Self, sameness, and soul in Alcibiades I' and the Timaeus (original) (raw)
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Power and Person in Plato’s Alcibiades I
Ancient Philosophy, 2021
The first Alcibiades establishes an important link between the private and the public. In order to get the power-craving Alcibiades (124b1-9) to turn inwards, Socrates argues that any ambition to acquire political influence is conditioned by knowledge of the self. 1 As it turns out, however, this self is not easy to acquire knowledge of, because it does not involve any person. It does not pertain to looks, stature, natural disposition, background, merit, position, wealth, skill, profession or whatever one might say that could help identify a particular somebody (104a1-c1, 118b1-c2, 119b5-c1, and 129b1-131d8). And yet, it is not without reasons that the dialogue is framed as a conversation between two of Athens' most infamous persons. In the end, Socrates is also less confident than at the outset. Having managed to identify the true nature of the self as the soul, having shown that the soul is divine, and, in effect, having also managed to successfully persuade Alcibiades to start caring for his self and its virtue (135c10-d11, cf. 105d5-e6), Socrates nevertheless concludes by qualifying the force of these results. 'I should like to believe that you will persevere, but I'm afraidnot because I distrust your nature, but because I know how powerful This text had many debts. It owes thanks to Nicholas D. Smith, whose keen eyes spotted many mistakes; to Ursula Coope, who always makes me to think more about the influence of the Neo-Platonists; to Pauliina Remes, who cannot avoid looking beyond the real; to M.M. McCabe and to the learned audience of the Alcibiades I Revisited conference, at the Classics Department in Cambridge (UK), in September 2018, for invaluable comments and critique. 1 Henceforth I will refer to the first Alcibiades as the Alcibiades. For discussion of the political underpinnings of selfknowledge in the dialogue, see, e.g., Smith 2004, 102. 2 the city is-I'm afraid it might get the better of both me and you' (135e6-8). 2 As we know, it certainly did. 3 But why, then, encourage the project? As I shall argue, the answer lies in the failure. The dialogue could have been about, other, more successful persons. But that would have given the wrong impression. The dialogue is not written to be a recipe for political power. It is not meant to show that political influence is the result of self-knowledge. There are in fact reasons to doubt that it is designed to show what selfknowledge is at all. The hypothesis that I would like to try out, instead, is that the main purpose of the Alcibiades is to draw a line, to assess the limits of human knowledge and to help the reader understand that however much we would like to leave the drama behind, we cannot get rid of the persons involved. My argument has three parts. In part one, I draw on Socrates' discussion of selfhood and use to argue that the self, understood as soul, is dissociated, not only from the body and from the soul-body complex, but also from λόγος, understood as language and discursive reasoning. In part two, I assess what this dissociation implies and consider one promising and influential interpretation, the so-called theocentric view. According to this view, Socrates' notion of the self is to be 'identified with God' (Johnson 1999, 3). I argue that this view is promising, because it implies a non-linguistic understanding of the self, but also insufficient. First, it is insufficient 2 Translation by Hutchinson, in Cooper 1997. The term for 'get the better of' is κρατεῖν. The Greek text I am using is Denyer's from 2001. 3 The presumption here, of course, is that even if Alcibiades became a famous and efficient military leader, his life was a failure, as evidenced by his inability to resist the urge to make war, deceive, lampoon the religious mysteries, doublecross his friends, steal and betray his allies. For a similar point of view and discussion thereof, see Denyer 2001, esp.1-3 & 7-8. That the city got the better also of Socrates, is well documented in Plato's Apology.
