approaches with contemporary phenomenological views about intersubjectivity and empathy in order to explore this issue and to reveal the power of inter-epochal dialogue as a primary element of the internal logic of philosophy. (shrink)

This text maps the history of debate on the authenticity of Plato's or pseudo-Plato's Alcibiades I.

The aim of this paper, which is devoted to the Proclean Commentary on the Alcibiades I, is to explain not only why this dialogue is so popular in Neoplatonism, i.e. why it is considered the foundation of Plato’s teaching, but also its methodological importance for reading the proems of the dialogues. For, in my opinion, it has not yet been properly investigated whether and why the two issues, i.e. the introductory importance and the importance for grasping the relevance of (...) the proems, are closely linked. I will therefore first try to show how the isagogical questions are perfectly embedded in a philosophical system that has redefined the very criteria of textual analysis around the idea that each dialogue is a literary microcosm analogous to the macrocosmic universe. I will then show how the exegetical methods proposed by Proclus in his Commentary on the Alcibiades are influenced by certain theoretical assumptions that are useful for reading the dialogues in general, and finally I will demonstrate how the proem of the Alcibiades allows us to re-evaluate the importance of the proems that Plato appended to his writings. (shrink)

Many philosophers in the ancient world shared a unitary vision of philosophy – meaning 'love of wisdom' – not just as a theoretical discipline, but as a way of life. Specifically, for the late Neoplatonic thinkers, philosophy began with self-knowledge, which led to a person's inner conversion or transformation into a lover, a human being erotically striving toward the totality of the real. This metamorphosis amounted to a complete existential conversion. It was initiated by learned guides who cultivated higher and (...) higher levels of virtue in their students, leading, in the end, to their vision of the Good, or the One. In this book, James M. Ambury closely analyses two central texts in this tradition: the commentaries by Proclus (412–485 AD) and Olympiodorus (495–560 AD) on the Platonic Alcibiades I. Ambury's powerful study illuminates the way philosophy was conceived during a crucial period of its history, in the lecture halls of late antiquity. (shrink)

Plato's dialogue "Alcibiades I" introduces the very essence of philosophical business — knowledge, as far as it is accessible to man. The dialogue conducted by the wise Socrates and the young vain Alcibiades, who, wanting to play the first role in politics, decided to "fill the whole, one might say, humanity with his name and power," i. e. to unleash a war. Socrates, crushed by such a desire, prompted Alcibiades to consider what are called the "last questions": (...) war and peace. Unfolding the argument, he discusses the concepts of justice/injustice, right/lawlessness, good/evil, which turn out to be ambiguous, as well as the idea of freedom: on the one hand (Socrates) it is understood as a characteristic of virtue, and on the other (Alcibiades) — self-will and voluntarism. The need for Alcibiades to remain "himself" presupposed the tyrannically accessible possibility of war, which was a way of exercising his "freedom". The war turned out to be a perversion of the world, an "adventure of the spirit" and "the greatest grief" that people bring released forces that the world does not know how to use. (shrink)

The Alcibiades I concludes with an arresting image of an eye that sees itself by looking into another eye. Using the dialogue as a whole, I offer a detailed interpretation of this image and I discuss its implications for the question of self-knowledge. The Alcibiades I reveals both what self-knowledge is (knowledge of soul in its particularity and its universality) and how we are to seek it (by way of philosophical dialogue). This makes the pursuit of self-knowledge an (...) inescapably social pursuit. Yet as Socrates cautions us, our ability to gain self-knowledge—and indeed his very account of what it is—are limited. The dialogue is thus challenging us to take the inquiry further, thereby displaying the very matter being discussed. (shrink)

In Alcibiades I, for many interpreters still a spurious dialogue, Plato claims that our true self (the part of the soul) resembles the divine. Someone who looked at it and grasped everything divine, God and intelligence, would have the best grasp of himself as well. The question of the self comes as the natural consequence of previous claims showing we are neither our possessions nor our bodies, but our souls. By making the self similar to God, we can tackle (...) the problem of reflexivity differently, putting the question of self-knowledge into new perspective. The article discusses some unclear questions concerning the definition of the self, defined as "the whole man" in Charmides (156e7-8), i.e., including body as integral part, or as excluding it in Alcibiades I, where the self is the soul (130ct), since the soul uses the body (130al) and rules it (130ae), and its relations to the divine. (shrink)

