The Delphic inscription, “Know thyself,” gnôthi seauton, is mentioned in several dialogues and is discussed at some length in a few of them.¹ Socrates himself takes the Delphic imperative seriously, at least as far as self-knowledge is possible for human beings. We find self-knowledge implicit but embedded deeply within Socrates’ famous claims that his wisdom is constituted in not thinking that he knows something when he does not (Apology 21d ff.). That is, Socratic wisdom is a kind of self-knowledge, a knowledge of what one lacks. More broadly speaking, self-knowledge is thought to be an aspect of human excellence, even if not formally mentioned alongside the frequently mentioned aretai. Especially in its aspirational capacities, self-knowledge thus represents a common node where the epistemic and the ethical meet. It is also thoroughly erotic.

The indices in the two most prominent English language volumes of Plato’s collected works show that only traditionally erotic dialogues feature discussions of self-knowledge.² Because the dialogues that expressly discuss self-knowledge are among the traditional “erotic dialogues,” my approach is slightly different in this chapter than in previous chapters. Instead of examining a dialogue traditionally viewed as non-erotic, I shall demonstrate the central role of self-knowledge in Alcibiades I and, to a lesser extent, in Phaedrus, and explore links to other aspects of Plato’s erotic world. The depictions and discussions of self-knowledge in Alcibiades I and Phaedrus show in clear and overt ways that self-knowledge is cultivated in the male, erotic social world that we have examined repeatedly, and it is cultivated specifically, and ideally, with the guidance of an erotic lover. That is to say, knowledge of self is fundamentally social insofar as it necessitates a relation to an other, and it is fundamentally erotic insofar as the relation to the other is ideally an erotic relation. Furthermore, the leading or guiding toward self-knowledge carried out by the lover connects the cultivation of self-knowledge to the divine, and in doing so it connects self-knowledge to the mediating role of eros discussed in previous chapters. Looking forward to the discussion of the next chapter, the cultivation of self-knowledge through erotic guidance anticipates guidance in the afterlife, as well.

In Alcibiades I, we witness Socrates’ very first conversation with the young beauty Alcibiades. Socrates has followed him and admired him silently and from afar for some time, and whereas other suitors have now retreated, Socrates steps into the breach just when the bloom of Alcibiades appears to other suitors to be fading. Socrates claims to know about Alcibiades’ ambitions to lead the Athenian people and to address the Athenian assembly, so he questions the young man about his knowledge and about what attributes make him fit for such a position among his fellow citizens. After exposing Alcibiades’ ignorance, and after gaining his assent that he needs further education, Socrates urges Alcibiades to care for himself and thereby gain self-knowledge. Self-knowledge requires seeing into one’s true self as that self is reflected in the soul of a lover who loves the true self. Socrates successfully convinces Alcibiades that he, Socrates, is the only man able to provide Alcibiades with what he needs because Socrates is his only true lover. In order to obtain what he desires, Alcibiades must take Socrates on as his lover, and through their relationship take good care of his soul. Socrates thus succeeds in what might be called the philosophical seduction of the young Alcibiades.

In his posthumously published 1836 Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato,³ Schleiermacher claims that Alcibiades I appears “very insignificant and poor to such a degree” that he “cannot ascribe it to Plato” (329), and while it does contain some beautiful and genuinely Platonic passages, these, he claims, are scattered among “a floating mass of worthless matter” (330), and it therefore could not be Plato’s creation. He then sets out to “establish the main points upon which [his rejection] depends” (330). After Schleiermacher cast doubt on Alcibiades I’s authenticity in the mid-nineteenth century, few philosophers chose to study the dialogue seriously and in depth. When the dialogue was discussed, its authenticity was more so the subject of the discussion than its content and philosophical contributions, even though the latter kinds of discussion are valuable regardless of the dialogue’s authorship. Fortunately, this has changed in recent decades.⁴

Schleiermacher’s specific criticisms, ironically, provide a heuristic structure through which the dialogue’s philosophical coherence and meaning can emerge, and around which I shall loosely organize my reading of the dialogue. The erotic relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades is central to a unified and coherent understanding of this dialogue, and it demonstrates the philosophical links between eros and self-knowledge. I shall also provide an explanation as to the nature of the mutual attraction between Socrates and Alcibiades and an argument for why the interplay between these two characters sheds light on the major philosophical themes of the dialogue.

Socrates and Exclusivity

Socrates asserts, quite boldly, not just that he can help Alcibiades satisfy his desires, but that he is the only one who can help him do so:

Schleiermacher claims that we never learn why Socrates claims to be the sole source through which Alcibiades can achieve his goals (331) but, to the contrary, Socrates’ unique powers constitute an important motif that is well developed in the dialogue and is rooted in eros.

In order to understand why Socrates is the sole person who can do this for Alcibiades, we must look to another strong claim to exclusivity that Socrates makes in the dialogue: He claims emphatically on several occasions that he alone has remained when other suitors have abandoned Alcibiades, and therefore he alone is Alcibiades’ true lover (103a; 104c; 131e; 132a). Both claims to exclusivity – that Socrates is Alcibiades’ only true lover and that he alone can help Alcibiades realize his aspirations – are really about Socrates’ being uniquely able to satisfy Alcibiades’ eros and provide him with the means to self-knowledge. This central point emerges in perhaps the dialogue’s finest moment, the enchanting metaphor of the self-seeing eye that Socrates uses to illustrate how one gains self-knowledge (132d–133d).

To tell a person to “know thyself” is like telling an eye to see itself. If an eye were to try to see itself, it would need some reflecting device that could show itself to itself. A mirror could certainly work, but an eye could also look into another eye and see itself in the reflection of that eye. Moreover, the part of the reflecting eye to which an eye must look to see itself is the dark pupil, which Socrates describes as “the most perfect part” where the excellence of the eye (ἡ ὀφθαλμοῦ ἀρετή) is to be found (133b4). So, an eye needs another eye, and the best, most excellent part of that reflecting eye, in order to see itself.

Socrates’ image tells Alcibiades that in order to know himself, he needs another, reflecting self. Earlier in the dialogue, Socrates helped Alcibiades to realize that his self is his soul (130c), and that the true lover is the one who loves his soul, not his body or his possessions (131c), and unlike his previous suitors, Socrates is that lover. So, putting these conclusions together, along with the beautifully drawn image of the self-seeing eye, Alcibiades ought to infer that he needs another reflecting soul in order to gain self-knowledge, that he must look to the finest, purest part of that reflecting soul where knowledge and goodness reside, in order to gain self-knowledge. Socrates is that soul. Only Socrates can reflect back to Alcibiades his true self. Alcibiades needs a true lover to love his soul in the way that Socrates alone does. Through such a partnership, Alcibiades can look to the finest, most excellent part of Socrates’ soul and gain an insight into his own, that is, gain self-knowledge, the very thing of which he is in most need in order to realize his aspirations.

Socrates’ image of the eye charges the dramatic scene with erotic energy.⁶ To gaze into a lover’s eyes can be alluring, intimate, and intense. Halperin explains that “[s]ince the Greeks located the source of erôs in the eyes (of the beloved, usually), and since they considered eye-contact between lover and beloved the erotic stimulus par excellence, the respectable youth’s downcast eyes signify his refusal to engage in the opening phases of an erotic relationship.”⁷ We might imagine the exquisitely handsome Alcibiades at the very moment when Socrates creates this image and wonder what transpires between them. Does he meet Socrates’ eyes? In that moment, a spark could be ignited in the young man that fuels his desires even further and inspires him to become this man’s devoted boy. Or perhaps this is a moment during which Alcibiades cannot meet Socrates’ eyes, ashamed of his shortcomings, a moment therefore unlike what he has experienced with any other lover or suitor before. If so, this moment might unveil Socrates’ very real powers over Alcibiades and thereby substantiate his bold claims to power that begin their conversation. At the same time, too, the lover’s gaze can be soothing, reassuring, and consoling. The young man who aspires to so much, but beneath his bravado and pride retains a small, nagging doubt whether he can achieve his aspirations, could be comforted and encouraged by this powerful lover who promises so much and who will guide him in his quest. Either scenario is plausible, and perhaps each takes place in succession: Alcibiades first meets Socrates’ eyes and then has to turn away. Regardless of Alcibiades’ reactions, Socrates’ creating the image of the lover and beloved intently gazing into each others’ eyes further excites the drama with the power of eros.

