Kristian Zahrtmann, Socrates and Alcibiades, 1911 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

2,907 words

Part 7 of 7 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here)

Wisdom vs. Tyranny

Having established that the true self is the soul and defended philosophical dialogue as the best path to self-knowledge, Socrates wraps up his argument.

Statesmanship & Moderation

First, Socrates returns to the premise that self-knowledge is the same as moderation. Without self-knowledge/moderation we cannot know what belongs to us, “evil [kaka] or good [agatha]” (133c). Moderation, being a virtue, i.e., a form of knowledge of the good, is inherently able to distinguish between good and evil. Moreover, without self-knowledge/ moderation we cannot know what belongs to the things we own. Nor can we know the things that belong to others. Alcibiades agrees.

But why is knowledge of ourselves necessary to know the things belonging to other people? Why can’t we simply know those other people? The answer is that Socrates does not just envision knowing things but making right use of them, specifically moderate use of them. Because self-knowledge is the same as moderation, self-knowledge allows us to make moderate use of our property and the property of others as well. This is useful knowledge for someone who wishes to rule over others.

What is true of the property of other individuals is also true of the things of the city. To merely know the things of the city we should know the city itself. But to make right use of the things of the city, we must know ourselves. Specifically we need to know our limits.

Because the goal is right use of human things, Socrates says, “It seems to be the function of one man and one art [techne] to discern all three things: himself, his belongings, and the belongings of his belongings” (133d). Later Socrates notes that the man who lacks this knowledge/art “can never be a statesman [politkos]” (133e). Nor can he be a good manager of a household. Thus self-knowledge/moderation are necessary to have the political art.

Men who lack self-knowledge/moderation make mistakes. Mistakes cause unhappiness for oneself and others. “Thus it is impossible to be happy [eudaimon] if one is not moderate and good” (134a). Bad men are unhappy. Money can’t buy you happiness. In fact, the more money you have, the greater the means you have of ruining yourself. If you are a fool, you are better off poor and powerless.[1] This is true of all worldly goods. Only wisdom can secure happiness.

From this, Socrates draws a powerful conclusion: “Thus it is not walls or warships or arsenals that cities need, Alcibiades, if they are to be happy, nor numbers nor size without virtue [arete, also translated as ‘excellence’]” (134b). Alcibiades wants to be a tyrant, which is inherently immoderate. Tyranny is characterized by unbounded desire, which leads to the worship of numbers and size. Tyranny is opposed by moderation, which imposes measure, order, and finitude. The political art, which is based on self-knowledge and leads to moderation, is therefore anti-tyrannical.

Socrates is not saying that cities don’t need walls, warships, arsenals, or numbers and size. He is saying that none of these things, alone or together, is sufficient to produce happiness unless one also has the virtue necessary to use them rightly. In fact, great power used badly is more dangerous for a city than lesser power if well-managed.

Socrates continues: “And if you are to manage the city’s affairs finely and correctly, you must impart virtue to the citizens” (134b). But one cannot give what one does not have. Therefore, “You must first acquire virtue yourself” (134c), as must anyone who takes care of things, public or private.

Two Concepts of Freedom

The appeal of tyranny is that one can do whatever one pleases. Thus Socrates attacks this concept of freedom: “It is not license or authority for doing what one pleases that you must secure for yourself or the state but justice and moderation” (134c-d). As is made clearer in the Gorgias, Socrates is here contrasting two concepts of freedom: freedom as “doing what one pleases” versus freedom as “doing what one wants.”[2]

What is the difference? Socrates claims that all men strive for wellbeing or happiness (eudaimonia). That’s what we really want. But if all men are striving for happiness, why are so many unhappy? Clearly, they are mistaken about what will make them happy. They pursue happiness in the wrong way. They do what pleases them—which does not make them happy—instead of doing what they really want, which would make them happy. So doing what pleases us is not necessarily the same thing as doing what we really want.

Consider, for instance, an alcoholic. It pleases him to drink, but it doesn’t make him happy, because it leads to bad decisions, bad health, and broken relationships. Thus doing what pleases him is not doing what he really wants.

If true freedom is doing what we really want, then the freedom to do what merely pleases us is incompatible with true freedom. Society provides us many pleasing alternatives to happiness and calls this freedom. But for Socrates, it is not real freedom, because we are not doing what we really want. It is only apparent freedom, because it pursues false images of happiness. Indeed, it is often a form of slavery to desire: bad habits, addictions, vices. Thus, by restricting our freedom to do what we please—by imposing moderation on the infinity of desires—we can actually become freer to do what we really want.

Human Nature as Divine Model

Socrates says, “If you and the state act justly and moderately, you will act so as to please the god” (134d). Again, one can read the “god” here as being Socrates’ daimonion. To act with moderation and justice is, after all, consistent with human nature. As for the claim that acting this way is “pleasing” to the god, this is an appeal to a conventional idea of piety, namely the idea that the pious is what is pleasing to the gods. In Plato’s Euthyphro, Socrates makes mincemeat of this idea of piety, so we know that he is using it only ironically or exoterically.[3] But this is in keeping with the concept of the daimonion, which is also an exoteric way of speaking about knowledge of human nature.