At Alcibiades I, 133b-c, the reader expects, but does not according to the MSS find, the return of the mirror-motif that had supposedly explained the true meaning of the Delphic injunction. Hence it remains unclear why anything viewed within the soul should act in any way that resembles a mirror. I argue that the substitution of a single letter in one word, about which the manuscripts and modern scholars in any case disagree, can restore the necessary reference to a (...) reflective surface, though not specifically to a mirror, since the term for a mirror could only be applied to sight. A failure to understand the underlying intertextual allusion to Cratylus 408c had resulted in a safe but unsatisfactory substitution by Late Antiquity, and other modifications followed thereafter in an effort to give meaning to the text. (shrink)

Although it was influential for several hundred years after it first appeared, doubts about the authenticity of the Platonic Alcibiades I have unnecessarily impeded its interpretation ever since. It positions itself firmly within the Platonic and Socratic traditions, and should therefore be approached in the same way as most other Platonic dialogues. It paints a vivid portrait of a Socrates in his late thirties tackling the unrealistic ambitions of the youthful Alcibiades, urging him to come to know himself (...) and to care for himself. François Renaud and Harold Tarrant re-examine the drama and philosophy of Alcibiades I with an eye on those interpreters who cherished it most. Modern scholars regularly play down one or more of the religious, erotic, philosophic or dramatic aspects of the dialogue, so ancient Platonist interpreters are given special consideration. This rich study will interest a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone una lectura del diálogo platónico Alcibíades I. En el texto, vemos a Sócrates como joven maestro aproximándose al también joven Alcibíades, quien sabemos se convertirá en un prominente y hubristico gobernante de la Atenas democrática post-Periclea. En su tarea propedéutica, Sócrates apela al amor propio ilimitado de Alcibíades con el fn de ganar su confanza y atención, incitando su espíritu de ambición y su agudo intelecto, tratando de tentarlo hacia la vida flosófca. En el texto exploramos las (...) raíces del carácter de Alcibíades, su deseo de primacía enlazado con su temor al fracaso. La educación mayéutica de Alcibíades hacia la vida flosófca no sólo falló, sino que además tuvo indeseables consecuencias políticas. ¿Habría sido un Sócrates más poderoso capaz de procurarse la lealtad última de Alcibíades? El Alcibíades I arroja luz sobre las raíces y limitaciones potenciales del estudio de la flosofía política platónica. (shrink)

In the Alcibiades I, Socrates argues for the importance of self-knowledge. Recent interpreters contend that the self-knowledge at issue here is knowledge of an impersonal and purely rational self. I argue against this interpretation and advance an alternative. First, the passages proponents of this interpretation cite—Socrates’ argument that the self is the soul, and his suggestion that Alcibiades seek self-knowledge by looking for his soul’s reflection in the soul of another—do not unambiguously support their reading. Moreover, other passages, (...) particularly Socrates’ cross-examination of Alcibiades, suggest the contrary reading, that self-knowledge includes knowledge of qualities peculiar to the individual. (shrink)

V domnevno Platonovem dialogu Alkibiadu I je postavljena trditev, da je del duše, ki skriva naše pravo sebstvo, naš jaz, podoben Bogu: nekdo, ki ga uvidi in je spoznal božansko – boga in razumnost, bo tako najbolje dojemal tudi samega sebe. Vprašanje sebstva v dialogu nastopi kot smiselno nadaljevanje poprejšnjih izpeljav, po katerih se določa, da mi nismo ne telo, ne naše lastne stvari, temveč duša. S tem, ko sebstvo poistovetimo z Bogom, nekako uidemo problemu samonanašanja in postavimo vprašanje samovédenja (...) v novo dimenzijo. Članek obravnava nekatere nejasnosti definicije sebstva , torej vključujočega telo in dušo, ali le kot duše, kot v Alkibiadu Prvem , ki uporablja telo in mu vlada , v odnosu do božanskega.In Alcibiades I, for many interpreters still a spurious dialogue, Plato claims that our true self resembles the divine. Someone who looked at it and grasped everything divine, God and intelligence, would have the best grasp of himself as well. The question of the self comes as the natural consequence of previous claims showing we are neither our possessions nor our bodies, but our souls. By making the self similar to God, we can tackle the problem of reflexivity differently, putting the question of self-knowledge into new perspective. The article discusses some unclear questions concerning the definition of the self, defined as »the whole man« in Charmides , i.e. including body as integral part, or as excluding it in Alcibiades I, where the self is the soul , since the soul uses the body and rules it , and its relations to the divine. (shrink)

