Socrates and Alcibiades

we cannot know whether Socrates succeeded or failed unless we know what he was trying to accomplish.

These assessments differ primarily because they disagree concerning the most important question in Plato’s presentation of Socrates and Alcibiades: that of Socrates’ motivation and intention

Plato’s presentation of Alcibiades’ political ambition in the crucible of Socratic refutation

Waller Newell, advancing the thesis that “Plato sees tyranny as a misguided longing for erotic satisfaction that can be corrected by the education of eros toward the proper objects of its passion:

effects of Socrates’ attempt to bend Alcibiades’ eros away from political honors.

For all the insight he gains by looking at the Alcibiades and Second Alcibiades, however, Faulkner may arrive at too optimistic a conclusion by under-emphasizing the more famous Platonic presentation in the Symposium.

four Socratic lessons taught more or less in turn,” namely, “consider what you pray for, face up to harsh deeds that tyranny requires, be aware of one’s ignorance as to the gods and their wishes, follow a theology that fosters reasonable justice and rational knowing” (117).

Faulkner identifies six essential components of the Platonic Alcibiades’ ambition: “a striking pride . . . an overwhelming desire for honor and power . . . [a] wish to know what he is doing, a certain justice and nobility, an equivocal political horizon, and, finally, an impulse to turn to divine help” (86).

In the Second Alcibiades, wherein Alcibiades has turned to prayer “for divine help to avoid facing up to the bad consequences of tyrannical desire” (114),

The one successful attempt to examine Plato’s presentation of Alcibiades as a portrait of political ambition is contained in Robert Faulkner’s The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (2007), which dedicates a chapter to the Alcibiades and Second Alcibiades.