First Alcibiade

Question of the authenticity

The authenticity of this dialog was questioned since the XIXe century, though it was used during centuries by the Academy like a text of initiation. The philologists are relatively divided on the question of the character apocryphal book of the dialog. It belongs to the series known as of the “First Dialogs”, and if he is not Plato, he was at least written by a contemporary of Plato, so much the linguistic similarities and stylistics with this last are large. The term “ Premier ” does not mean that the dialog was written before the Second Alcibiade , but that he is considered to him higher.

Dramatic framework

Date from the action

One can deduce from the young age of Alcibiade in the dialog which the conversation is supposed to proceed towards - 431, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War.

Characters

Socrate

Alcibiade : Alcibiade is a famous politician and general Athenian, with the animated existence. It is hardly old of a score of years in the dialog, and, already fed of immense a Ambition by its tutor Périclès, is on the point of making its beginnings in policy. It actively takes share with the Peloponnesian War and, shown in the business of the mutilation of the statues of Hermes, will betray its city for Sparte. It obtains then its reconciliation with Athens by negotiating an alliance with the Perses, but finishes assassinated in - 404 by one of its many enemies.

The dialog: to define the nature and the object of the policy

In the First Alcibiade , Socrate attempts to show in what its young interlocutor is not yet ripe to attack the Politique , since it is necessary to know oneself before being able to order with the others with justice.

Introductory scene

Socrate, after several years of silence, finally decides to approach Alcibiade to declare its love to him. Its step, admits it, can surprise, because the young man soon will reach his twentieth year then to start a political career, and its many in love, that Alcibiade had habit to get rid of without care, starts to forsake it for younger boys.

Consequently, why Socrate does he thus bait himself to continue it his heats? It is, answers the philosopher, whom it has conscience of the great political ambition nourished by Alcibiade in his for interior. The young man wishes, obviously, to become as powerful as his tutor Périclès, and even undoubtedly more: he is not only one place, in Greece as in Asia, where Alcibiade does not wish to sit its domination. He probably dreams to be able, one day, to dictate their laws with proud the Spartiates and even with the Perse.

So really the young man nourishes so many vast intentions, then Socrate affirms being the only one to be able to form it in the manner which is appropriate.

Obviously interested, Alcibiade does not contradict Socrate and encourages it to be explained. Which tangible profit can it withdraw from its teaching? It accepts without difficulty of letting itself guide by questions.

Alcibiade is unaware of what is the Juste

Not having any technical training, Alcibiade will have to discuss general policy

The young man admits it immediately: if it must go up to the platform to give councils to the Athéniens, it will be of course in connection with subjects which it controls better than them, and on which it is ready to light the population.

And precisely, Socrate, knowledge of Alcibiade underlines, that is to say that he learned them from others or that he found them itself, are rather fast to enumerate: they are summarized, “ if I remember it well, to read and write ” like “ with touching zither and fighting ”. As for the flute, the philosopher with a spiritual direction of the detail recalls, the forever there desired young man to touch.

It is to be feared that such limited competences play in the discredit of Alcibiade once in the political arena: it will be able to thus deliver opinion neither on the buildings to be built, because it is unaware of all the Architecture, nor on the interpretation of one predicts, because he is not soothsayer.

However all these things, objects Alcibiade, concern technical matters, and by its councils “ will have to him on the contrary to intervene on the war or peace, (…) or on some other business of State ”, in short on businesses of general policy.

But the general policy requires a precise knowledge of the Juste, which Alcibiade does not have

Here are which is well answered, Socrate concedes. However, just as an athlete becomes better in his field by the science of the Gymnastique, which maintains the body, it must surely exist another science, that one allowing to manage a State as well as possible, while living in peace as much as possible, and declaring the war only in the event of need, at the good moment and against the good adversary.

Alcibiade spends time to determine the reasoning of its interlocutor, but ends up finding the answer: this science to which it is refers, it is quite simply justice. Consequently, concludes Socrate with humor, Alcibiade from it is endowed with an exceptional spirit, because if he judges himself able to deliver his opinions on such questions, it is that he knows all the Juste and the unjust one, and all must come to receive its teaching.

But the young man does not let himself dismount: if it can indeed distinguish the Juste from the unjust one, it is that, like each and everyone, it learned it by his education, by the life in society, in short by the population, in the same way that it learned how to speak Greek.

The people, admit Socrate, are completely qualified to teach the Greek, because all agree on the significance which it is necessary to give to such or such word, or how to call such or such thing. One cannot, on the other hand, say as much justice of it: he is not a subject on which the dissensions within the population are more sharp. The Trojan War, in the Iliade of wasn't Homère born from such a dissension, following the removal of Helene? And what to say, in the Odyssey , of the confrontation between Ulysses and applicants of Pénélope?

Alcibiade is thus quite imprudent to rely on a Master as volatile as the public on a also important question, and it is manifest that it does not have a precise knowledge of what is the Juste.

Alcibiade is unaware of also what is the useful one

To leave itself this false step, the young man notes whereas the assembly seldom deliberates in fact on the Juste and the unjust one, things considered obvious, but rather on the useful one and the useless one. That does not return to same, ensures it, because it is sometimes unjust but very useful things.

