Download or read book Self-knowledge and the Art of Politics in Plato's Alcibiades Major written by Jonathan M. Hanen and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: In the Alcibiades Major, Plato portrays Socrates' very first attempt to educate the youthful Alcibiades, who exhibits the double nature of a potential philosopher and a potential statesman. Acting under the guise of a political advisor, Socrates initiates a philosophical investigation in partnership with Alcibiades. This study argues that the conversation consists in three parts: a propaedeutic discussion of justice, an investigation of the problem of self-knowledge and self-rule and an outline of a theory of state sovereignty. In the first part, Socrates refutes Alcibiades' paradoxical views that falsely oppose justice and the expedience or advantage of the demos and constructs a rhetorically accommodated story about Persia and Sparta in order to deflate Alcibiades' pretensions to political wisdom. In the second part, Socrates refutes Alcibiades' defective view of the connection between political justice and friendship, which mistakenly reduces political justice to consensus; and friendship, to unanimity of mind. Socrates then leads Alcibiades to the philosophical problem of the nature of self- knowledge and its self-identical limits, and articulates a model of self-knowledge based on the dialectical investigation of the nature of virtue. In the third part, Socrates develops an outline of a theory of state sovereignty from his model of self-knowledge and his conception of self-rule. Contra Annas (1985) but following Gordon (2001), this study argues that Alcibiades is not foredoomed to political corruption. A philosophical education affords him the best chances of achieving a pure love of justice and, as a second sailing, an experience of the friendship rooted in dialectics would endow him with an abiding respect for the common good and the free institutions of the city. Contra Blitz (1995) and Forde (1987), this study argues that Socrates attempts to effect an erotic conversion that would transform Alcibiades' love of honor into love of wisdom. The manifestly philosophical discourse between Socrates and Alcibiades culminates in Plato's famous binocular model of the dialectical quest for self-knowledge, wherein the eye of the soul progresses toward self-knowledge by looking in the eye of a kindred soul engaged in the dialectical investigation of virtue. Philosophy thus comes to sight as the highest form of friendship because Socrates conceives the community of discourse to be a cooperative enterprise that aims to cancel the false or particular views of its members and to preserve what is true and universal. In this sense, friendship is knowledge of justice. Contra Friedlader (1957) and Schleiermacher (1836), this study argues that the conversation contains a Platonic political teaching. Socrates deduces from his model of self-knowledge an outline of a theory of state sovereignty. Socrates exhorts Alcibiades to avoid demerasty or populist demagogy, and to effect what he calls a "distribution of virtue to the citizens." This study argues that Socrates divides the sovereign power to enact law between the government and the body politic, as distinct from modem doctrines that seek to locate an indivisible sovereign power in the popular will. Using an analogy between the self-rule of the individual soul and that of the city, Socrates contends that the soul of the state, the corporate will of the public person composed of the statesman and the body politic, must exhibit moderation and justice in order to achieve self-knowledge and happiness. This study argues that Socrates' outline of state sovereignty implies that the political liberty of the body politic and the secular rule of law are foremost among the practical criteria for distinguishing sound rule from tyranny.