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PLATO ON ALCIBIADES Educating the Ambitious

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Peloponnesian War: 431 404 BCE. Socrates: 469 399 BCE. Raised by Pericles ... Transcendence of the polis: Alcibiades' speeches and politics. Assassination ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: PLATO ON ALCIBIADES Educating the Ambitious


1
PLATO ON ALCIBIADESEducating the Ambitious
  • Joel A. Schlosser Senior Thesis Talk for
    Distinction 5.20.2003

2
The Genesis of the Project
  • The Thesis
  • Nietzsche v. Plato
  • Platos Symposium and eros
  • Summer reading
  • Platos Republic

3
Alci who?
  • 450 404 BCE
  • Peloponnesian War 431 404 BCE
  • Socrates 469 399 BCE
  • Raised by Pericles
  • General in Peloponnesian War

4
The Peloponnesian War
  • Athens v. Sparta
  • Corcyra (433) and Potidaea (432)
  • Invasion of Attica (431)
  • Brasidas and Cleon Amphipolis (422)
  • Peace of Nicias (421)

Thucydides
5
The Thesis An Outline
  • I. Introduction
  • II. The Paradox of Greatness
  • III. The Limits of Socratic Education A Close
    Reading of the Alcibiades I
  • IV. Platos Symposium Beyond Politics and
    Philosophy
  • V. The Possibility of Educating the Ambitious

6
I. Introduction
  • Ambition is not a vice for little fellows and
    for undertakings such as ours.
  • Montaigne

7
I.
  • I have no spur
  • To prick the sides of my intent, but only
  • Vaulting ambition, which oerleaps itself
  • And falls on the other
  • Macbeth, I, vii, 25-28

8
i. Questions
  • What is political ambition?
  • Is it a problem in democracy? Why?
  • Can one educate the ambitious individual? How?

9
II. The Paradox of Greatness
  • I have often noticed with great admiration the
    wonderful nature of Alcibiades, who could change
    so easily to suit such different fashions.
  • Montaigne

10
i. Ambition coupled with genius
  • Imprudent loves childhood episode
  • Demos distrust of greatness dissolution of the
    Peace of Nicias
  • Transcendence of the polis Alcibiades speeches
    and politics
  • Assassination

11
III. The Limits of Socratic Education Alcibiades
I
  • magical, incomprehensible, and unfathomable
    one predestined for victory and seduction
  • Nietzsche on Alcibiades

12
i. Intimacy and Perspicacity
  • Alcibiades and Socrates
  • The two approaches
  • Erotic ambition

13
ii. Uncertainty and Disappointment
  • Impossibility of Socratic education
  • Lack of courage and moderation
  • Socrates foreboding

14
iii. Is it hopeless?
15
IV. Platos Symposium
  • The chief point, he said, was that Socrates was
    compelling them to agree that the same man should
    know how to make comedy and tragedy and that he
    who is by art a tragic poet is also a comic poet.
  • Symposium

16
i. Poetic Foundations
  • The dialogue
  • Whats eros got to do with it?
  • The City and Alcibiades
  • Aristophanes and Alcibiades

17
V. Educating the Ambitious
  • the most beautiful educational treatise ever
    written
  • Rousseau on Platos Republic

18
i. The Possibility of Education
  • Education in Platos Republic
  • Courage and Moderation
  • Miseducation
  • Alcibiades and Education

19
ii. Platos Cave
20
iii. Toward New Seas
  • What really makes a difference in education
    not only of the young but of ourselves is not
    so much the precepts one gives others, as the way
    one exemplifies the precepts on would give to
    another, in ones conduct throughout life.
  • Platos Laws 729c

21
Acknowledgements
  • For guidance to paths untrodden thank you to
    Professor Cooper. Many thanks to Professor
    Smith, Tricia Peterson, and the Department of
    Political Science. Thanks to Hans Wietzke,
    Charles Peterson, Tony Anderson, and other
    participants in the Political Philosophy
    Colloquium for willingness to break a few lances
    about Plato. Heartfelt thanks to patient friends
    and family who continue to endure an
    Alcibiades-inspired companion.
  • Thanks for coming!
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