In this essay, I engage the foreseeable consequences for the future of humanity triggered by Emerging Technologies and their underpinning philosophy, transhumanism. The transhumanist stance is compared with the default view currently held in many academic institutions of higher education: posthumanism. It is maintained that the transhumanist view is less inimical to the fostering of human dignity than the posthuman one. After this is established, I suggest that the Catholic Church may find an ally in a transhumanist ethos in a (...) two-fold manner. On the one hand, by anchoring and promoting the defense of “the human” already present in transhumanism. On the other, rethinking the effectiveness of the delivery of sacraments in a humanity heavily altered by these technologies. (shrink)

This essay interprets Alcibiades I as representing Socrates' philosophical seduction of Alcibiades. Socrates and Alcibiades are both highly erotic characters, and Socrates attempts to provoke and then guide Alcibiades' erotic tendencies in philosophical directions. The erotic relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, including Socrates' attraction to Alcibiades, is central to understanding the themes, which also appear in the dialogue, of self-knowledge, political ambition, self-care, divine versus human guidance, and corruption at the hands of the Athenians. (...) Along the way, the essay responds to Schleiermacher's criticisms that the dialogue is poorly composed and therefore not suitable to Plato. (shrink)

Sheldon Richmond has written an insightful and exhaustive review of my book The Nature of the Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics: A Transhumanist Lesson for Emerging Technologies. Richmond voices concerns regarding some suggestions I made about the future of humanity vis-à-vis a contemporary cybernetic reinstantiation in the form of Emerging Technologies. He suggests that future cybernetically rooted sciences can pose peril for the human condition. This reply is intended to clarify certain points that Richmond brings up, by means of (...) responding to his suggestion that cybernetics and transhumanism could be independently understood, and unveiling a metaphysical and ethical stance, shared by Richmond, critical to the observations I made regarding a “cybernetically organized mankind” made possible by Emerging Technologies. I identify Richmond’s position as precautionary in nature, for reasons perhaps m... (shrink)

The paper focuses on the concepts of virtue and self-knowledge in Alcibiades I and Aeschines’ Alcibiades, which are marked by striking similarities in the way they discuss these themes and their interconnection. First of all, in both dialogues the notions of ἀμαθία and ἀρετή seem to be connected and both are bound up with the issue of εὐδαιμονία: Socrates points out that ἀρετή is the only source of true εὐδαιμονία and encourages Alcibiades to acquire it, stressing the (...) need for a constant ἐπιμέλεια ἑαυτοῦ. Thus, another common feature is the Socratic exhortation to pursue and achieve moral virtue, which is identified as a form of knowledge. Ultimately, in both accounts the chief means by which to contrast ἀμαθία is found in the care and knowledge of the self. The above arguments are to be considered within the particular frame of the paideutic relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, which is itself portrayed in similar terms in the two texts. In both dialogues, the relationship is characterized as a form of erotic education and, moreover, Socrates himself links his paideutic activity to divine will. Yet, only in Aeschines’ Alcibiades does this explicitly entail the idea that Socrates transmits virtue without resorting to any τέχνη or ἐπιστήμη. So while in both cases ἀρετή is understood as a kind of knowledge, in Aeschines’ Alcibiades there seems to be a greater tension between this concept of virtue and its modes of transmission, which are “anepistemic”. (shrink)

_Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts _gathers together translations our four most important sources for the relationship between Socrates and the most controversial man of his day, the gifted and scandalous Alcibiades. In addition to Alcibiades’ famous speech from Plato’s Symposium, this text includes two dialogues, the Alcibiades I and Alcibiades II, attributed to Plato in antiquity but unjustly neglected today, and the complete fragments of the dialogue Alcibiades by Plato’s contemporary, Aeschines of Sphettus. These (...) works are essential reading for anyone interested in Socrates’ improbable love affair with Athens’ most desirable youth, his attempt to woo Alcibiades from his ultimately disastrous worldly ambitions to the philosophical life, and the reasons for Socrates’ failure, which played a large role in his conviction by an Athenian court on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate audience. (shrink)

In this work, I argue that in Theaetetus and Alcibiades I Socrates helps the eponymous characters to acquire self-knowledge by practicing dialectic as a divinely assisted art. In both dialogues, self-knowledge is cashed out as mental seeing and involves inspecting the contents of one’s soul and assessing their viability. The article uses the eye/soul analogy of Alcibiades I as a springboard for an examination of a dialectically induced self-knowledge in the dialogue and for a study of the manifestations (...) of this practice in Theaetetus via Socratic midwifery. (shrink)

