Chapter 1 - The Self-Knowledge Necessity

Summary

The first chapter begins the project of weaving together the commentaries of Proclus and Olympiodorus, and argues that both commentators attempt nothing less than a transfiguration of the human soul and its reorientation toward the desiderative longing characteristic of the contemplative life, the consequence of which is their student’s ascent through the hierarchy of virtues that Neoplatonic pedagogy coordinates with the reading of particular Platonic dialogues. The Alcibiades I, with the commentator’s direction, is the doorway through which an initiate must pass, enduring a cleansing that shepherds him toward the sanctum of the real. The Neoplatonic analysis of the dialogue’s thematic structure is also adumbrated: Socrates proposes that Alcibiades change how he lives only to undermine what he wants and finally concludes that Alcibiades is misguided about both because he assumes a mistaken conception of who he is. This progression is itself framed on both sides by eros.

(Pr. 1.1–18.10, Ol. 1.1–13.8)

Both Proclus (Pr.) and Olympiodorus (Ol.) begin their respective commentaries by emphasizing self-knowledge as the ground of human perfection, completion, or fulfilment (τελειότης), the journey toward which begins with reversion, the attentive turn back upon the self that carries the soul beyond the natural and ethical virtues and begets pursuit of the ultimate desideratum.¹ Neoplatonic students begin their study of Plato with the Alcibiades for this reason: it chronicles how the philosophical life emerges from knowing oneself. It should come as no surprise therefore that the commentators begin with reflections on the love at the core of the love of wisdom.

For Olympiodorus, philosophy in its highest sense is equivalent to Platonic philosophy, which he distinguishes from Aristotelian philosophy. His first lines remind the student that, whereas (Ol. 1.1–9) Aristotle begins his Metaphysics with the claim that all human beings naturally reach out (ὀρέγονται) for knowledge – evidence of which is their love (ἀγάπησις) of the senses – ‘I’ (ἐγὼ)² would say that human beings most truly reach for Plato’s philosophy (φιλοσοφίας).³ The opening of the commentary thus effects a shift from desiring a particular kind of knowledge to wanting a particular kind of love: that is, Platonic love of wisdom. Love of the senses does not suffice for the soul’s perfection; its longing must be redirected. Specifically (Ol. 2.1–13), it is for the sake of Plato’s inspirations (ἐνθουσιασμῶν) that everyone reaches for his philosophy. Two of these inspirations, concerning eros and contemplation, are especially fundamental for the philosophical initiate: the soul that truly knows itself reaches out for a love that will lift it from its mortal condition and project it toward a totalizing grasp of the divine.⁴

Immediately a particular methodology becomes clear in Olympiodorus’ commentary: in the first person, he speaks directly to his students about their previous pedagogical experience, thereby framing his lecture within the boundaries of what they already know. At the same time, he suggests that their development requires reorientation. Such transformation is the pedagogical task of the commentators, who in the Alcibiades commentaries are concerned less with particular points of doctrine than with a peculiar way of loving that arises from self-knowledge. Olympiodorus insists from the beginning that his students zealously strive to approach Plato with the same goal of those magi of whom the Anonymous Commentator speaks: they should be eager to learn Plato’s love of wisdom.

Proclus’ student⁵ finds something similar (Pr. 1.1–5):⁶ ‘we think’ that discerning ‘our own being’ is not merely the most valid and surest starting point (ἀρχὴν κυριωτάτην καὶ βεβαιοτάτην) for the dialogues of Plato, but for the whole of philosophical contemplation (τῆς φιλοσόφου θεωρίας).⁷ Familiarity with being human is the beginning of the student’s erotic journey. Human beings (Pr. 4.3–5) must ascertain their being prior to their perfection, for perfection is not of itself but of the being by which it is participated. Specifically, if (Pr. 4.5–18) ‘we contemplate’ each being, ‘we shall be able’ to apprehend whatever good its nature happens to be. Grasping one’s own being begins the passage to fulfilment in the contemplative life, the pinnacle of which is ascent to the Good. The soul that falls short of this fulfilment will not merely be a soul that does not know intelligible reality – it will be a soul that, without knowing itself, does not even desire it in the first place. An example of such a figure, the student will soon find, is none other than Alcibiades himself.