Socrates continues: “As we were saying in what went before, you [both you and the city] will act with your eyes turned on what is divine [theion] and bright [lampron] . . . And looking thereon you will behold and know both yourselves and your own good . . . and so you will act correctly [orthos] and well [eu]” (134d). Alcibiades agrees on all points.

Here Socrates is using the “divine” in the sense of the daimonion to refer to looking to human nature as a model. He uses “bright” because he is speaking of the Idea of human nature at the very least and perhaps the entire realm of intelligible Forms, and Forms are the light in which we see things as they are.

Socrates says that if Alcibiades and the city act in this way, he is “prepared to guarantee you will be happy” (134d). This is a very strong knowledge claim from Socrates. Note that it is also a knowledge claim about the future, which the Greeks would naturally liken to divination as practiced by augurs or oracles. But Socratic divination based on a knowledge of human nature, which Socrates personifies as his personal oracle, the daimonion.

Socrates continues: “But if you act unjustly [adikos] with your eyes on the godless [atheon] and dark [skoteinon], it is likely that your acts will resemble those through ignorance of yourselves” (134e). If the divine and bright are the truth about human nature, then the godless and the dark are falsehoods, half-truths, and illusions about human nature. If you turn away from human nature, you will not know yourself, therefore you will not act virtuously and are unlikely to attain wellbeing. Again, Socrates is speaking of both Alcibiades and the city.

Some readers claim that the use of “bright” (lampron) and “dark” (skoteinon) here are a reference back to the “pure and bright” mirror of God in Christianizing interpolation at 133c and treat it accordingly. For instance, Antonio Carlini, who rejects 133c excises the passage where bright and dark appear (134d1–e7) as a later interpolation as well,[4] even though it is present in all the manuscripts and attested to by the Neoplatonic commentators.[5] D.S. Hutchinson does the same in his translation.[6] David Denyer also declines to comment on the passage.[7] David M. Johnson, by contrast, uses the “bright” and “dark” passage to argue for the authenticity of 133c, in support of his strongly theocentric reading of references to “the god” throughout the dialogue.[8]

I, however, see no reason to accept the premise both camps share, namely that the two passages stand or fall together. If one deletes 133c and keeps 134d–e, the only objection one can raise is that this is the first occurrence of “lampros” in the text. But that argues for the excision of every word that occurs for the first time in one of Plato’s dialogues. Must a word always refer back to something already mentioned in a dialogue to be retained? What then of the first word of every dialogue?

Plato’s opposition between the divine and bright on the one hand and the godless and dark on the other makes sense in its own terms, and in the context of the dialogue, without the interpolation at 133c.

The Final Critique of Tyranny

Then Socrates drives home his critique of tyranny:

If a man is at liberty to do what he pleases but lacks mind [nous], what is the likely outcome for himself or the city? For instance if he is sick and at liberty to do what he pleases without a medical mind and with a tyrant’s power that prevents anyone from criticizing him, what will be the result? Isn’t it likely his health will be ruined? (134e–135a).

Tyranny is a dangerous system because it concentrates all power in a single individual. To make rational decisions, one needs accurate information. But because people fear the tyrant’s disapproval and seek his approval, they have every incentive to conceal bad news and tell him flattering lies. It is no way to run a society or one’s individual life.[9] Alcibiades agrees, so Socrates concludes: “Then my good Alcibiades, if you are to be happy it is not tyrannical power that you need for yourself or the city but virtue” (135b).

Socrates argues that those who lack virtue, whether adults or children, are better off being governed by the virtuous than by themselves. The better is the nobler. The nobler is the more appropriate. “Thus it is appropriate for a bad man to be a slave, since it is better” (135b).

In what sense is Socrates talking about slavery? He is not talking about chattel slavery, the buying and selling of human beings. Slaves are simply people who cannot govern themselves. Just as children, the mentally retarded, the senile, and the crazy cannot make their own decisions and are better off being governed by others, so too are vicious people. Vice is appropriate to slaves. Virtue is appropriate to free men. Thus anyone who would be free must shun slavishness and acquire the virtues needed to govern himself.

The Conclusion

Alcibiades agrees, so Socrates confronts him with the question of which condition he is in.

Alcibiades is mortified.[10] Socrates spares Alcibiades’ feelings by not naming his slavish state, which is disgraceful for such a  “fine [or noble, kalon] man” (135c). Instead, Socrates asks Alcibiades if he knows how to escape his condition. Alcibiades basically says that it is up to Socrates to save him. But Socrates says it will be by the will of god (the daimonion) which is really just Socrates’ knowledge of human nature and the prudence that springs from it (135d).

Alcibiades says that he and Socrates should switch roles. Instead of Socrates pursuing Alcibiades, Alcibiades will pursue Socrates. Socrates finds this a pleasing prospect: “Then my love for you, my well-born friend, will be just like a stork. After hatching a winged love [eros] in you, it will be cared for by it in return” (135e). The Greeks depicted Eros (Cupid) as a winged baby armed with a bow and the arrows of desire. Here, however, Socrates identifies Eros with a different sort of winged creature, the stork, specifically a baby stork, which the ancient Greeks believed sustained their elders. This passage is dramatic foreshadowing of Alcibiades’ famous speech in the Symposium, in which he describes his unsuccessful attempts to seduce Socrates.[11]

Alcibiades vows to begin morally cultivating himself immediately.