It has become customary to begin any discussion of the Alcibiades with a review of its puzzling features. Any way you look at it, the Alcibiades is a strange dialogue. Stylistically it is peculiar, not only because it contains some unique terms,2 but also because it contains similarities to early, middle and even late dialogues. These similarities are distributed to different parts of the dialogue, prompting some scholars to maintain that the Alcibiades was written piecemeal, perhaps by (...) different authors (cf. Clark 1955). On most accounts of the Alcibiades, however, it resembles, or seems to have been written to resemble, an early Socratic dialogue. But this too is odd, since stylometric studies tend to place it at least among the middle dialogues, and in many cases after the Republic. A relatively late dating also fits with the conjectures of many scholars on the basis of anachronisms, allusions and other considerations. (shrink)

The present article aims to examine whether this Platonic dialogue can be regarded as polemical and competing with the similar educational proposals put forward by Xenophon and Antisthenes for the young Alcibiades aspiring to power in the city of Athens. The present article has been divided into two major parts. In the first one, I propose to unify the two opposing points of view that are reflected in the interpretations of the motto: the one that takes it to be (...) a solitary dialogue of a soul talking to itself and the one that takes it to be an intersubjective dialogue. In the second part, I try to highlight a few points of contact and conflict between Plato, Xenophon and Antisthenes, arguing that it is the latter two that may be alluded to in the dialogue, albeit indirectly, as competing and polemical targets. (shrink)

This paper argues that Socrates’ discussion about selfhood in the first Alcibiades does not only dissociate the soul from the body and from the soul-body complex, but also from λόγος. It suggests that the most promising and influential take on this, the so-called theocentric view, is insufficient, and needs to be supplemented in terms of how Socrates’ notion of ideal selfhood is conditioned by knowledge of a real or personal self.

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

In the Platonic work Alcibiades I, a divinely guided Socrates adopts the guise of a lover in order to divert Alcibiades from an unthinking political career. The contributors to this carefully focussed volume cover aspects of the background to the work; its arguments and the philosophical issues it raises; its relationship to other Platonic texts, and its subsequent history up to the time of the Neoplatonists. Despite its ancient prominence, the authorship of Alcibiades I is still unsettled; (...) the essays and two appendices, one historical and one stylometric, come together to suggest answers to this tantalising question. (shrink)

The chapter relates Alcibiades's speech in the Symposium to the dialogue Alcibiades I. I believe, the encomium on Socrates in the Symposium should be interpreted together with the Alcibiades I. There, Plato offers a fuller picture of the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades, one that gives a possible explanation of Alcibiades' failure and moral collapse, while keeping Socrates' position as a moral teacher intact. This approach presupposes that Plato wrote some of the dialogues in a (...) deliberate order of the fictional chronology. Interpreting the Symposium together with the Alcibiades I allows me then to make a broader claim concerning Plato's conception of the personal self. (shrink)

I will argue that, due to the level of attention given to comparing and contrasting Socratic Intellectualism with the Republic, the question of the possibility of akrasia in Plato’s thought has not yet been adequately formulated. I will instead be focusing on Plato’s Symposium, situating Alcibiades at its epicentre and suggesting that his case should be read as highlighting some of Plato’s concerns with Socratic Intellectualism. These concerns arise from the following position of Socratic Intellectualism: knowing the greater good (...) will necessarily entail doing good, and will thereby remove the motivational content of prior knowledge of what is good. Through Alcibiades, Plato explores the possibility of a negative reaction to knowledge of the greater good. Importantly, rather than simply arising as a result of being overcome by the passions, Alcibiades’ negative reaction assumes that rational freedom is required to reject the greater good in favour of the lesser. (shrink)