Like Olympiodorus, Proclus speaks in the first person. His use of words like ‘we’ and ‘our’ are not trivial throwaway lines or stylistic idiosyncrasies, but psychagogic interjections intentionally aimed at guiding the reading of the Neoplatonic student. Specifically, they alert the student to the intimate bond between the themes of the text and what is happening in the student’s own soul. Even in the opening pages of his commentary, Proclus purposefully writes to guide the philosophical initiate’s attention back to the initiate himself, the first step in conversion to the wisdom-loving life. Thus, the student hears, once we know ourselves (Pr. 1.5–7), ‘we shall be able’ to understand the good ‘appropriate to us’. The path forward for the student is thus directly and transparently announced prior to its being witnessed with the reading of the Platonic text: it is the passage, by way of self-knowledge, to intelligible reality, and ultimately to the first principle.

Both commentators, then, attempt nothing less than a transfiguration of the human soul and its reorientation toward the desiderative longing characteristic of the contemplative life, the consequence of which is the student’s ascent through the hierarchy of virtues that Neoplatonic pedagogy coordinates with the reading of particular Platonic dialogues. Olympiodorus’ seemingly arbitrary placement of his hagiographic biography of Plato – after his introductory remarks but prior to his discussion of the text of the Alcibiades – is not a random choice when viewed from this perspective: its purpose is to guide students to the love of wisdom by way of the archetypical exemplar of Plato himself.⁸

The Life begins with an invitation to the student (Ol. 2.14–15): ‘let us describe’ the life of the philosopher to benefit and prepare those who approach him. The presentation of the story is thus pedagogical from its opening, and it both tells of Plato’s life and attests to the soul’s progression through the virtues – Plato’s birth (Οl. 2.17–31) accounts for the natural virtues; his typically Athenian education (Ol. 2.32–93) for the ethical virtues; in Sicily (Ol. 2.94–133), he exhibits the constitutional virtues; in Egypt and Phoenecia (Ol. 2.134–144), he acquires the purificatory virtues; his establishment of the Academy (Ol. 2.145–155) depicts the contemplative virtues; and the later parts of his life (Ol. 2.155–3.2) show the paradigmatic and hieratic virtues.⁹

Of special interest for the student is that Plato (Ol. 2.16–17) is an ἐπίστροφος, “one who reverts human beings”,¹⁰ a role that he had to learn from his own teacher. That is, Plato’s birth and the pedestrian education of his youth proved to be merely propaedeutic to the psychotransformative experience of meeting Socrates. The student hears of Plato’s conversion by way of the story of Socrates’ dream (Ol. 2.83–86), in which a wingless (ἄπτερος) swan is seated on his knees and, upon growing wings, flies up into the air. The description matches that of winged Eros, and the swan’s ascent mirrors the uplifting power of divine love.¹¹ Next, in the subsequent episode of the Life, Plato travels to Sicily, during which he exhibits the constitutional virtues, achievement of which is only possible after the soul has started to turn toward itself. His encounter with Socrates must therefore have elicited from the young Plato the same result intended for the Neoplatonic student reading the Alcibiades: it awakened him to his own being, sparked an erotic metamorphosis, and marked the beginning of his rebirth as a lover of wisdom.

That Socrates at the end of the dialogue (135e1–3) speaks of his hatching in Alcibiades a reciprocal winged love (ἔρωτα ὑπόπτερον) will later conclude for the student what the Life of Plato reveals here at the beginning of Olympiodorus’ commentary: self-knowledge is the gestational womb out of which is born the anagogical eros that lies at the heart of philosophy. As the historical Socrates turned Plato into a lover of wisdom, the character Socrates performs the same psychotherapeutic service for Alcibiades in the dialogue bearing the young man’s name. The commentators themselves follow in this tradition and deploy the Alcibiades to turn their students toward themselves, psychagogically directing them inward so that they may ascend through the virtues.¹²

