- Title
- Plato's oblique response to issues of Socrates' influence on Alcibiades: an examination of the Protagoras and the Gorgias
- Creator
- Ramsey, Reuben
- Relation
- Alcibiades and the Socratic lover-educator p. 61-76
- Publisher
- Bristol Classical Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- Plutarch (Alcibiades 1.2) opines that Alcibiades' fame owes a great deal to his friendship with Socrates. While it is certainly true that the greater part of the early literary representations of him appear in the Socratic writers, it is just as likely that Alcibiades is, after all, famous for being Alcibiades. The survey of responses to his career and relationship with Socrates makes it clear that it was not because of his friendship with Socrates that the Socratics preserved Alcibiades' memory but because of the necessity of explaining away his later career. Alcibiades was a known associate of Socrates and a skilled exponent of the sort of Sophistic techniques with which Socrates, rightly or wrongly, was associated. He was also, because of his personal attributes and his impact on the recent history of Athens, an outstanding and controversial figure in his own right, even decades after his death. The Socratics, especially Plato, may have preferred Alcibiades to disappear from the tradition but Alcibiades' reputation was such that this was impossible. Alcibiades was a central element in the accusations that Socrates was a corrupting influence on the young men he associated with. He was therefore also a central element in any attempted defence of Socrates.
- Subject
- Socrates; Alcibiades; Protagoras; Gorgias
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1317797
- Identifier
- uon:23507
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780715640869
- Language
- eng
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