“Praising” Sparta, Persia, and Pericles

About halfway into the dialogue, Alcibiades claims that since most in Athenian politics are uneducated, he, with such a wealth of assets, could easily prevail over them. Socrates then plays to Alcibiades’ aspirations, telling him that he ought rather to compare himself to more worthy opponents such as the kings of Sparta and Persia. These kings have accumulated vast amounts of wealth; they have land, possessions, and people at their command. Despite raising Alcibiades’ sights and expectations in this way, Socrates ultimately reveals that, compared to these men, Alcibiades cannot compete (120a–124c). Schleiermacher is puzzled by Socrates’ praise of the Spartans’ and Persians’ riches, and he sees the style here as “throughout unsocratic” because there is “no irony [to be] discovered in these laudatory descriptions” (330).

These passages, however, are not laudatory. Socrates focuses mostly on their material wealth, but after his description of the abundance among Alcibiades’ “competitors,” Socrates imagines that the wife of the Great King would have to wonder by what means Alcibiades could possibly attempt to challenge her son. In Socrates’ story, she claims that it could only be by virtue of Alcibiades’ care and wisdom (ἐπιμελείᾳ τε καὶ σοφίᾳ, 123d3–4) that he could challenge her son, since these are what are valued in Greece. “And yet,” Socrates admonishes, “don’t you think it’s disgraceful that even our enemies’ wives have a better appreciation than we do of what it would take to challenge them?” (124a). Care and wisdom, then, are the real riches that Alcibiades ought to procure, and, furthermore, it is disgraceful not to know this. So within the discussion of the Persians and Spartans, there is strong evidence that Socrates’ praise of their material riches is not to be taken in a straightforward manner.

Later revelations in the dialogue further undermine the value of the riches of the Persian and Lacedaemonian empires (128a–132c). Socrates tries to help Alcibiades understand that one should not be identified with one’s possessions; that is, caring for one’s possessions is not caring for oneself, and the best task that Alcibiades can set for himself is to care for his true self, his soul. Those who do not know the difference between themselves and their possessions are not able to follow the dictum “Know thyself,” which Socrates earlier exhorted Alcibiades to do (124b). They are thus left in an ignorant state and are not fit to advise anyone else (133e). What are “praised” in the passages about Alcibiades’ rivals – land, armies, gold, and silver – are merely possessions. These conclusions therefore put the riches of the Persians and the Spartans in a further clarified perspective, one that shows them to be empty and unimportant for the best life.

But one might ask why Socrates should craft a story about abundant treasuries in Sparta, vast tracks of Persian land, or the lavish upbringing of the Great King’s children if his ultimate lesson is that one ought not to care for one’s possessions. Socrates creates a story about the very possessions he knows Alcibiades to be seduced by, only to urge later that Alcibiades eschew them. This seeming incongruity is rather a sign of Socrates’ alluring, erotic power and hortatory genius.

Socrates appears to have as much knowledge about Alcibiades as anyone, perhaps in contrast to the very knowledge Alcibiades lacks about himself. Socrates knows exactly how to engage Alcibiades’ attention, how to appeal to his aspirations and desires – his eros – and he consistently uses his knowledge of Alcibiades to draw him in philosophical directions. Socrates has, after all, been observing him for quite some time, and he opens the dialogue with a relatively long discourse about Alcibiades’ inner state of mind, which Alcibiades does not deny (104a–c). At one point Socrates says to Alcibiades, “I’m going to prove to you in person what very different plans you actually have in mind. Then you’ll realize how constantly I’ve been thinking about you.... What then is your real ambition in life? I’ll tell you...” (105a–b), and he concludes his description of Alcibiades’ aspirations by declaring, “I’m not guessing that this is your ambition – I’m sure of it” (105c). Socrates’ confident claims here in Alcibiades I exemplify his descriptions in Phaedrus of the ideal rhetorician’s knowledge of souls. The true rhetorician described in Phaedrus will be able to describe the soul’s uniform and multiform aspects, will explain what the soul’s actions and passions are, and will adapt speeches to souls based on his knowledge of how and why one type of soul is persuaded by certain speeches and others are not (271a–e).⁸ Socrates’ discourse here is perfectly suited to Alcibiades, specifically to his desires, and it aims at his self-knowledge.

Mitchell Miller discusses the phenomenon he terms “mimetic irony,” which occurs in several dialogues.⁹ In mimetic irony, the interlocutor sees himself mirrored in the discourse, giving himself an opportunity for reflecting on who he is. On such occasions, what Socrates says may or may not constitute Socrates’ own beliefs, but it is used as a hook for engaging the interlocutor (or reader) and helps him to come to some insight or realization. Here, Alcibiades’ own misplaced ambitions are mirrored to him in Socrates’ descriptions of the power and riches amassed by the Spartans and the Persians, and are then undermined in stark contrast to care and wisdom. Socrates uses his knowledge of Alcibiades to provide him with an image of himself. This is the very activity one might expect from Socrates, who, as Alcibiades’ true lover, is meant to reflect back to Alcibiades an image of his true self. So, in response to the objection that it does not make sense for Socrates to appeal to Alcibiades’ weaknesses knowingly, it seems, on the contrary, a potent method and one we would expect from Alcibiades’ true lover. Contrary to Schleiermacher’s observations, then, the discussion of the “luxurious pomp” (330) in Sparta and Persia is not laudatory. It functions first to reflect and bait Alcibiades’ desires, and then to redirect them to more worthy objects.¹⁰ These passages thus demonstrate that Socrates is philosophically shrewd and effective, so much so that he uses the technique more than once.

In an earlier passage, Socrates has seemingly also praised the Athenian leader Pericles, and Schleiermacher similarly claims that Pericles is “extolled without a trace of irony” (332). While not exactly the same, the praise of Pericles functions in a manner parallel to the praise for Sparta and Persia. It stimulates and then redirects Alcibiades’ eros¹¹ and thereby furthers Socrates’ central aim in the dialogue: to seduce Alcibiades into a philosophical relationship with him.

Socrates first seems to compliment Pericles when he places him among Alcibiades’ vast resources: “And you have Pericles son of Xanthippus, whom your father left as a guardian to you and your brother; you think he’s a more powerful ally than all those people I mentioned put together – he can do whatever he likes, not only in this city, but anywhere in Greece, and also in many important foreign countries” (104b). Socrates again mentions Pericles briefly as being an exception among the city’s politicians who are “wedded to their stupidity” and with whom Alcibiades keeps company (118b–c). This seems to be faint praise indeed, but Alcibiades agrees with the assessment and adds that Pericles often consulted with other wise men and experts (118c). Socrates and Alcibiades agree that wise men, if anyone, should be able to pass on their wisdom to others (118c–d), and, having agreed to this, they establish next that Pericles’ own two sons turned out to be fools (ἠλιθίω, 118e1).¹² Worse still, of the two young wards over whom Pericles was placed as guardian – Alcibiades and his brother – the latter turned out to be mad, and Alcibiades is in a state of unrecognized ignorance. Emphasizing Pericles’ impotence in this regard, Socrates asks pointedly, “What shall we say is the reason that he allowed you to be in the state you’re in?” (118e6–7). A bit earlier in the drama, Socrates is even more explicit: “Good God, Alcibiades, what a sorry state you’re in! I hesitate to call it by its name, but still, since we’re alone, it must be said. You are wedded to stupidity, my good fellow, stupidity in the highest degree” (118b4–6). No doubt, previous suitors would never have spoken to Alcibiades in this critical manner, and these certainly do not seem to be seductive, wooing words, but Socrates the true lover must reflect the image of Alcibiades’ true self.¹³ Moreover, Socrates seems to arouse Alcibiades’ desires for power and mastery, and in a relatively unsubtle manner implies that Pericles is unable to give him what he wants. The means by which Socrates furthers his goal here of seducing Alcibiades is by invalidating one of Alcibiades’ current “guides,” and implicitly suggesting that he, Socrates, would be a superior one.¹⁴

So Pericles is praised in one breath and criticized in the next. The same type of Socratic maneuver is evident, for example, in Meno. When Anytus, who has apparently been lurking nearby, makes his first appearance in that dialogue, Socrates introduces him by extolling his virtuous father and praising Anytus’s broad support among the Athenian citizens (89e–90b). Anytus’s seemingly complimentary introduction is undermined, however, by the agreements later reached in the dialogue, namely, that good men often have contemptible sons and cannot pass on their virtue, and that the Athenian populace is ignorant and runs its politics on mere luck and opinion, not knowledge.¹⁵ We should take the praise of Pericles in this context to be likewise negated by later dramatic developments. And more specifically, it should be seen as one aspect of Socrates’ careful demonstration to Alcibiades that he needs new and different guidance.

