PLATO ON ALCIBIADES Educating the Ambitious

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PLATO ON ALCIBIADESEducating the Ambitious

• Joel A. Schlosser Senior Thesis Talk for
  Distinction 5.20.2003

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The Genesis of the Project

• The Thesis
• Nietzsche v. Plato
• Platos Symposium and eros
• Summer reading
• Platos Republic

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Alci who?

• 450 404 BCE
• Peloponnesian War 431 404 BCE
• Socrates 469 399 BCE
• Raised by Pericles
• General in Peloponnesian War

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The Peloponnesian War

• Athens v. Sparta
• Corcyra (433) and Potidaea (432)
• Invasion of Attica (431)
• Brasidas and Cleon Amphipolis (422)
• Peace of Nicias (421)

Thucydides
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The Thesis An Outline

• I. Introduction
• II. The Paradox of Greatness
• III. The Limits of Socratic Education A Close
  Reading of the Alcibiades I
• IV. Platos Symposium Beyond Politics and
  Philosophy
• V. The Possibility of Educating the Ambitious

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I. Introduction

• Ambition is not a vice for little fellows and
  for undertakings such as ours.
• Montaigne

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I.

• I have no spur
• To prick the sides of my intent, but only
• Vaulting ambition, which oerleaps itself
• And falls on the other
• Macbeth, I, vii, 25-28

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i. Questions

• What is political ambition?
• Is it a problem in democracy? Why?
• Can one educate the ambitious individual? How?

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II. The Paradox of Greatness

• I have often noticed with great admiration the
  wonderful nature of Alcibiades, who could change
  so easily to suit such different fashions.
• Montaigne

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i. Ambition coupled with genius

• Imprudent loves childhood episode
• Demos distrust of greatness dissolution of the
  Peace of Nicias
• Transcendence of the polis Alcibiades speeches
  and politics
• Assassination

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III. The Limits of Socratic Education Alcibiades
I

• magical, incomprehensible, and unfathomable
  one predestined for victory and seduction
• Nietzsche on Alcibiades

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i. Intimacy and Perspicacity

• Alcibiades and Socrates
• The two approaches
• Erotic ambition

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ii. Uncertainty and Disappointment

• Impossibility of Socratic education
• Lack of courage and moderation
• Socrates foreboding

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iii. Is it hopeless?
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IV. Platos Symposium

• The chief point, he said, was that Socrates was
  compelling them to agree that the same man should
  know how to make comedy and tragedy and that he
  who is by art a tragic poet is also a comic poet.
• Symposium

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i. Poetic Foundations

• The dialogue
• Whats eros got to do with it?
• The City and Alcibiades
• Aristophanes and Alcibiades

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V. Educating the Ambitious

• the most beautiful educational treatise ever
  written
• Rousseau on Platos Republic

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i. The Possibility of Education

• Education in Platos Republic
• Courage and Moderation
• Miseducation
• Alcibiades and Education

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ii. Platos Cave
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iii. Toward New Seas

• What really makes a difference in education
  not only of the young but of ourselves is not
  so much the precepts one gives others, as the way
  one exemplifies the precepts on would give to
  another, in ones conduct throughout life.
• Platos Laws 729c

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Acknowledgements

• For guidance to paths untrodden thank you to
  Professor Cooper. Many thanks to Professor
  Smith, Tricia Peterson, and the Department of
  Political Science. Thanks to Hans Wietzke,
  Charles Peterson, Tony Anderson, and other
  participants in the Political Philosophy
  Colloquium for willingness to break a few lances
  about Plato. Heartfelt thanks to patient friends
  and family who continue to endure an
  Alcibiades-inspired companion.
• Thanks for coming!