The apogee of this psychic journey is none other than the contemplative virtues – the highest virtues philosophy can achieve – which Plato himself exhibited in the founding of the Academy. It is here (Ol. 2.147–150) that Plato attracted many students, one of whom was Timon the misanthrope. This detail is of more than mere historical significance, for Alcibiades emerges in the dialogue’s Proem as a philotimos, a passionate lover of honour, not wisdom. Timon’s presence in the Life is a psychagogic marker, intentionally placed with pedagogical purpose, for his name, Τίμων, echoes the Greek τιμή, “honour”, the very desideratum that Alcibiades cherishes most dearly and from which Socrates discourages him. Plato’s attraction of Timon thus adumbrates for the student what the conversation of the Alcibiades enacts: the seduction of a philotimos away from his lust for reputation.¹³ For Olympiodorus to call Timon a misanthrope is therefore to allege that what Timon embodies is harmful to human beings: it is a life in pursuit of a desideratum of dubious worth, cherished by those who do not know themselves.

Olympiodorus’ Life concludes with the claim that Apollo brought forth Asclepius to keep our bodies healthy, Plato to keep our souls healthy.¹⁴ The reference to Apollo, whose oracle spoke at Delphi, points unmistakably to the dialogue’s skopos – it enjoins the student to know himself. Hence he is told (Pr. 4.19–5.1), ‘we should think’ that the most valid starting point for all of philosophy and for the work of Plato is pure and clear ‘knowledge of ourselves’. Platonic love of wisdom emerges as a response to the Delphic imperative. Specifically (Pr. 5.1–12), self-knowledge is the beginning of one’s purification and perfection, akin to the cleansing rituals undertaken by those participating in religious rites, and just as there was a warning to those who would partake of the Eleusinian mysteries not to pass to the inner shrine if they were profane and uninitiated, so the Delphic inscription indicates the manner of ascent to the divine and the path toward purification.¹⁵ The erotic pursuit of divine wisdom, therefore, cannot flourish without a wholly revelatory exposition and thorough purification of the one who is to engage in the loving search.

In the Neoplatonic curriculum, the purificatory virtues are, strictly speaking, the subject of the Phaedo. More broadly, however, a student’s purification may be said to begin with the Alcibiades because self-knowledge itself is a kind of catharsis, a psychotherapeutic cleansing that discloses our true being. The student thus hears (Pr. 5.13–14): ‘let this be’ the start of the teaching of Plato and of the love of wisdom. By structuring the curriculum as they do, the commentators lay bare a pedagogical trajectory that begins (Pr. 5.14–6.3) with the perfection of the imperfect, following Socrates, who himself began philosophy from the Delphic inscription, and who (Ol. 4.4–7) strives to lead Alcibiades upward via the same path. The beginning of the Neoplatonic curriculum instantiates this very Socratic pattern.

It is for this reason that Proclus tells his student (Pr. 6.3–11), ‘we must begin’ with self-knowledge as well, and ‘we must inquire’ which dialogue has as its target the ‘contemplation of our being’ in order that ‘we may make’ our start on the works of Plato; ‘we can name’ no other dialogue than the Alcibiades in which ‘we shall say’ that the nature of our being is demonstrated.¹⁶ While the contemplative virtues properly speaking begin with the Cratylus, contemplation is thus, in one sense, already occurring, for insofar as contemplation is marked by yearning to become one with the object of knowledge, so here the philosophical initiate is invited to desideratively seek out himself by turning inward in an effort to make self-aware, unifying contact with his own being, a haptic encounter of intellectual intimacy in which the distinction between knower and known is overcome. The commentator, by unfolding the text dialogically, creates the very conditions under which this contemplative self-knowing can occur, fostering the initial self-cognizance that begins the journey to contemplation proper.¹⁷

Both commentators thus deploy the Alcibiades as the anagogic springboard for their student’s elevation to the intelligible. In Olympiodorus’ Life, Apollo led Socrates, who, in turn, led Plato. Plato himself leads his readers via the dialogue featuring Socrates and Alcibiades. Proclus and Olympiodorus, for their part, lead via their commentaries on the Alcibiades, which (Ol. 10.18–11.6), ‘one must mention’, is the gateway (προπυλαίοις) on the way to the inner shrine (ἀδύτοις) of philosophy – that is, the Parmenides.¹⁸ The language of ancient Greek religion and temple architecture leaves little doubt that what is at stake is nothing less than a psychospiritual conversion that leads its would-be supplicant to an encounter with the divine. Hence, the student hears (Pr. 9.2–7), just as in a mystic rite there are preliminary cleansings, so too philosophical perfection, ‘it seems to me’, purges and prepares those on the way to self-knowledge, understood as the ‘intuitive contemplation of our being’. The Alcibiades, with the commentator’s direction, is the doorway through which an initiate must pass, enduring a cleansing that shepherds him toward the sanctum of the real.

Accordingly, the student is told (Pr. 6.17–7.1), ‘if you reflect’ that Socrates himself says that the beginnings of perfection depend on ‘contemplation of ourselves’, ‘you will no longer doubt’ that all who are eager for perfection must begin with the conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades. An analogical equivalence between Alcibiades and the Neoplatonic student, developed more concretely in the next chapter, is thus established: as the young man in the Platonic dialogue is guided to know himself, so too is the student correlatively directed by the commentator. Lest any student object that not every human being is akin to Alcibiades – born with his privileges and advantages – he is met with the insistence that (Pr. 7.1–8) ‘each one of us’ is more or less subject to his sufferings; ‘we do not know ourselves’, and therefore ‘we need help’ so that ‘we happen upon the care appropriate to us’.

Whatever else transpires in the dialogue, Socrates’ love for Alcibiades leads him back to himself, because (Pr. 9.14–15) ‘the contemplation of our being’ is the dialogue’s principal target (σκοπιμώτατόν ἐστι).¹⁹ In the Neoplatonic lecture hall, the student’s own psychoerotic metamorphosis is similarly emphasized: the target (Pr. 10.14–17) is knowledge of ‘our being’, and ‘we are lovers’ of this knowledge in order that ‘we may attain our perfection’. The more the soul knows itself, the more it yearns to know itself, and this yearning, cultivated through psychagogic direction, is transfigured into a longing for the whole of the intelligible.²⁰ The subsequent two dialogues in the Neoplatonic curriculum are placed to ensure the completion of this process – the Gorgias establishes the priority of reason over spirit and appetite through examination of desiderata that fail to satisfy the soul, and the Phaedo treats the reversion of reason within itself – that is, the psychic revolution that terminates in the soul’s desire to be intellect.

The Alcibiades, then (Pr. 11.1–4), is the beginning of all love of wisdom. Proclus reminds his student that Iamblichus (Pr. 11.4–17) placed it first in the curriculum because it is like a seed that contains the whole of Plato’s philosophy, revealed through ‘our turning toward ourselves’.²¹ Olympiodorus, for his part, delineates the soul’s anagogic passage with a preliminary discussion (Ol. 4.8–14) of the differences between self (αὐτό) and the self itself (αὐτὸ τὸ αὐτό).²² The distinction, which arises at the end of the Alcibiades (129b1ff), discloses the wisdom-loving path by intimating what will become fully manifest only at the dialogue’s conclusion: that the levels of virtue – and the differing layers of reality itself – are attained by the soul in direct proportion to the degree that it knows itself. For instance, the identification in the Alcibiades of the human being with the rational soul – not the body or the composite – anticipates acquisition of the constitutional virtues, in which the rational soul (Ol. 4.17–21) uses the body as an instrument, in need of spirit and appetite.²³ The student is thus already being prepared for his reading of the Gorgias, in which constitutional well-being is defined not merely in terms of the statesman’s ordering the city but his practising the virtues of justice and moderation within the tripartition of his own soul.²⁴

By including the distinction between the self and the self itself at the beginning of his commentary, Olympiodorus also looks forward to the purificatory virtues of the Phaedo and the contemplative virtues of the dialogues subsequent to it. Hence the student hears that the need (Ol. 4.21–5.1) for the body – and the lower parts of the soul – is left behind by both the purificatory and contemplative persons. The purificatory person (Ol. 5.1–6) is the soul freeing itself (ἀπολυομένη) from the body, released from its chains through sympathy by which it transcends its love of the body, whereas the contemplative (Ol. 5.6–13) has been released (ἀπολελυμένη) from the body, active in accordance with what is most divine within. That is, the purificatory person is freeing himself from the body, while the contemplative has already been freed. Both persons are characterized, generally, by apatheia or freedom from the passions (ἀπάθεια), and also by sympathy (συμπάθεια), or psychic contact with the intelligible realm.²⁵ But whereas neither the purificatory person nor the contemplative are body-lovers, it is the contemplative alone who is also not a soul-lover. Because he is active in accordance with what is most divine, he longs to move beyond the soul and to become intellect, and loves the intelligible so as to assimilate himself to it.²⁶ The contemplative, in other words, is a perfected lover of wisdom.

The psychagogic objective of the entire curriculum is therefore presented before commentary on the text of the Alcibiades even begins. The goal of the student’s conversion is freedom from the passions, identical to freedom for contemplation. Ἀπάθεια, thus understood, is not indifference or carelessness as the English translation “apathy” might suggest, for the soul at the level of purificatory virtue is wholly epimeletic. Indeed, insofar as it is freeing itself from the cares of the body, psychic perfection is its exclusive concern, and as it progresses toward contemplative virtue, it discovers that its fulfilment requires reversion upon intellect. It thus purifies itself from any and all παθήματα, “passions” or “sufferings”, that stand in the way of this revertive movement. It sheds, in other words, anything that obstructs its complete love of wisdom.

Olympiodorus’ subsequent description of Plato’s surpassing other ancient schools of philosophy is therefore a statement about the very nature of philosophy itself: loving wisdom is a way of life that requires a psychotherapeutic purgation initiated by an educator that attends to an initiate’s soul in its present state, however marred or fractured. Socrates, for instance (Ol. 6.1–5), knew that Alcibiades would not tolerate questioning (ἀνέξεται) about self-knowledge unless Socrates discussed his present appetite: his love of honour.²⁷ It is not, in other words, merely epistemic ignorance that obstructs Alcibiades’ conversion to the philosophical life, but his passionate philotimia, which Socrates seeks to purge through admonishments that (Ol. 6.5–7) are like painless purifications. Far from simply providing his interlocutor with a definition in the face of his mistaken answers, Socrates targets the young man’s peculiar desideratum and transfigures his love for it. If someone (Ol. 7.4–8) is a lover, Socrates will teach him what love of beautiful things is; if a lover of wealth, what self-sufficiency is; if a lover of pleasure, what the easy life truly is. Socrates is thus presented as a psychagogue who heals his student, not by dictating answers or corrections but by leading him to transformation so that he no longer desires what he wanted in the first place. Platonic philosophy exceeds other schools for precisely this reason; it begets the love peculiar to the love of wisdom.²⁸

That this love is rooted in self-knowledge and thus connected to the hierarchy of virtues is clear by way of another set of comments from Olympiodorus that might seem out of place: his sketch of the dialogue’s climax (132d–133c), in which Socrates tells Alcibiades to look away from himself and see in him intellect and god. In this intensely intimate moment, Socrates (Ol. 7.9–8.5) converses with Alcibiades about constitutional self-knowledge – because Alcibiades is an aspiring politician – but also about purificatory and contemplative self-knowledge – because Alcibiades has given himself over (ἐκδοὺς σεαυτὸν) to non-rational activities. The Platonic text’s (Ol. 8.5–10) “look away to me” indicates constitutional self-knowledge; to look at “not any random part” indicates purificatory self-knowledge; and “you shall see in me intellect” indicates contemplative self-knowledge, for engaging (τὸ … ὁμιλεῖν) with realities in accordance with intellect befits the contemplative.²⁹ Because this entire exchange occurs in the highly erotic context of lovers gazing into each other’s eyes, the student finds not only that the three ways of knowing oneself track the kinds of excellence inculcated in the curriculum, but that it is love that first turns the soul inside itself and then carries it upward on its journey to the intelligible.

Ἐκδίδωμι, “to surrender”, and ὁμιλέω, “to consort with”, bookend the transformative path travelled by the philosophical initiate, beginning with a relinquishing of what is alien – the desiderata correlative to the lower parts of the soul – to associating with what is by nature familiar – the intelligible, in zealous pursuit of which the self-knowing soul freely gives itself. Taking the first step of that journey reveals the essence of the human soul and its natural connection to the Delphic imperative, for know (Ol. 9.1–4) is addressed to a soul with the capacity for knowledge, and (Ol. 9.4–8) thyself indicates a rational soul, because a non-rational soul cannot revert upon itself.³⁰ The student is thus called to a uniquely human self-activation, a knowing that, moreover, amounts to a kind of conversion, for the imperative (Ol. 9.8–11) concerns being transformed (μεταβεβλῆσθαι) from ignorance to knowledge, which is a process of psychic fulfilment. Knowing oneself as a rational soul is therefore a metamorphosis of the whole self, a sort of becoming what one already is, which culminates with the soul’s noetic ascent to its superior.³¹

Olympiodorus’ subsequent exhortation – (Ol. 9.20–10.1) ‘let us get into the detail’ about the usefulness of the Alcibiades – emphasizes this archaeological starting point in a way that reveals how it unfolds through the entire Neoplatonic curriculum. First, if (Ol. 10.11–15) a human being were identical to his body, he would pursue size and beauty; if to appetite, he would love pleasure (τὸ φιλήδονον); if to spirit, he would love honour (τὸ φιλότιμον); but as a rational soul, virtue alone is sufficient for well-being (εὐδαιμονίαν). The mistaken desiderata enumerated here await the student’s considered reflection with the reading of the Gorgias. Next, the student hears also that the Alcibiades (Ol. 10.1–7) is useful ‘for us’ in grasping the soul’s immortality, for it is by reverting to ourselves that ‘we know ourselves’, and since anything that reverts upon itself is immortal, ‘we shall know’ that the soul is immortal. The themes of the Phaedo are thus introduced long before the dialogue is read.³² Finally, the Alcibiades looks forward to the contemplative dialogues – (Ol. 10.7–11) it contributes ‘for us’ knowledge of all beings, for if ‘we know’ the soul, ‘we will also know’ the formulas it holds within itself. Because the soul is an image of intelligible reality, in contemplating it, we contemplate all that is.³³

Beyond the topical content of the Alcibiades, its very structure also illuminates the pedagogical unfolding of the curriculum in terms of self-knowledge and love. The dialogue (Ol. 11.7–8), ‘one must see’, is divided into three. Such is (Pr. 13.16–14.1) ‘how … we say’ it is divided, and the secondary and instrumental parts must harmonize with the primary and principal ones. The three main sections – the Elenctic (106c3–119a7), the Protreptic (119a8–124a8), and the Maieutic (124a8–135e8) – are preceded by a treatment of eros in the Proem (103a1–106c2), and the final lines of Olympiodorus’ commentary also feature remarks on eros (Ol. 232.8ff). This exegetical framing mirrors the dialogue itself, which begins with Socrates’ proclamation of love and concludes with Alcibiades’ erotic reciprocation. The larger three divisions are thus bracketed by love on both sides, signalling philosophy’s birth out of love and continuation through love.

The three principal divisions may be aligned with the thematic targets of the three dialogues that constitute the first third of the Platonic curriculum, thereby illustrating that passage to the contemplative life is already implicit in this first dialogue.³⁴ In the refutation or Elenctic section (ἐλεγκτικόν), Socrates (Pr. 14.8–11) takes away ignorance from reason and removes obstacles to knowledge. This purgation is essential to the psychagogic project of the commentators, for (Pr. 14.2–8) the purpose of the Alcibiades is ‘to turn each one of us toward ourselves’, which requires ‘cleansing our reason’ from what interrupts its return upon itself. Proclus’ language foreshadows the Phaedo, in which the rational soul is purified of obstructions that block reason’s reversion to images of Forms within itself.³⁵ So too the Elenctic section demonstrates the human need for self-cultivation, for Socrates shows that Alcibiades is doubly ignorant of justice (Ol. 11.8–23) because he has neither learned from a teacher nor inquired into it for himself. This refutation, the student shall see, concerns far more than what Alcibiades knows. Socrates calls his entire honour-loving life into question, and the section concludes with his encouraging Alcibiades to care for himself (119a9). Once more, it thematically aligns with the Phaedo, which treats the care of the soul.³⁶

Next, in the exhortation or Protreptic section (προτρεπτικόν), Socrates encourages Alcibiades (Pr. 14.11–14) not to be content with his physical advantages and fall short of practices that accord with perfect virtue, but instead (Ol. 12.1–4) to conquer his antagonists by wisdom. Alcibiades, basing his claim to rule on the natural and ethical virtues and aspiring to triumph on the battlefield, is directed to victory of a wholly different sort. Such virtues are shown to be insufficient for well-being, for they are the virtues attainable without self-knowledge, and thus do not cultivate to the truest human longing. Whereas the Elenctic section therefore undermines Alcibiades’ conception of how to live, the Protreptic section shows he does not know what he really wants. At stake is not just caring for oneself – how to live well – but what self-cultivation assumes as its ultimate desideratum. Socrates undercuts the purported worth of any desideratum other than wisdom, the pursuit of which, he suggests, should be the fulcrum around which Alcibiades orders himself and arrays his activities. Socrates proposes, in other words, that Alcibiades discipline himself and live the philosophical life. The Protreptic section of the dialogue therefore aligns with the Gorgias, in which proper self-constitution, the organizing node of which is not honour but wisdom, is taken up in detail.³⁷

Finally, the section on midwifery or the Maieutic section (μαιευτικόν) provides for (Pr. 14.14–16) recollection of ‘our being’ and discovery of correct care. Having led Alcibiades throughout the dialogue, Socrates now reveals (Ol. 12.5–16) that Alcibiades is his own teacher, and Socrates acts as a midwife for the birth of formulas already within his soul. It is here that the Alcibiades coincides, so to speak, with itself. Just as the dialogue is the hinge between the student’s previous education and the forthcoming reading of the Platonic curriculum, the Maieutic section serves the same purpose within the Alcibiades itself, appropriating the material of the previous two sections and looking forward to Alcibiades’ commitment to live the philosophical life. By disclosing what it is to be human, it answers the question that looms unanswered in first two divisions: who is the one who will undergo self-constitution and purification? Alcibiades is most truly his soul, recognition of which must precede both the discipline and purgation that enable fulfilment in the contemplative life. The arguments and analyses of the Gorgias and the Phaedo, prior to the student’s arrival at the Cratylus, all assume that the human being is the soul. But this identification and the way in which it foregrounds the lessons of the curriculum must be initially demonstrated. It is not enough that self-knowledge is said to be foundational; it must be shown why this is the case. That the care of the self and pursuit of its ultimate desideratum assume the identity of self with the soul cannot be taken for granted. For the commentators to train their students in the constitutional and purificatory virtues without first showing that the human being is the soul would, in other words, be begging the question.

While it might seem strange to think that the tripartite division of the Alcibiades actually moves backward from the curriculum’s third dialogue to its first, the interpretation is justified when seen as psychagogic, for the student is called upon not merely to know himself, but to comprehend that self-knowledge is the foundation for the entirety of the wisdom-loving life. He must therefore be shown not only what self-knowledge is, but that the fundamental questions of the philosophical life cannot be addressed without an inquiry into the very I presupposed in their asking. The student must understand why Alcibiades proffers the erroneous answers he does, for only when his mistakes – wrongheaded versions of how to live and what to pursue – are shown to be mistakes entailed by self-ignorance can the student grasp the necessity of responding to the Delphic imperative. That the structure of the Alcibiades, when seen in light of the reading order of the dialogues and their correlative virtues, reveals a Socrates who works in reverse, as it were, speaks not just to the exegetical acumen of the commentators, but is a testament to the pedagogical profundity of their curriculum.

To summarize: Socrates proposes that Alcibiades change how he lives only to undermine what he wants and finally concludes that Alcibiades is misguided about both because he assumes a mistaken conception of who he is. This progression is itself framed on both sides by eros. It ends with eros, for (Ol. 12.17–13.8) Socrates turns Alcibiades into a lover by the end of the dialogue; he accomplishes the goal of the art of love – its reciprocation.³⁸ But it also begins with eros, for Socrates’ first words are not those of concepts but courtship. The young man’s pending metamorphosis is begun by means of love. The Neoplatonic reading of the dialogue’s Proem, therefore, is not just a reflection on Socrates’ pederastic obsession with a beautiful young man and his attempt to seduce him away from his other lovers – it is a prolonged meditation on the nature of love and its ultimate expression in the philosophical life.