The Just and the Advantageous

A significant portion in the middle of the dialogue comprises discussions of justice: how and whether Alcibiades has come to know what it is, whether justice is the same thing as the advantageous, and whether just statesmanship is minding one’s own business or cooperation in friendship. Schleiermacher expresses concerns about the coherence of this large portion of the dialogue. “[A]ll these points,” he says, “have no connection whatever with one another and each stands where it is, only in its loose external relation to Alcibiades’ imperfect state of mind” (332). There are, however, deep connections here that expose the political motivation behind Socrates’ attempt at philosophical seduction. The cultivation of self-knowledge, it turns out, is necessarily both a type of erotic cooperation and a tending to one’s own business (one’s soul), and this seemingly paradoxical combination is most advantageous to the souls of the lover and the beloved alike.

Socrates questions Alcibiades about what he (thinks he) knows and how he would advise Athens if he were to lead the Athenians, since those who advise Athens must have knowledge of the relevant matters. Alcibiades proves unable to say of what he has knowledge and what he would help Athenians to do better. When Socrates suggests, and Alcibiades agrees, that he might make them better at waging war and being at peace, the two discuss justice, moved by a consideration of whether one wages war on the just or on the unjust. Socrates then demonstrates that Alcibiades’ words and actions convey a presumption of knowing what justice is when he has neither been taught it nor discovered it on his own (106c–113d).

A discussion ensues regarding the advantageous and the just, their difference or similarity, and their relationship to each other. Alcibiades claims that the two are different, and that the Athenians discuss what is advantageous rather than what is just in their civic discourse.¹⁶ Socrates provides an argument, through a series of questions, that what is just is also advantageous. Alcibiades is bewildered by the end of this passage; he is not only ignorant about these matters, but has thought all along that he knew. Alcibiades’ ignorance now throws into question the value of Pericles’ tutelage. Following Alcibiades’ deprecation of Athenians and Athenian politics, Socrates begins his discussion of the comparative worth of the Spartans and Persians, which ends with Socrates’ exhortation to Alcibiades, by way of the Great King’s wife, to care for himself (113d–124c).

To figure out how best to care for themselves, Socrates and Alcibiades must examine together (κοινὴ βουλή at 124b10 and σκεπτέον κοινῇ at 124d9) and discover in what excellence, in particular, they wish to be as good as possible. Socrates will guide their common endeavor because Socrates’ guardian, the god, is better and wiser than Alcibiades’s guardian, Pericles (124c–d). The excellence in which Socrates and Alcibiades wish to excel, statesmanship, is tentatively defined as ruling over men who are fellow citizens and who do business with each other. Alcibiades claims that friendship and agreement (φιλίαν and ὁμόνοιαν become interchangeable at 126c) are present in good statesmanship, just as in the relationship between husband and wife. But, Socrates asks, does a husband agree with his wife about wool work when he does not understand it, and does not need to? Does a wife agree with her husband about soldiering when she does not understand it, and does not need to? Perhaps, Socrates suggests, the art of statesmanship comes about not through friendship and agreement, but rather by people minding their own business (τὰ αὑτῶν πράττουσιν, 127a14 ff.). Alcibiades, however, still believes that good states are characterized by friendly agreement. Socrates does not know what that agreement is, and it seems that the same persons sometimes have it and sometimes do not. Alcibiades expresses his confusion at this point and feels disgraced by his ignorance (127d6–8).

From the Socratic point of view, we imagine Alcibiades to be in a state of corruption, evident here in his unrecognized ignorance and his misplaced aspirations. To open Alcibiades’ eyes to the pernicious influence of raw political ambition and the drive to seek honor or praise from the many, it is important for Socrates to mention Pericles’ influence over Alcibiades, as well as the influence of all Athenians over him. The subtle suggestions to this effect here are echoed more loudly and hauntingly in Socrates’ final lines of the dialogue. Those final words also refer to the dark potential that lurks among the Athenian people and their leadership, whether one is undone by excessive political ambition (as Alcibiades will be) or an explicit rejection and critique of political ambition (as Socrates will be). “I should like to believe that you will persevere [in taking care over matters of justice], but I’m afraid – not because I distrust your nature, but because I know how powerful the city is (τὴν τῆs πόλεωs ... ῥώμην) – I’m afraid it might get the better of both me and you” (135e7–8). The comments about Pericles’ influence at 124c–d are offered in the same vein as these final words, and, together with several other warnings in this dialogue, they form a univocal warning to Alcibiades about his aspirations for political power and the dangers of politics.

Alcibiades is the product of Pericles’ upbringing and the training and acculturation provided by the Athenian democracy. Pericles’ and Athens’ influence are linked to Alcibiades’ entrenched, if misplaced, confidence, a confidence resting perhaps on his physical beauty, wealth, social status, political connections, and the like. If one knows anything about Socrates’ views on these matters, it is that Athens produces many men, perceived by others and themselves as great, who are deceived about their greatness and who lack knowledge of any important kind, especially self-knowledge. Alcibiades fits that mold. He aspires to lead the Athenian people, but he does not know what the just is nor is he aware that he does not know this.¹⁷ Like other Socratic interlocutors, Alcibiades is prepared to move forward, self-assured in his actions, when he does not know what he is doing. He is the paradigmatic product of the Athenian democracy’s ruling class.

That Alcibiades does not know what the just is puts his claims about the difference between the just and the advantageous in a questionable light, and we should therefore not trust what he says about the difference between them. Moreover, making distinctions between the advantageous and the just is exactly what allows one to advance one’s own interests and to rationalize doing what is unjust. By convincing Alcibiades that the just is the advantageous, Socrates effectively assures him that if he takes up the task of caring for the self and gaining self-knowledge, and moreover, if he accepts Socrates as his lover, both of which are virtuous and just, then Alcibiades will achieve what is advantageous as well. Socrates knows that he must make this type of argument to appeal to Alcibiades’ concerns. Alcibiades is the type of person who must be convinced that the just is also the advantageous if he is to take up the just.

Even if all just actions are advantageous, however, one cannot infer that all advantageous acts are also just, unless it has been established that the just and the advantageous are identical. Here again we see how Socrates’ power over Alcibiades is rooted in his knowledge of him. Alcibiades is committed to doing whatever he perceives to be to his advantage first and foremost, so from Socrates’ point of view, it is most important for him to persuade Alcibiades that doing the just will be to his advantage. Based on similar arguments in other dialogues, one might take the liberty of imputing to Socrates the view that the just and the advantageous are identical, insofar as there is no better advantage than to make one’s soul as good as possible, but what Alcibiades might mistakenly perceive to be to his advantage is not necessarily so. So, despite the identification of the just and the advantageous in Socrates’ own mind, the argument here is fitted to Alcibiades in particular. It is an attempt to persuade or seduce him, and so it must appeal to his own presumptions and habitual inclinations to be effective. Hence it works on demonstrating that the just is advantageous, since Alcibiades is predisposed toward doing what he perceives as advantageous. Socrates’ argument that the just is the advantageous is therefore linked to and coherent with the preceding discussion about the corrupting guidance Alcibiades has received from Pericles and his ignorance about the most important matters. These are the sources of his misperceptions about the advantageous and the just. Socrates must promote these ideas against the entrenched views instilled in Alcibiades by the Athenian political community.