Following the lead of the most recent and comprehensive study of the Theages, this paper brackets the question of authenticity in order to focus on the content of the dialogue itself. The Theages is often considered a protreptic dialogue, but this obscures the particularity of its dramatic situation, where a young man who already desires wisdom (sophia), escorted by his father, seeks out the companionship of Socrates. I argue that the dialogue’s chief concern is not protreptic but to outline an understanding of self-knowledge that guides the proper “use of the self”. Faced with a youthful Theages, who claims to desire wisdom, Socrates leads him to a recognition of what it is that he really wants, to be a tyrant and rule all human beings—or even to become a god (124e, 126a). Theages quickly tempers his aspirations to merely ruling over the willing, “like the other men of renown in the city” (126a7f.), but rejects Socrates’ advice to seek out the association of exactly these men in order to learn the appropriate wisdom. It is here that Socrates introduces the theme of the proper “use of the self”, asking Theages “what he would do with himself” if a son of his rejected such sound advice (khrēsaio sautōi, 126d8ff.), and “what he would do with” the son himself in that case (autōi … khrōio, 126e6). This double question of the proper “use” of oneself and of one’s companions presupposes a knowledge of one’s own desires (or those of one’s companion) as well as knowledge of by whose association one will be able to satisfy them. Faced with Theages’ immediately subsequent proposal that he associate with Socrates in order to learn the wisdom he desires, Socrates denies possessing this sought-after wisdom. Instead, his only knowledge is of “erotics” (128b4), which can be taken to mean that he possesses the first kind of requisite knowledge, of the object of his own and of others’ desire. Accordingly, he warns Theages of his “daemonic sign”, which when it appears, only ever discourages his association with others, never encourages it (aei moi sēmainei … apotropēn, protrepei de oudepote, 128d4f.). There are dire consequences for those who ignore the daimonion, and even those whose association the it does not forbid have no guarantee of improving by this association with Socrates. Some are not benefitted at all, while of the others who do show improvement, some receive a firm and lasting benefit, while others see this benefit slip away as soon as they cease their association with Socrates. This account by Socrates, far from attributing his educational practice to the mystical synousia of the daimonion, is simply meant to explain to Theages that association with him does not offer guaranteed results. Socrates does not claim to teach (cf. 130d) and therefore cannot predict the results of his association with young men. In doing this, Socrates presents his own self-knowledge and “use of himself”, which is equivalent to his knowledge and practice of ta erōtika, as an example to Theages. Socrates’ erotic self-knowledge is not like the knowledge found in the tekhnai, which can be communicated from teacher to student. Instead, it is Theages who must awaken this same knowledge in himself if he is to be benefited by Socrates. The first step in Theages’ self-knowledge would be to recognize that in turning himself over to Socrates he is in fact doing nothing else than turning himself over to himself. The proper “use of the self” means to take responsibility for one’s own education while knowing that the outcome cannot be determined beforehand. Theages, therefore, does display the first hints of self-knowledge in saying that they must “make a trial of this daimonion by associating with each other” (131a), for it is only in this “use of the self” that one can acquire a more thorough self-knowledge, and perhaps also pursue more adequately that love of wisdom to which Theages, in however confused a manner, is already devoted.
Reason to Care: The Object and Structure of Self-Knowledge in the Alcibiades I
Apeiron, 2013
In Alcibiades 1, the object of self-knowledge is approached as a special case because of its interrelations within the polis. But can such a Platonic principle as the priority of definitionknowing what a thing is before one can say anything else that is auhoritative about itbe applied to the object of selfknowledge? The dialogue strives to individuate one aspect of human nature as focal. This is not a divinity outside human agency, but the soul under that aspect that makes it the agent of purposeful action and subject of her own talk and reasoning, worthy of our care.
Reflections on the Socratic notion of the self
Care of the self in early Greek philosophy, 2012
The ancient Greek notion of “care of the self” and the self-knowledge it presupposes is premised on the concept of introspection. Introspection obviously involves “consciousness”; more precisely, it implies a “conscious” notion of the “self.” Consciousness itself can be notorious difficult to define and explain. In this paper, I examine some of the historical precedents for “caring for the self” as we find them in Plato’s earlier dialogues, notably the Apology, and the kind of consciousness it presupposes. This was an invited paper for a panel on “Care of the self in early Greek philosophy” organized by Annie Larivée for the 80th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of New Brunswick, May 2011. I’ve added a few references to my more recent work on the topic.
The Metaphysics of Personhood in Plato' s Dialogues
While most scholars know, or think they know, what Plato says about the soul, there is less certainty regarding what he says about the self. Some scholars even assert that the ancient Greeks did not possess the concepts of self or person. This dissertation sets out to examine those passages throughout Plato's dialogues that most clearly require some notion of the self or the person, and by doing so to clarify the logical lineaments of these concepts as they existed in fourth century Athens. Because Plato wrote dialogues, I restrict myself to analyzing the concepts of self and person as they appear in the mouths of various Platonic characters and refrain from speculating whether Plato himself endorses what his characters say. In spite of this restriction, I find a number of striking ideas that set the stage for further philosophical development. After an introductory chapter, in Chapters 2 and 3 I argue that the identification of the person with the soul and the identification of the human being with the composite of soul and body make possible a conceptual split between person and human being. In Chapter 4, I argue that the tripartite account of the soul suggests an ideal identification of the person with the rational aspect of the soul rather than the lower aspects of one's psychology. Finally, in Chapter 5 I argue that the analogical link between rationality in us and the rational order of the cosmos leads to the conclusion that the true self is, in some sense, divine.