This paper examines the late Neoplatonic evidence for the text at the crucial point of the Alcibiades I, 133c, finding that Olympiodorus' important evidence is not in the lexis, which strangely has nothing to say. Perhaps it was dangerous in Christian Alexandria to record one's views here too precisely. Rather, they are found primarily in the prologue and secondarily in the relevant theoria. Olympiodorus believes that he is quoting from the work or paraphrasing closely, but offers nothing that can (...) be paralleled in either the manuscripts or the Eusebian versions. Since both the manuscript text and the Eusebian text fail to satisfy, the evidence deserves consideration. Even if he were not in possession of a text that was wholly correct, Olympiodorus does at least offer an overall interpretation of the passage which neatly unites the daemonic and erotic aspects of Socrates' activities, and offers a real reason for Alcibiades to return Socrates' love. He is encouraged to reflect upon the nature of the divine being controlling Socrates, so that he may behold the likeness of his own, woefully obscured, inner self, and so acquire the self-knowledge necessary for true political success.The anonymous Prolegomena are compatible with Olympiodorus, while Proclus' prologue again largely agrees with Olympiodorus' interpretation. For Proclus, Alcibiades must become an observer of Socrates knowledge and indeed of Socrates' whole life. 'For to desire to know the reason for Socrates' actions is to become the lover of the knowledge which is pre-established within him.' So the path towards a total understanding of his own inner intellective self lies via the contemplation of that being that is rooted within Socrates.I also examine earlier Platonist evidence for the text and find little that is not in harmony with late Neoplatonism. (shrink)

Abstract The aim of this article is to make use of recent research on `political eros ' in order to clarify the connection that Plato establishes between eros and tyranny in Republic IX, specifically by elucidating the intertextuality between Plato's work and the various historical accounts of Alcibiades. An examination of the lexicon used in these accounts will allow us to resolve certain interpretive difficulties that, to my knowledge, no other commentator has elucidated: why does Socrates blame eros for (...) the decline from democracy into tyranny? What does he mean by ` eros ' here, and what link existed between eros and tyranny in the minds of his contemporaries? And finally, who are the mysterious `tyrant-makers' ( turannopoioí , 572e5-6) who, according to Socrates, introduce a destructive eros in the soul of the future tyrant? After a careful examination of the passage from book IX on the genesis of the tyrannical man (focused on the last stage of the metamorphosis, which is concerned with éros túrannos , 572d-573b), I will offer answers to these questions by turning to the writings of Thucydides, Aristophanes and Plutarch while examining the portrait of Alcibiades that Plato paints in the Alcibiades I and Symposium. (shrink)

The problem of the relationship between warmaking and the health of the city constitutes an important part of the Platonic corpus. In the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades I, considered in antiquity one of Plato's most important works, Socrates leads Alcibiades to agree that there ought to be a close link between justice and decisions about war. In light of this, Alcibiades’ actual advice to the city regarding the Peace of Nicias, as portrayed by Thucydides in History of the (...) Peloponnesian War, is put in stark relief within the dialogue. Plato's dialogue about Alcibiades can thus be seen as offering an alternative and morally critical account of how Alcibiades could have used his talents and rhetorical skills in addressing the city on the issue of war. More broadly, it reminds us of the difference between true statesmanship focused on the common good, and political or military rule engaged in for personal benefit or ambition. (shrink)