The coherence of this middle segment of the dialogue and its connection to the whole are equally evident in Socrates and Alcibiades’ disagreement about whether just statesmanship involves doing one’s own business or is a kind of friendship and agreement. As we saw, the discussion of statesmanship ended with Alcibiades in confusion, and he could not decide between whether justice consists in doing one’s own business or is a kind of friendship. That dilemma is never explicitly resolved in the dialogue, but there are two strong intimations of a solution right in front of us. First, the framing of that discussion troubles any hard separation between doing one’s own business and friendly cooperation. As noted previously, Socrates introduces the quest to improve themselves by saying that they need to discuss the matter “together” (κοινὴ βουλή, 124b10), and he reiterates a bit later that they must not slack off or give up, but must “work it out together” (σκεπτέον κοινῇ, 124d9). By emphasizing their joint mission, Socrates draws attention to the fact that to attend to the caring of one’s soul, which is certainly one’s own business, is to do so with another.

The metaphor of the self-seeing eye and the explicit discussion of self-knowledge (which I take up in the next section) imply further that this is a false dichotomy. If Alcibiades truly needs to take Socrates on as his lover, since this is the route to self-knowledge, which is in turn what he needs to fulfill his ambitions, then these activities include doing one’s own business and cooperation, and both necessarily. In caring for his true self, gaining self-knowledge, Alcibiades is doing his own business, and it is the most important business he can be doing, as this dialogue tells us. At the same time, he can only do this by cooperating with Socrates, by joining in a relationship with him.¹⁸ The later discussions of self-knowledge and the eye thus resolve by implication what is not resolved explicitly in the text. Just as seeing oneself necessitates seeing that self in and through another, so tending to oneself, to one’s most important business, the condition of one’s soul, necessitates cooperating with another. The discussion of the nature of statesmanship therefore links what has preceded it with what will follow, and it is internally consistent. It fleshes out Alcibiades’ desires, his shortcomings, and motivations for entering into a relationship with Socrates, and it paves the way for the explicit discussion of self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge and the Divine

Self-knowledge plays a central thematic role in Alcibiades I in addition to the explicit discussion of it. Socrates opens the dialogue by revealing to Alcibiades what he knows about him and how much power his knowledge of Alcibiades gives him (103a–105e). In stark contrast to Socrates’ knowledge of Alcibiades, early portions of the dialogue are all about what Alcibiades claims to know but does not, and the dialogue reveals that what he does not know includes who or what he actually is. He is not his possessions or wealth or social connections; he is his soul. The explicit discussion of self-knowledge later in the dialogue should, upon its being mentioned, therefore quickly resonate with earlier parts of the dialogue in which Alcibiades demonstrated profound pride in his beauty, wealth, popularity, and social status. The resonance between the earlier and later parts of the dialogue indicate that self-knowledge is a necessary condition for knowing what one ought and ought not to value and care for, and the earlier parts of the dialogue, which do not refer to self-knowledge explicitly, are still therefore about Alcibiades’ profound lack of self-knowledge. By the time self-knowledge is named (124a), Alcibiades should be aware of the relative unimportance of all that he takes pride in – his body, his connections, and his possessions – and the importance of his real self, his soul, the object of the real lover’s love. The latter part of the dialogue, which contains the beautiful and powerful image of the self-seeing eye, is thus an elegant representation of the nature of self-knowledge and a clever, alluring tactic for convincing Alcibiades that Socrates is his true lover.

Schleiermacher does not see the prominence of this theme, and he outright rejects self-knowledge as a candidate for the dialogue’s subject matter because he believes it is only taken up at the end of the dialogue. He believes, further, that when it does finally appear it is pretentious and superficial. In fact, Schleieracher expresses doubt that the dialogue has a “proper subject matter” at all, except perhaps the “nature of the god-head” (332–333). Julia Annas (Reference Annas and O’Meara1985) argues that self-knowledge is the unifying idea in the dialogue, but her analysis falls short in the end, primarily due to her inattention to any of the erotic aspects of the dialogue, including connections between eros and self-knowledge. Whatever themes one singles out for analysis in Alcibiades I – and I believe there are several, not just one – that analysis must attend to the erotic interplay between Socrates and Alcibiades in what is an unmistakably erotic dialogue.

Annas’s argument goes considerable distance toward unifying the dialogue, and it explains how clearly important self-knowledge is to it. She identifies three “puzzles” about the dialogue that have caused confusion and doubt among commentators. She proposes that these puzzles are less puzzling if one sees them as unified by a specific conception of self-knowledge. Annas correctly wants to avoid an anachronistic account of self-knowledge that is overly subjective, individualistic, and too much about our “personalities.” Instead, she sees the core of the ancient conception of self-knowledge to be knowledge about one’s social role and about the duties appropriate to one’s station.¹⁹ Self-knowledge is “at the opposite pole ... from concentration on the individual personality.”²⁰ She considers the concentration on the individual personality to be an “inner”²¹ dimension of the self, as compared to what she says constitutes Plato’s concept of self-knowledge. Annas restricts the scope of self-knowledge too much, however, since there are certainly “inner” dimensions of the self that Socrates urges Alcibiades to attend to. Socratic dialectic functions here and elsewhere to draw the interlocutor’s attention toward his true inner life – desires, fears, pleasures – and to see inconsistencies between these and his publicly professed beliefs or his actions. As Scott puts it, “[Socrates] holds out to the characters studied here the opportunity for a radical transformation in their previous goals, desires, and preferences, even if it is not obvious to them that he is doing so.”²² Furthermore, Socrates’ own unique brand of self-knowledge amounts to an understanding of his ignorance, which, though perhaps relevant to his role, duties, and station relative to the gods, is a truth about his inner life – and the inner life of all humanity regardless of social role, duty, or station. Alcibiades I distinctly indicates that attention to Alcibiades’ desires and aspirations – his eros – must be among things he understands and cultivates if he is to care for himself, his soul.

Another candidate for the dialogue’s primary subject matter would be caring for oneself, a theme Socrates and Alcibiades express so frequently with ἐπιμέλεια and its cognates as to seem almost heavy-handed at times.²³ It is surprising that neither Schleiermacher nor Annas mentions this theme, although Scott (Reference Scott2000) gives it serious treatment. Foucault’s lecture is based on the presumption that care of the self is “the center of the dialogue.”²⁴ He argues that since care of the self is the focus of this dialogue, and the ancients believed that this dialogue ought to be read first among all the Platonic dialogues, then care of the self can be taken to be a kind of first principle or archê. His essay examines the relationship between the dicta “Know thyself” and “Care for thyself” within this dialogue and, historically, from the Greco-Roman tradition into Christian thought of the fourth and fifth centuries. “Care for thyself,” he argues, has primacy in the earlier tradition, and self-knowledge was seen to be a consequence of it. In the later Christian tradition, “Know thyself” supplants and comes to obscure “Care for thyself,” Foucault argues. I am inclined to agree with Foucault at least that care of the self is centrally important to this dialogue. It portrays self-care as, paradoxically, putting oneself in the care of another, the proper guide who loves one’s true self or soul. Self-care furthermore links the themes of self-knowledge and eros insofar as self-knowledge is portrayed as a necessary condition for self-care (since one must know what one needs and what needs attention), and the depiction of how one pursues or achieves self-care and self-knowledge is distinctly erotic.

Of the several candidates for the “proper subject matter” of Alcibiades I, however, the “nature of the god-head” seems least plausible, and I find Schleiermacher’s comment to this effect odd. The dialogue does mention the divine, and it occurs in a context that I concede is a climax in the dialogue: the metaphor of the self-seeing eye. But the entire discussion of the divine in this context comprises approximately eight lines of text, some of which are disputed.