This is a very hopeful ending, but we all know what happened: Alcibiades became a monster, and Socrates’ close association contributed to his trial and death. Thus Plato gives Socrates these final, prophetic words: “Yet I’m afraid—not because I distrust your nature, but because I know how powerful the city is—lest it overcome both me and you” (135e). (Socrates’ art of divination is his ability to predict human action based on knowledge of human nature.)

In the end, Athens destroyed both Socrates and Alcibiades.   Socrates was accused of harming Athens by corrupting youths like Alcibiades. Plato’s depiction of the relationship of Socrates and Alcibiades inverts those charges. Athens itself stoked Alcibiades’ tyrannical ambitions, whereas Socrates tried to rein them in. Socrates tried to be a good influence on the young Alcibiades. But Alcibiades’ true corrupter, the city of Athens, proved stronger in the end. Then, after the Athenians ruined Alcibiades and were ruined in return, they blamed Socrates for their own folly and punished him as a scapegoat.

* * *

It is easy to see why the ancients regarded the Alcibiades I as an ideal introduction to Plato.[12] It has a little bit of everything found in the more widely read dialogues.[13]

The dialogue touches on key elements of the life and character of Socrates. It features Alcibiades, Socrates’ most infamous and fateful friend. It features Socrates’ daimonion. It speaks extensively of eros. It alludes to Socrates’ trial and implicitly defends him against his accusers. The dialogue also displays three central Socratic forms of discourse: the dialogical refutation of bad ideas, the dialogical midwifery of good ideas, and speechmaking, specifically mythologizing.

The Alcibiades I focuses on central ideas in Socratic-Platonic moral and political philosophy. Socrates defends the theses that all men are pursuing the good life and that moral wisdom is crucial for attaining the good life. He offers analyses of such important virtues as justice and moderation. He argues for the importance of self-knowledge and self-cultivation. He criticizes the idea of liberty as doing what one pleases as an impediment to true liberty, which is doing what one really wants, namely attaining the good life. Socrates also applies this argument to distinguish between tyranny and true statesmanship.

The Alcibiades I also touches upon metaphysical issues. Socrates argues that the true self is the soul. He also alludes to the Ideas. Finally, he introduces the distinction between approaching the Ideas directly and through the mediation of dialogue. Thus the Alcibiades I offers a defense of Platonic philosophical dialogue as a means to attain self-knowledge and knowledge of the Ideas.

Finally, the Alcibiades I is a great protreptic speech to turn us toward the philosophical life. Socrates convinces Alcibiades that if he wants to rule the world, there’s nothing more important than pursuing wisdom. Even if you just wish to rule yourself, you are well-advised to follow the same path.

Notes

[1] Plato, Euthydemus, 281b–c.

[2] Plato, Gorgias, 466c–468e.

[3] See my lecture on the Euthyphro in The Trial of Socrates.

[4] Antonio Carlini, “Studi sul testo della quarta tetralogia platonica,” Studi italiani de filologia classica, vol. 34 (1963): 169–89, pp. 169–74.

[5] See Renaud and Tarrant, pp. 76–77. Cf. Olympiodorus, On Plato First Alcibiades, 10–28, 229, p. 148

[6] Plato, Collected Works, p. 594.

[7] Denyer, Alcibiades, p. 241.

[8] David M. Johnson, “God as the True Self: Plato’s Alcibiades I,” Ancient Philosophy 19 (1999): 1–19, p. 13.

[9] See my lecture, “Freedom of Speech,” in Toward a New Nationalism, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2023).

[10] At Symposium 216b, Alcibiades claims that Socrates is the only man who made him feel ashamed of himself, which sometimes caused him to wish that Socrates were dead.

[11] Plato, Symposium, 217a–219e.

[12] The most perverse argument for rejecting the authenticity of the Alcibiades I is offered by A.E. Taylor: “The work has the qualities of an excellent manual, and this is the strongest reason for denying its authenticity,” for Taylor just doesn’t think Plato would have created such a “text-book.” But this is an arbitrary assumption. Moreover, the Alcibiades I is better characterized as a “synoptic” dialogue, which is not the same thing as a “text-book.” See A.E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and his Work, 6th edition (London: Methuen, 1949), p. 522.

[13] Classicists have observed that linguistically, the Alcibiades I resembles Plato’s later dialogues. However, in terms of style, the Alcibiades I resembles Plato’s earlier, so-called Socratic dialogues. This has been offered as evidence that the dialogue is not genuine. (See Taylor, Plato, p. 522.) But there is no reason to assume that in his later years, Plato would not have composed a “Socratic” dialogue reflecting his more mature style and thinking, especially if he wanted to create a synoptic work. Perhaps the ancients regarded the Alcibiades I as an ideal introduction to Plato because Plato intended it to be just that.