Plato presents Socrates as an ethical example and a political warning. Other characters serve other philosophical functions. Alcibiades---the worst man in the democracy---and Critias---the worst in the oligarchy---are the most notorious characters. This dissertation argues that Plato uses these characters in order to open a diachronic dimension in the synchronic accounts of the dialogues. This dimension turns historical characters into paradigmatic characters and allows the reader to evaluate the accounts people give in terms of the lives that they lead. (...) In order to make a case for philosophy, Plato needs to make it clear that bad accounts have negative ethical effects, particularly over a period of time. The use of paradigmatic characters like Alcibiades and Critias allows him to make this case in the strongest possible way, while also allowing him to explore the relationship between time and virtue. I show that the connection between time and virtue explains not only individual decline, but also the historical decline described in Republic VIII. ;I offer close readings of the Protagoras, the Alcibiades I, the Symposium, the Timaeus-Critias , the Charmides and the Republic in order to show Plato's creation and use of the diachronic dimension surrounding paradigmatic characters in order to show the effects of time on virtue. In so doing, I substantially contribute to our understanding of Plato's use of historical characters; his understanding of the human experience of time; and the nature of Socratic intellectualism and its relationship to error. I show that Socrates uses elenctic questioning in order to avoid the self-forgetfulness in the face of time that allowed both Alcibiades and Critias to become so vicious, even while intending to do the good. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Alcibiades and Athens: A Study in Literary PresentationW. J. MccoyDavid Gribble. Alcibiades and Athens: A Study in Literary Presentation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. xii + 304 pp. Cloth, $75.In the wake of Hatzfeld's seminal study (1940), the life of Alcibiades has been examined and reexamined with a historical fine-tooth comb. Here Gribble offers, in a revised version of his Oxford D.Phil. thesis, a palette of (...) Athenian literary portraits (he opts not to deal with the later, non-Athenian tradition, 26) in an effort "to trace the extraordinary reaction excited by Alcibiades in contemporaries and in contemporary texts" (viii), with particular emphasis on the year 416-15, "when Alcibiades is at his most loved but also his most feared"--the moment "that is the focus of the most important ancient depictions" (vii), namely Thucydides 6.15, [Andocides] 4, and Plato's Symposium.In his introduction (1-28), Gribble explores the relationship between the "great" or "superlative" individual and his city and the inevitable clash of wills which typically ensued. Heroes and victors of whatever sort, however admired and honored by fellow citizens, usually posed a problem of accommodation within the Greek community. Some, such as Alcibiades, even became "city-threatening," thereby setting the stage for a love-hate scenario which played itself out not only in the day-to-day realities of late-fifth-century public life and policy but in the accompanying literary record. As defined by Gribble, the "great individual" possessed superlative natural gifts (13), "a massive sense of personal worth" (14), insatiable ambition (16-17), and "superlative status"--a combination of attributes which, if pursued aggressively, could pose "a threat to the concept of political equality which is the very basis of polis life" (18), especially when the polis in question was a democracy like Athens. And so it was with Alcibiades. [End Page 278]In chapter 1 (29-89), Gribble examines not "the story of Alcibiades' life,... but the way he lived his life (i.e., his bios)--or at least the way this lifestyle is presented in the surviving texts" (29). Such works stand apart from "ancient political-military historiography" and belong instead "to a tradition which, for the most part, is later in origin and far less reliable," one that "does not provide us with a single version of Alcibiades, but with layers of developing images, building on and transforming the picture transmitted from the late fifth and early fourth centuries" (29). Whereas distortion took root almost immediately at the hands of comic poets, orators, and Socratics, the Hellenistic writers (especially their penchant for "inventing" anecdotal detail pertaining to his private life) contaminated the story of the historical Alcibiades beyond repair. This mix of history and anecdote is preserved in Plutarch's Vita, which, according to Gribble, holds a key to understanding "the tradition of Alcibiades stories" (31, and conclusion, 263-82).Still Gribble does not harbor the illusion that he can ever find the real Alcibiades (in terms of his "actual behaviour"), for even amid the pages of contemporary authors this son of Cleinias had become a manipulable object of discourse as well as an appropriate pawn for arguments, both pro and con, which scrutinized the "relationship between the elite individual and the city" (43). It was a rare feat for any leader to keep such a relationship (marked both by distance from and solidarity with the demos) in balance; in the case of Alcibiades, there was teetering and tension from the beginning. His vainglorious and luxurious licenses doubtless aroused resentment in many circles, but more controversial was his "excessive and dangerous ambition" (59), coupled with a "contempt for normal convention displayed in (his) personal life" (70), that seemed to threaten the very stability of the state.Gribble begins his probe of contemporary texts in chapter 2 (90-158, including two appendices) with the four surviving rhetorical works (Isocrates 16, Lysias 14 and 15, and [Andocides] 4), which provide evidence of serious and ongoing debate about Alcibiades in the years following his death in 404-403. He begins part A ("Background") by discussing the "reality" of the first three speeches (all of which technically deal with the... (shrink)

Socrates’ admirers and successors in the fourth century and beyond often felt the need to explain Socrates’ reputed relationship with Alcibiades, and to defend Socrates against the charge that he was a corrupting influence on Alcibiades. In this paper I examine Plato’s response to this problem and have two main aims. First, I will argue in Section 2 that Alcibiades to the life of (...) philosophy—consists in two central points: that motivations associated with the spirited part of the soul play a decisive role in moral education, particularly in the case of exceptionally ambitious and talented individuals; and that the democratic Many themselves, not Socrates, are primarily responsible for the corruption of promising young men like Alcibiades. These points are connected, moreover: the Many exert a moral influence on the young by shaping and exploiting their spirited motivations. I aim to show that Plato develops and dramatizes this diagnosis of the problem of Alcibiades in three earlier dialogues—Protagoras, Gorgias, and Symposium—as well as in Book 6 of the Republic. My second main claim will be that the psychological and educational theories of the Republic are informed by Plato’s diagnosis of the problem of Alcibiades, and that they are conceived, at least in part, as a solution to that problem. (shrink)

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. (shrink)