In discussing “the god-head,” as Schleiermacher calls it, Socrates asks Alcibiades whether one can find any part of the soul that is more divine than the place where the excellence of a soul, wisdom, is located. Alcibiades says no, there is no more divine part of the soul than the place where wisdom is located.²⁵ Socrates then claims that whoever looks at this part of the soul that resembles the divine comes to know all that is divine and “would have the best grasp of himself as well” (133c6). What we learn about the “nature of the god-head,” besides its being wise and virtuous, is therefore practically nothing. Rather, this reference to the divine tells us about the nature of the human soul and its role in self-knowledge.²⁶ It tells us further that one pathway from the human to the divine runs necessarily through eros. Alcibiades I is in this way consistent with what we saw in Parmenides in Chapter 3 and with the mediating role of eros described by Diotima in Symposium.

There are other references to things divine: The dialogue does mention Socrates’ daimonion that has ceased preventing him from courting Alcibiades (103a); Socrates sets up a god as Alcibiades’ initial questioner before he poses questions in his own voice (105a–b); he claims to have a better guide (ὁ ἐπίτροπος) in god than Alcibiades has in Pericles (124c5); and he implies that his pursuit and seduction of Alcibiades are overseen by the god (127e; 135d). Understanding these references might shed further light on the dialogue’s major themes, but these references do not, however, reveal much about the nature of the divine itself, but about human relation to the divine through eros. The daimonion plays a small but conspicuous role in this dialogue. The entire meeting between the two men is itself only now possible because the daimonion has stopped opposing Socrates (103a–104c). It seems plausible enough to infer that when Socrates begins his conversation and questioning of Alcibiades with the phrase, “Suppose one of the gods asked you,” he sees himself standing in for the god, since the conversation only takes place when the daimonion has given its unique form of permission. If not truly asking the god’s own questions, Socrates might at least feel he has been given permission to ask the questions he was been wanting to ask for the duration of his patient and mute observation of Alcibiades. Moreover, when Socrates claims that he is guided by someone better than Pericles, and Alcibiades asks who that is, Socrates says it is the god (θεός). He then identifies the god with his daimonion, mentioned in the earliest lines of the dialogue (103a5), who “prevented [him] from talking with [Alcibiades] before today” (124c8–9).²⁷

The roles of the daimonion and the god before whom the entire conversation takes place serve as counterparts to the roles and influences of the guides and guardians to whom Alcibiades tends to look. Alcibiades has a fascination with those who have political power, social status, money, and even with the many, who have a power all their own. By looking to these guides, Alcibiades has become the young man we meet here: arrogant and highly ambitious for political power, wealth, and status, yet woefully ignorant about many things, including himself. By looking to Socrates’ guide, the god – and instrumentally, looking to Socrates as a true lover and hence also a guide – Alcibiades could be moved toward improvement of the soul and an erotic relationship that fosters this. One could see Socrates, therefore, as an alternative erotic object. If Alcibiades were able to shift his lust for power and adoration toward a lust for philosophy, a shift facilitated by changing his current guides and suitors, then he could gain the self-knowledge he currently lacks and, potentially, be as erotically expert as Socrates. Socrates confers a kind of divine sanction on his seduction, and the divine presence in Alcibiades I points to the need for good erotic guidance and leadership.

Lead (Me) On

In the dialogue’s opening scene, Alcibiades tells us that Socrates used to follow him around in silence (σιγῶν εἵπου, 106a3). But in the remainder of the dialogue, Socrates is urging Alcibiades to leave behind his bad upbringing, literally his being led badly (κακῶς ἠγμένος,124a4), and to follow him instead. In talking of the Persians and Spartans, Socrates tells Alcibiades that if he has it in mind to lead the city – literally, to have hegemony (ἡγεμών, 120a5) – he needs to understand who his true comparators are, and, of course, in order to do that, Alcibiades has to have self-knowledge. Socrates then explores with Alcibiades just what it takes to achieve excellence (aretê), and the “leading” vocabulary, hêgoumenôn at 125d1, gradually shifts to “ruling” and “commanding” vocabulary followed by four uses of archein in just a few lines, 125d–e. These details of their conversation underscore instances over the course of a human life in which it is important to be led well: in one’s youth by parents and guardians, in the formative years by suitors and lovers, and as an adult by the city’s rulers.

Divine guidance and erotic leading are thematized in Phaedrus, as well. As Socrates and Phaedrus make their way to the cool place under the plane tree where the greater part of their conversation will take place, various forms of “lead” and “lead on” are repeated quite frequently, and remarkably so. In the course of their short stroll to find a suitable place to sit down, leading and being led are mentioned nine times.²⁸ Phaedrus is the first to exhort Socrates to lead on while they walk. He has just promised to deliver Lysias’s speech to Socrates – who is a suitable auditor since the speech is erotic – if Socrates will walk with him and listen (227c–d). Then, in a playful tone, Socrates begins teasing Phaedrus, referring to Phaedrus and himself in the third person and describing events similar to what has just come to pass between them: “And running into a man who is sick with passion for hearing speeches, seeing him – just seeing him – he was filled with delight; he had found a partner for his frenzied dance, and he urged him to lead the way (καὶ προάγειν ἐκέλευε). But when that lover of speeches (τοῦ τῶν λόγων ἐραστοῦ) asked him to recite it, he played coy and pretended that he did not want to” (228b6–c2). Then, turning the tables, Socrates begins to exhort Phaedrus to lead the way, first, for some suitable place to sit and, a few lines down, to lead on to the specific plane tree Phaedrus has spotted (229a–b). From here, Socrates reflects on Phaedrus’s guidance to their resting spot, using cognates related to the verb “to lead” four times in a short span (230a–e, see note 28). This is also where self-knowledge is introduced in Phaedrus, in the midst of the repetition of this theme of leading and being led. Socrates makes his famous claim that he does not investigate such things as the truth of the story of Boreas and Oreithyia, but instead only investigates himself – even though he has not yet been able to obey the Delphic command to “Know thyself” and does not know whether he is a monster more savage than Typhon or a simpler, gentle creature with a share in the divine (229c–230a).

This is clearly a playful exchange between Phaedrus and Socrates, but it also paves the way for themes that the dialogue develops later on. The prologue’s emphasis on leading, leading on, and guiding can be construed in several ways relevant to this dialogue: Speeches in general lead their hearers in particular directions; the lover and the non-lover specifically try to lead the beloved in their respective speeches; Phaedrus’s guidance of Socrates to a beautiful place mirrors the gods who lead the best souls to the higher reaches, providing glimpses of beauty itself; and the true lover can guide his beloved to self-knowledge, for he knows the soul of the beloved. In both Phaedrus and Alcibiades I, Socrates argues and implies in myriad ways that the gods are the best leaders of souls, but that true lovers are the best mortal guides. And in the latter dialogue he offers his own erotic guidance to Alcibiades, exhorting him to greater self-knowledge, which is also thematized in Phaedrus.

