Alcibiades and the Socratic Lover-Educator

by Tarrant, Harold; Johnson, Marguerite

• ISBN13: 9780715640869
• ISBN10: 0715640860
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-02-16
• Publisher: Bristol Classical Pr

Summary

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, its authorship is still unsettled; the essays and two appendices, one historical and one stylometric, come together to suggest answers to this tantalising question.

Author Biography

Marguerite Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Newcastle, Australia.
Harold Tarrant is Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle, Australia.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	p. vii
Preface	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
The role of Eros in Improving the Pupil, or What Socrates Learned from Sappho	p. 7
Socrates and Platonic Models of Love	p. 30
The Eye of the Beloved: Opsis and Eros in Socratic Pedagogy	p. 45
Plato's Oblique Response to Issues of Socrates' Influence on Alcibiades: An Examination of the Protagoras and the Gorgias	p. 61
Socratic Ignorance, or the Place of the Alcibiades I in Plato's Early Works	p. 77
Did Alcibiades Learn Justice from the Many?	p. 90
The Dual-Role Philosophers: An Exploration of a Failed Relationship	p. 107
Authenticity, Experiment or Development: The Alcibiades I on Virtue and Courage	p. 119
Revaluing Megalopsuchia: Reflections on the Alcibiades II	p. 134
Improvement by Love: From Aeschines to the Old Academy	p. 147
Ice-Cold in Alex: Philo's Treatment of the Divine Lover in Hellenistic Pedagogy	p. 164
Proclus' Reading of Plato's Sokratikoi Logoi: Proclus' Observations on Dialectic at Alcibiades 112d-114e and Elsewhere	p. 180
Socrates' Divine Sign: From the Alcibiades to Olympiodorus	p. 190
'The Individual' in History and History 'in General'. Alcibiades Philosophical History and Ideas in Contest	p. 200
Fourth-Century Politics and the Date of the Alcibiades I	p. 215
Report on the Working Vocabulary in the Doubtful Dialogues	p. 223
The Working Vocabulary of the Alcibiades
The Working Vocabulary of the Theages
Bibliography	p. 237
Index to Platonic Works	p. 251
General Index	p. 252
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