Politics in Socrates' Alcibiades

Alcibiades Major Socrates and the Spartan and Persian women not only are teaching Alcibiades what a great statesman must know, they are also teaching him how to be a man.

40 The normative assumption Socrates makes, according to Forde, which accounts for the prominence of women in the Spartan and Persian Speech, is that women are motivators and judges of male achievement.

Forde argues that Alcibiades’ self- perfection, which is called for by the speech, is dependent upon women’s judgment

Forde’s commentary on Alcibiades Major aspires to go beyond its immediate context. In general, it attempts to say something about the role of women in male achievement.

the Spartan and Persian Speech. I explained that Friedländer thought the speech was the core of Alcibiades Major and its function is to keep Alcibiades from falling beneath himself

in the person of Alcibiades the historical figure himself in both his “character and fate” comes to life in such a powerful way that his mere presence obviates any need for what Friedländer refers to as a “setting full of charm and symbolic meaning.”

the lack of dramatic externals in the dialogue (e.g., no setting, no secondary figures)

caring for oneself” (124c–135e) as the highest form of self-knowledge

The now con‍­ven‍­tion‍­al read‍­ing of Al‍­cibi‍­ades Major as a spuri‍­ous Pla‍­ton‍­ic dia‍­logue, or at best, an in‍­com‍­plete work writ‍­ten by an im‍­ma‍­ture Plato, held sway from the early nine‍­teenth cen‍­tury ( 1836) up to the late twen‍­ti‍­eth cen‍­tury (1964).

Schlei‍­er‍­mach‍­er’s judg‍­ment of the dia‍­logue as in‍­au‍­thent‍­ic was highly in‍­flu‍­en‍­tial, and the dia‍­logue soon fell out of favor.