A closer look at the vocabulary that Plato chooses in Phaedrus reveals perhaps a cruder, comedic play on words in this already erotically suggestive language. The first four instances of leading in the prologue are forms of proagein, which is typically translated as “to lead on.” This particular compounding of agô, however, also denotes pimping, and various of its substantives uniquely denote aspects of pandering.²⁹ We saw in Chapter 4 how Plato and Xenophon each exploited the semantic interplay among another set of words denoting pimping and pandering in addition to seeking, searching, and remembering – all Socratic activities.³⁰ The Xenophon passage discussed in Chapter 4, in which Socrates boasts that the thing he is most proud of is his pimping, picks up again later in Xenophon’s Symposium, where Socrates must explain to the symposiasts why his pimping is something to be proud of (4.56 ff.). Socrates extols the talents of the procurer to make his charges attractive through hair and clothing, and by teaching them the use of words that make them attractive to many, even to the entire city. Socrates then claims that Antisthenes is just this sort of person, and Antisthenes asks Socrates whether he is passing on his trade to him.³¹ Socrates assents that this is exactly what he is doing because he has observed that Antisthenes is already accomplished in a corresponding trade (τὴν ἀκόλουθον ταύτης), namely proagogeia (4.61). Antisthenes is troubled by this accusation, and he asks what knowledge Socrates has of his having performed this job. Socrates responds,

Although I have translated the participle proagôgeusanta in this passage as “[you] were the go between,” Antisthenes’ annoyance with Socrates’ accusation signals its close association with the pimping that Socrates owns up to in the earlier passage (ὁ μαστροπός at 3.10 ff.). Anthisthenes’ anger dissipates, however, when Socrates concludes that “the man who can recognize those who are fitted to be mutually helpful and can make them desire one another’s acquaintance, that man, in my opinion, could also create friendship between cities and arrange suitable marriages, and would be a very valuable acquisition as friend or ally for both states and individuals.”³³ The Phaedrus prologue, just as in Xenophon’s text here, can be taken in this lighter comedic – and yet serious – manner, where leadership is made a theme and is situated alongside self-knowledge. Both Xenophon and Plato find ways to link the comedic portrayal of this unseemly activity to more serious Socratic ideals, such as memory, inquiry, and beauty. Socrates plays the go-between in Phaedrus, hooking up Phaedrus with suitable speeches and presumably creating a desire in him for an acquaintance with the beautiful. Phaedrus goes on to claim that rhetoric in its entirety concerns the leading of souls through words (Phaedrus 261a).³⁴ And the seduction that I claim is taking place between Socrates and Alcibiades is also a type of being led on through erotic logoi. Socrates’ erotic guidance in Alcibiades I thus has parallels to the leading and leading on that occurs between Socrates and Phaedrus.

In Griswold’s study of self-knowledge in Phaedrus, he claims that Phaedrus depicts Socrates holding up “a mirror to Phaedrus to show Phaedrus what he (Phaedrus) should look like,” and Socrates even begins the dialogue by characterizing himself in such a way as to “make himself resemble Phaedrus’ disposition toward Lysias’ speech.”³⁵ In discussing self-motion in the soul, Griswold claims that the central suggestion of the first half of the dialogue “seems to be that the soul cannot know itself directly without the mirrorlike presence of another soul. The problem, of course, is to find or construct ... a reflection that will somehow cause one to move in the direction of self-knowledge rather than a reflection that will simply mirror what one is already or what one would vainly like to think of oneself as already being” (32). Griswold’s description of one of the central challenges posed by Phaedrus is apt for Alcibiades I, as well. Alcibiades’ suitors merely reflected back his vanity, and Socrates offers himself as the mirror that can guide Alcibiades toward self-knowledge.

Griswold’s book on self-knowledge in Phaedrus provides a holistic reading of a dialogue focused on seemingly disparate themes (eros, rhetoric, speeches, self-knowledge, knowledge of reality, and writing) and uses seemingly disparate methods (myth, speechmaking, dialectic argument, and division and collection). He argues that Phaedrus is unified through speeches that exhibit a range of human rational, dialogical practices, moving successively from epistemic models to the pre-philosophical, prophetic, gnostic kind of knowledge involved in self-knowledge (5–7, et passim). Each successive speech, including the mythic palinode, he argues, demonstrates both a type of rationality and its limits.

Griswold’s case for the coherence of Phaedrus based on discursive practices and self-knowledge is a persuasive one, though too extensive to discuss here; I am in sympathy with its outlines but would like to focus on the erotic aspects of the cultivation involved in self-knowledge. The salient issues in his work for my purpose here have to do with Phaedrus’s linking self-knowledge to a reflexive, “mirrorlike” erotic relationship, and so making it parallel to Alcibiades I in that respect, and self-knowledge being a prophetic, non-epistemic knowing. I shall return to this latter issue of prophetic apprehension in human life in Chapter 6.

In a telling passage in Phaedrus that Griswold does not discuss, Socrates describes the connection between lover and beloved in terms that obviously resonate with the self-seeing eye in Alcibiades I.

Here, as in Alcibiades I, eros is essentially a reflexive relationship between lover and beloved, and we can add the echo to the metaphorical images used to describe that reflection. In this passage, the stream of (his own) beauty enters the eye of the beloved, though not directly but as a reflection. Both sight and sound offer beautiful images that capture the reciprocal erotic relation.

Griswold sees mirroring taking place on a number of levels in Phaedrus. Myth, he argues, can act as “a complex mirror” in which we might see who we are now and who we might become “at our best.” Platonic myth can also reflect our hopes (147). He argues that the dialogues generally mirror the reader; they show what she desires and has not yet achieved or they show her an image of herself, depending on whether the reader is or is not, respectively, suited to philosophy (222). The dialogues are thus mirrors themselves, and on my account they perform the very function depicted in Alcibiades I, namely, to seduce the reader into a relationship with the text, a relationship that reflects back to her the most truthful and best image of herself, bringing her to self-knowledge.³⁷ Finally, Griswold explains that in Phaedrus the soul mirrors the forms. Nous, he says, “is comparable to a mirror of nature.... Undistorted nous is the realm of the gods; but men are not gods. Men are endowed with a partial and possibly blurred noetic vision of Truth that has been digested and reshaped by dianoia into linguistic form” (108). Those glimpses of the forms that the erotic philosophical soul catches thus cast it back to its noetic origins, to which it retains a connection through erotic desire.

Which returns us to the longer passage from Griswold I cited previously. He describes the soul’s activity as a striving to know the Ideas again. Griswold links the palinode’s myth to cosmological concerns that bear on my argument in Chapter 1. “Part of the teaching of the palinode is that to know the soul is to understand its role in the cosmos” (92). Griswold sees that cosmological role for the human soul in the charioteer and horses: “Reason and the desires are interdependent, as the myth makes abundantly clear,” and though naturally united, they are not naturally harmonious. Reason is needed to guide the soul, “since without reason the wings are blind and the horses run amok.... The charioteer alone (reason isolated from desire) is no more human than is a pair of horses” (93). Reason may be the leader insofar as reason is represented as the charioteer who holds the reins, but, as I argue in Chapter 3, in the myth of the palinode, the charioteer sees beauty because the dark horse dares to bring him near.³⁸ And the charioteer’s second, forceful pull on the reins is due to his falling back, utterly awestruck by the beauty he sees. The dark horse is responsible for the charioteer’s seeing that beauty. The dark horse does not run amok, but rather powerfully, insistently pursues the erotic object. Without that deeply erotic drive, the chariot in the hands of the able charioteer will circle around and around beneath the forms without that erotic, noetic glimpse. The noetic journey is thus best guided by eros, whether directly by divine eros or by the mortal guidance of the true lover. Eros necessarily drives the upward ascent toward beauty, not reason.

Phaedrus, like Alcibiades I, is therefore another erotic dialogue that makes the theme of self-knowledge central and firmly situates the best human guidance in the hands of the true erotic lover.³⁹ It is clear from the instances discussed here that Phaedrus and Alcibiades I dwell philosophically on both self-knowledge and leading, suggesting that the path to self-knowledge is a path on which an individual follows the lead of another and on which the true lover is the best mortal guide. Self-knowledge and leading are thus linked to each other in both dialogues through eros. The parallels between Alcibiades I and Phaedrusare several: The erotic lover knows the soul of the beloved best; the erotic lover is himself therefore already positioned properly for guiding the beloved; the erotic lover can aid the beloved in gaining self-knowledge if the beloved allows himself to be led by the lover and thus participates in the reflexive, erotic relationship; the erotic lover is himself inspired by or led by the gods, so the erotic lover guides in a divine way. I have discussed how Socrates’ knowledge of his beloved Alcibiades aids in his seduction of him, how his seduction aims at Alcibiades’ self-knowledge, and how their erotic relation is reflexive. It is instructive to examine Plato’s characterization of Socrates and Alcibiades to see how these features emerge from the portrayal of their characters.