Rather than to re-use same method that previously, Socrate goes to seek to prove him that the Juste and the useful one are only one and even thing, which has as a logical consequence that ignoring the Juste, Alcibiade is unaware of also the useful one.

To start, Socrate poses the principle that what is right is beautiful, it with what Alcibiade does not see anything to retort. On the other hand the counterpart fuses when the philosopher then tries to identify the beautiful one and the good: certain things can be extremely beautiful, objects the young man, but lead to a bad result.

The best example can be in time of war, when a soldier seeks to help a wounded comrade but finds death in his company: this action is at the same time beautiful, since she testifies to much courage, but also bad, since she shows the death of the valorous warrior.

However, notices Socrate, it is question of two distinct events here: on the one hand the rescue of wounded and on the other hand the death of the soldier. The first is an act of courage, which is at the same time beautiful and good. The second is death, which is at the same time ugly and bad. Each taken action separately is thus beautiful as it good, or ugly as it is bad, and contradiction is solved, which makes it possible well to affirm ultimately that all that is beautiful is good.

However, Alcibiade is obliged to be appropriate that what is good is useful, from where it follows, according to the preceding reasoning, which what is right is useful. If Alcibiade is unaware of one, he is unaware of thus as much the other.

The Spartans and Persians are educated well better than him

Alcibiade is appropriate submissively of its ignorance of the Juste and the useful one. However, it supports, the Athenian politicians are as ignoramuses as him in these subjects, even more. It will not have thus any evil to exceed them.

Amused by the optimism of the young man, Socrate makes the point to him that it that is not them should be feared, but well rather the Spartiates and the Perses which, in fact of education, have a clear length in advance on the Athenians. Did Alcibiade thus never hear “ of the size of the kings of Sparte ”? In the same way, the future Large King, in Persian, is entrusted to four tutors, considered each one to be respectively wisest, just, more the bravest temperate person and among the population.

Vis-a-vis gifted adversaries of all physical qualities and morals as well as all richnesses, the Alcibiade young person can be based only on the excellence of his education, which it should thus neglect for nothing in the world.

It is appropriate, to control, to initially learn how to know oneself

The knowledge of oneself is rare and invaluable

Consequently, since Alcibiade appears unable to say what the man must know who wants to control, or of what does it consist the good administration of a city, by where must start to fill its gaps?

The answer, according to Socrate, is not any doubt: one cannot deal with the businesses of the others if one cannot initially deal with the businesses which are with oneself. And one cannot deal with the businesses which are with oneself if oneself is not known. As celebrates it inscription recommends it on the pediment of the temple of Delphes, the young man must thus, first of all, learn how to know itself.

Such a knowledge is not given to everyone: that which attempts to take care of its body, for example, takes care of what is with him (its body), but not of itself. As for that which accumulates the richnesses, it of it is even more distant since it concentrates its energy on what depends on its body.

To know oneself, it is to know its heart

But what does one indicate with the Juste by “oneself”? Three answers, according to Socrate, are possible: either the body, or the heart, or an assembly of both. The man makes use of his body like tool, orders it, and cannot thus be identified with him. In the same way, the assembly of the body and the heart is to be excluded, “ because one of the two parts not having a share with the command, it is not possible that the formed whole of both order ”.

Remain thus the single solution that “oneself” corresponds it to the heart, and that to know oneself amounts knowing its heart.

And just as an eye can know only by seeing its own reflection in the pupil of another eye, the heart, to improve and acquire the knowledge of itself, will have to look at another noble soul, in particular this part of the heart where knowledge and the thought reside, two faculties which return it near to the gods.

It is also the reason for which, affirms Socrate, its love for Alcibiade is always also sharp: while the other applicants stuck only to its body and ignore him maintaining, Socrate is especially in love with its heart, and its passion will thus make only grow as the heart of Alcibiade gains in beauty.

Conclusion

As long as Alcibiade lack of science and virtue, it is better thus, for him and the good of all, that it obeys the best than him rather than to control, the man without virtue being condemned to the constraint.

Alcibiade accepts this verdict but request with Socrate to help it to leave this condition. This last, although it accommodates this request favorably, is not easily deceived: the swirl of the policy will early have made gain the young man and lose it.

Philosophical and literary range

The First Alcibiade , in spite of its precocity, contains already a certain number of ideas subjacent and essential with the Platonic system as regards Politique: the happiness of a city and citizens being related to the practice of the virtue, and the virtue being a science, the statesman must guide his action according to this science. And with this intention, it is necessary for him obligatorily to reach the knowledge of itself. The concept of an ideal city controlled by the philosophers, exposed in the Republic , is thus already in gestation.

The other ideas of the dialog, as for them, testify all the same to the youth of Plato and his attachment still very extremely to teaching socratic: thus goes from there it of the similarity between the Juste and the useful one or of the dominating importance attached to the knowledge of oneself. In the same way, the opinion according to which one can nothing know without to have learned it from a Master or to have found it oneself opposes to the doctrines reminiscence, worked out later by the author in the Ménon and the Phèdre .

Lastly, without having the grace of other dialogs of the same time, the First Alcibiade is endowed with a style living and diverting, sometimes even of a little humor. The character of Alcibiade, in what relates to it, lack still relief, just like in the Second Alcibiade . Plato will be able to offer a portrait much tastier of it in the Banquet .

Random links: