Week 8

Alcibiades: The insight and confusion of unpurified love, and the judgment of Socrates

October 28, 2025 6:30 PM - 8:00 pm

The previous speakers all gave speeches praising Love, but Alcibiades gives a speech praising Socrates (214c-d, 215a). In what way might a lover’s speech about the beloved be more erotic, and more revealing about love, than a speech on love? In what way less? Alcibiades confesses he was not cured by Socrates of his restless political ambition, that he did not want to “grow old” beside him (216a). What is the alternative to “growing old”? What would Alcibiades’ speech look like if had been “cured,” if his eros had been educated by Socrates? Is Socrates’ ascetic moderation in deeds (219d-221c) more revealing of what he is than his erotic, even hubristic, thought? What does Alcibiades praise about Socrates’ speeches, and what does he think is their content (222a)? What would Socrates, a man who claims he knows that he doesn’t know anything “noble and good,” know about making people “noble and good” (222a, Apology 21d)? Are those who are erotic “noble and good” (202c-d, 204a)? Does Alcibiades solve the need for reciprocity in genuine or natural love (218e)? Why does he respond to Socrates with shame and religious awe (215c-216b)? Why does Socrates call himself “nothing” (219a)? Can the relations between man and god ever be natural or reciprocal (203a)?

Which is superior, tragedy or comedy? What does Socrates mean by claiming that “he who is by art a tragic poet is also a comic poet” (223d), and why does the dialogue close on this question? Is love fundamentally tragic or comic? What form best represents the gods?

Reading: 212c – 223d

Readings are from Plato’s Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete (Univ. of Chicago, 2001).