The Characters of Socrates and Alcibiades

Schleiermacher had many criticisms of the portrayals of Socrates and Alcibiades, which constitute part of the evidence he offered for the inauthenticity of the dialogue. Their characters, however, exhibit a philosophical and literary coherence relevant to philosophical themes of the dialogue. Schleiermacher is concerned about the portrayal of a Socrates here who (a) “intrudes in mere caprice,” who (b) only wants to shame Alcibiades when (c) Alcibiades is otherwise “universally celebrated” by Plato. In fact, Schleiermacher finds Alcibiades in this dialogue to be without “resemblance to him whom we find elsewhere represented.” Schleiermacher is concerned that Socrates (d) treats Alcibiades rudely, (e) even though he is not a sophist, and for these reasons (f) Schleiermacher deems the dialogue “eristic.” Furthermore, it is out of character, according to Schleiermacher, (g) for Socrates to show arrogance in “professing himself the only teacher capable of instruction in the art of politics” and (h) for Socrates to give a long speech, a practice Socrates elsewhere says he hates. All of these characteristics make Socrates “manifestly the direct opposite of the Platonic Socrates” and the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades “unplatonic” (333–334). I shall take these assessments of the characters in turn.

First (a): It should be clear from what I said previously that Socrates’ so-called intrusions into the conversation might interrupt, shift the focus of, or redirect the dialectic, but whatever “caprice” Schleiermacher might see here is undermined by the ultimately well-integrated themes that emerge in Alcibiades I. That is, any given “intrusion” actually serves Socrates’ overall purposes and directs his conversation with Alcibiades toward a cluster of related issues that, in the end, present a coherent picture of self-knowledge, care of the self, choosing a lover, and political aspirations. Moreover, as we have seen, these shifts in the conversation signal the stimulation and then redirection of Alcibiades’ eros.

Regarding the technique of (b) inducing shame, this is neither unsocratic nor unplatonic.⁴⁰ Shame can be an effective propaedeutic insofar as it serves to draw an interlocutor’s attention toward his own ignorance and his lack of awareness of that ignorance. Furthermore, in this particular instance, shame might be just the thing needed to pull Alcibiades from his misplaced pride in all of his possessions and his physical allure. Perhaps the most striking and revealing example of inducing shame in the Platonic corpus involves Alcibiades as he appears in the Symposium. He claims poignantly in that dialogue that Socrates is the only one who could ever make him feel shame (216b)! His story in Symposium indicates that he was, for the most part, a shameless person, but that Socrates had a power over him as no one else did. The shame that Socrates might induce in Alcibiades in Alcibiades I is an appropriate and common weapon in Socrates’ dialectic arsenal, and moreover it is consistent with Alcibiades’ character to feel shame in Socrates’ presence.

That Alcibiades does and should feel shame in Socrates’ presence has further relevance for (c), Plato’s putatively “universal celebration” of him elsewhere. While it is plausible that Alcibiades is “celebrated” in Symposium⁴¹ and in his brief appearance in Protagoras, his portrayal in Alcibiades I need not be seen as inconsistent with those portrayals or otherwise problematic. There is not yet much to be celebrated. How would a young and, at this point, inexperienced youth be celebrated except in terms of his beauty and promise, both of which Socrates helps to put in their proper perspective in this dialogue. It would be unsocratic to celebrate Alcibiades’ superficial and relatively unimportant qualities in the context of this dialogue, a dialogue in which it is much more plausible that Socrates would attempt to induce shame in Alcibiades for his robust pride in these trivial traits. Alcibiades seems here to be represented, while perhaps differently from Plato’s depiction in Symposium, at least as a fitting younger version of the beautiful, confident, ambitious, impetuous, and yet ambivalent man that he “becomes” in that dialogue – both proud and ashamed. The Alcibiades of Plato’s erotic world is, in fact, drawn consistently.

While it is not clear whether Schleiermacher’s inference to (d), Alcibiades’ being treated rudely, stems from the shame that Socrates makes him feel, or from a failure to celebrate an inexperienced, prideful youth, I would nevertheless not equate either of these with rude behavior. Socrates’ treatment of Alcibiades here is consistent with his lesson to Hippothales about how he should treat and interact with Lysis. If you love someone, subject him to dialectic. Furthermore, even if one were to grant Schleiermacher his point that Alcibiades has been treated rudely, it would not seem to be an exception for Socrates to treat someone rudely (e) who was not a sophist. Many others besides sophists receive Socratic censure: Laches and Nicias are two military men; Euthyphro is a seer and self-professed expert on piety; Ion is a rhapsode; and Meno is a future political and military opportunist. If we are to take Socrates’ account in Apology seriously, all citizens of Athens and persons of repute are vulnerable to Socratic “testing.” Socrates uses his dialectic to examine the person and evaluate his repute and whether it is deserved. Alcibiades, whether as the bold, promising, and superlatively beautiful youth in Alcibiades I or as the more mature man on the precipice of his fall from the graces of Athens in Symposium, is just such a person of repute.

To be (f) eristic Socrates would have to argue in an overtly antagonistic manner, to desire simply to prevail in his argument with Alcibiades at the cost of helping Alcibiades to see the virtue of turning toward Socrates as a lover and a second self and, consequently, turning toward care of the self and philosophy. These latter goals, not the goal of prevailing in the discussion, seem uppermost for Socrates. It would be difficult in this dialogue to lose sight of Socrates’ consistent professions of love for Alcibiades, and his persistent pursuit of a relationship with him.⁴² Socrates is not eristic, and the interplay between them is what one might expect between a young, beautiful Alcibiades and a Socrates eager to check Alcibiades’ material and political ambitions and redirect his concerns.

Socrates’ boast that only he is capable of giving Alcibiades what he needs is also an unlikely candidate for so-called eristic behavior. It is, rather, as I have shown, a consequence of Socrates’ primary aim in the dialogue, namely, to convince Alcibiades that Socrates is his only true lover, that is, the only one who loves his soul. So it is not even (g) arrogance that moves Socrates to profess his unique abilities; it simply follows from the dialogue’s argument that self-knowledge can only come from a relationship with a true lover and that self-knowledge is a necessary condition for Alcibiades to realize his aspirations. Socrates’ boast is, furthermore, consistent with his knowledge of Alcibiades; he knows that Alcibiades can be seduced by displays of power. In addition, Socrates makes boasts similar to, and even greater than this, in other Platonic dialogues, boasts that point to Socrates’ uniqueness among his fellow humans. For example, in Gorgias, Socrates claims that he is the only practitioner among his contemporaries of the true political art (521d); and in Apology, he claims to be the gods’ gift to Athens, chastising the Athenians for putting to death such a one as he (30d–e).⁴³

Nor is it a poor feature of this dialogue that (h) Socrates gives a long speech to begin the conversation. The function of the speech is fitting for the dramatic and philosophical occasion. Socrates, by his own confession, has been mute for a very long time in Alcibiades’ presence (103a). It makes perfect sense that he should have a lot to say at this moment. Also, the long speech functions as an introduction to Alcibiades’ character and his aspirations, as well as to the history of the two men’s relationship. This is important dramatic information, relevant to the dialogue’s central themes, and there are similar examples of opening speeches in other dialogues, as well.⁴⁴ The “elsewhere” to which Schleiermacher refers where Socrates eschews giving long speeches is likely to be Protagoras (334d; 338e). Protagoras, ironically though, depicts Socrates giving the longest speech of the whole dialogue after just having condemned long speeches, so we cannot even take the claim in Protagoras at face value and must accept that Socrates sees a need for a long speech on occasion.

Eros, Politics, and Philosophical Seduction

Alcibiades I opens one window into Plato’s erotic world through which we see the philosophical seduction of Alcibiades, and in which he assents to become Socrates’ beloved; this entails Alcibiades’ commitment to the life of philosophy in which he examines his and Socrates’ soul in order to gain self-knowledge, all of which, Socrates has convinced him, will conduce to satisfying his ambitions. Alcibiades has been motivated to acquiesce because Socrates has successfully shown him that he is unprepared, as things stand now, to assume a position of leadership among the Athenian people due to his ignorance; Socrates has further shown that he alone loves the true Alcibiades (that is, his soul), and that because of this love for Alcibiades, Socrates is the only lover who can provide Alcibiades with self-knowledge, a necessary condition for satisfying his ambitions. Socrates’ seduction displaces political ambition, self-interested suitors, and self-obsession and replaces them with philosophy, a relationship with Socrates, and a chance for self-knowledge.

I conclude by providing further impetus for such a reading. The strongest impetus for reading the dialogue as a seduction is that Socrates as much as tells us that. He opens the dialogue by confessing that he is officially beginning his courtship of Alcibiades, now that his divine sign has given the all-clear and now that other lovers have seemingly moved on. “[Your suitors] held themselves in high esteem, but you were even more arrogant and sent them packing, every single one of them” (103b4–5). Socrates shows that, unlike these previous suitors, he is a match for Alcibiades’ high-mindedness. He draws attention to his own power by speaking of it explicitly and implicitly.⁴⁵ The forcefulness in his speech and the type of power it represents would be the kind of personal charisma that someone such as Alcibiades would be attracted to. Hence we can plausibly see Socrates’ behavior as seductive to him even though the seduction culminates – though not consummates – in convincing Alcibiades to care for his soul and to foster a philosophical relationship with Socrates, not a relationship based on mutual power and possession.

Socrates provokes and directs Alcibiades’ eros. The dialogue certainly depicts Alcibiades as someone with strong desires and depicts Socrates as someone who knows about Alcibiades’ desires and how to stimulate them. Lutz argues that by showing Alcibiades his ignorance, Socrates stimulates his eros, his desire to know.⁴⁶ If this assumption is correct, then Alcibiades’ desire must be strongly fueled, for he admits his ignorance not fewer than six times in the course of the first half of the dialogue (108e4; 112d10; 113b6–7 ff.; 116e2–3; 118a15-b3; 127a9–13). This is quite remarkable in comparison to reluctant – even resistant – interlocutors, such as Euthyphro, Meno, and Callicles. This character trait alone distinguishes Alcibiades from most of the other interlocutors, and it signals his potential for philosophy, his erotic openness, and at least an inkling of the kind of self-knowledge that Socrates esteems highly, knowing when one does not know. One could take Lutz’s view further and characterize more broadly the eros that Socrates elicits as Alcibiades’ desire to improve, to achieve his political goals, and his desire for what he lacks in general. Alcibiades is a young man without much experience but with powerful desires and the highest aspirations; the tension between his desires and his lack of achievements may explain Socrates’ compelling power over him as well as the motivation behind the commitment to Socrates and to the care of his soul that he makes at the end of the dialogue. “[F]rom this day forward I will always attend on you (παιδαγωγήσω), and you will have me as your constant companion (παιδαγωγήσῃ) ... [and] I’ll start to cultivate justice in myself right now” (135d9–e5). Socrates replies, “Then my love for you, my excellent friend, will be just like a stork: after hatching a winged love in you, it will be cared for by it in return” (135e1–3).⁴⁷

And what of Socrates’ erotic attachment to Alcibiades?⁴⁸ Alcibiades is the one person to whom Socrates remains erotically attached throughout his lifetime. That fact is not addressed by the literature on this dialogue, but it is crucial. This dialogue clearly depicts a kind of reciprocal – even if not symmetrical – eros on both sides.⁴⁹ The motivation behind Socrates’ seduction of Alcibiades lies in part in Socrates’ recognition of the immense power that Alcibiades does in fact wield as a result of his personal assets. Of all of the personal assets Alcibiades lays claim to in this dialogue, he is deluded about none of them. His beauty, his charm, his grace, and his confident carriage were, no doubt, real and compelling forces. Socrates perhaps saw these compelling features as, like all powerful things, capable of the greatest good and the greatest evil.⁵⁰ So, the powerful and unchecked eros that leads Alcibiades in the end to such disgrace could also have made him the erotic philosopher if the eros could have been fostered, directed, and nurtured under Socrates’ care and Alcibiades’ self-care. We see at this early stage a strong signal of his potential for Socratic philosophy: his willingness to admit his ignorance. Socrates saw in the robust, personal eros of Alcibiades this potential for calamity mingled with the potential for great blessings. Herein lies Alcibiades’ tragedy.

But his is not the only tragedy implied here. Socrates and Alcibiades are perhaps perfect lovers because they are two sides of the same coin – heads and tails of the highly erotic person. Alcibiades’ eros is unchecked eros that knows neither itself nor its proper object; Socrates’ eros is disciplined and cultivated eros that aims directly at its appropriate object. Socrates’ claims in this dialogue that self-knowledge is sophrosunê highlight and help to explain the differences between the two men’s erotic outlets.⁵¹

The ominous lines that Socrates delivers at the end of this dialogue imply that the Athenian democracy is perhaps a third party to this love triangle, and just as Socrates had feared, both Alcibiades and Socrates fall victim to the city for not loving her as she wants to be loved.⁵² Alcibiades, incapable of directing or controlling his eros and ambitions, succumbs to the allure of power among the Many, an allure so strong as to obscure from him the value of any erotic fidelity. Socrates directs strong eros toward improvement of the soul rather than toward acquiring possessions and power, and so confounds the Many by rejecting what they value and live for. He wholly rejects and publicly disdains what political life has to offer: fame, power, social status. The city thus scorned poses a danger to two vastly different lives, and yet, ironically, two deeply similar kinds of people, both highly erotic. Just as Socrates prophesies (135e), their fates are linked in the hands of the Athenian Many.⁵³ We might agree that by the end of this dialogue Alcibiades has been philosophically seduced; that is, he is willing to make his commitment to Socrates and to the just life. But like all seductions, the morning after is another story. What becomes of Alcibiades, despite the manner in which Socrates succeeds in appealing to him in this dialogue, is a matter that lies beyond one day’s passion. We are left at the end of this dialogue with an image of the Many as perhaps Socrates’ only remaining rival in his attempt to secure the love of Alcibiades, but ultimately no one was left to seduce Alcibiades but the city, and even then, Athens fails to secure Alcibiades’ love and he theirs. Just as Socrates’ trial and death loom over so many dramatic moments in Plato’s world, Socrates’ prophecy in the dialogue’s final lines brings Alcibiades’ demise to mind.

The difference between Alcibiades’ and Socrates’ deaths tells another aspect of this story of eros. Dying at the hands of assassins in his forties when most men are in their prime, disgraced by two cities that he betrayed, Alcibiades’ life exemplifies the continuing misguidance of powerful eros. Alcibiades’ was a life in pursuit of glory, power, and repute, ending ultimately in infamy. Living an equally driven life, Socrates’ death tells a different story of a man who steadfastly pursued noble erotic objects in the company of beautiful companions; he devoted himself to philosophy, erotic community, and self-knowledge.

As Socrates so poignantly describes in Phaedo, he has been practicing for death throughout his life. The philosopher’s preparation for death, the attempt to separate soul from body so far as that is possible for an embodied being, involves a longing to return to a mode of existence that connects one to the forms. One element of self-knowledge is knowing one’s origins, as well as how far from them one has journeyed, and whether and why one might desire to return. To return to our origins, we need good guides in this human life because we have fallen. Memory is also a guide of sorts to what lies both before and after our souls’ journey. Socrates asks Cebes to pass on the message to Evenus, to bid him farewell, and then to “follow me” (ἐμὲ διώκειν, Phaedo 61b9) as fast as possible. This is the advice of a good guide.

As we shall see in the next chapter, we may aim to return to our origins in the afterlife, but for that endeavor, too, we need good guides. For living, embodied beings, recollection can take us back after a fashion; it is the mode available to beings such as we. Socrates feels erotic longing to reconnect to origins throughout his life, and he does what he can to simulate that state of existence, as far as it is possible, by casting his memory back to those things that make the world what it is. The best life is itself a journey home, a nostos, a return to our noetic origins laid out in Timaeus.⁵⁴ We turn now to that nostalgic journey home and its guides.