François Tanguay-Renaud

Although it was influential for several hundred years after it first appeared, doubts about the authenticity of the Platonic Alcibiades I have unnecessarily impeded its interpretation ever since. It positions itself firmly within the Platonic and Socratic traditions, and should therefore be approached in the same way as most other Platonic dialogues. It paints a vivid portrait of a Socrates in his late thirties tackling the unrealistic ambitions of the youthful Alcibiades, urging him to come to know himself and to care for himself. François Renaud and Harold Tarrant re-examine the drama and philosophy of Alcibiades I with an eye on those interpreters who cherished it most. Modern scholars regularly play down one or more of the religious, erotic, philosophic or dramatic aspects of the dialogue, so ancient Platonist interpreters are given special consideration. This rich study will interest a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy.

What authority do Plato and Aristotle possess in Late Antiquity, specifically for Olympiodorus of Alexandria? According to a current widespread view, the relationship of all Neoplatonists to the two Greek philosophers can be captured by two assumptions : the harmony between the two thinkers and the superiority, even the infallibility, of Plato. The present study first clarifies this notion of harmony in the light of the pedagogical context of the late commentaries and the principle of truth as unity underlying them, and secondly shows that the notion of infallibility hardly applies to Olympiodorus, given the Socratic conception he has of his own exegetical practice and some features of his actual practice.

This paper examines Plato’s views about the unity of argument and drama, and asks why Plato never made his views on this unity fully explicit. Taking the Gorgias as a case study it is argued that unity rests on the conception of refutative dialectic as justice and on the principle of self-consistency of thought and desire. As compared to the treatise, the dialogue form has the advantage of being able to defend these substantive views in action and thus to demonstrate the performative contradictions in the ideas of one’s opponents.