Spring 2010 - Interpretation

Political Science and the Irrational
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to be good for himself (and at best incidentally so for his fellow Athenians).
Any concern for justice he might have seems to be, to put it anachronistically,
purely Machiavellian. If, then, this is indeed the case, then it would inevitably
follow that the admittedly simple suggestion that Socrates is indeed a
civic-minded moralist in his dealings with the haughty and hubristic youth
is essentially correct, and that this is indeed why he introduced the question
of justice in his present discussion (Plato 2001, 216d-e, 219d).
What is more, as their conversation here unfolds there is
further evidence for this interpretation of Alcibiades’ greedy and Socrates’
virtuous intent. We thus seem to be moving ever-further away from the putative
Platonic reduction of the two extremes that were mentioned before as the
hallmark of both this dialogue and human nature. For even though Alcibiades
is compelled to admit that he, just like everyone else, does not truly
have knowledge of a “weightier” matter such as justice (Plato 1987, 106d-e,
109d-112d, 113b), he seemingly diminishes the importance of this assertion
by supposing that Greeks
[l]et these matters go and consider which things will be advantageous
to those practicing them. For just and advantageous things are not,
I suppose, the same, but many have profited from committing great
injustices, and I suppose there are others who performed just acts that
were not to their advantage. (113d)
However, this latter assertion about the possible antonymy between the just
and his own good is not only a perhaps nascent Machiavellianism, but, what
is more important, it inevitably implies that Alcibiades in fact does have
some knowledge of each of them. Yet such an implication cannot possibly be
consistent. For Socrates has by now already coaxed Alcibiades into partially
consenting to the proposal that one can only learn what one has discovered
for one’s self or been taught by another. Thus, whether one has discovered
or been taught something, in order to have learned that something one
must first have been made aware of one’s own ignorance or need to learn
it. Admittedly, Alcibiades initially resists this proposal in part by claiming
that he learned justice just as he learned the Greek language, i.e., without any
prior knowledge of ignorance. Socrates, however, had already gotten Alcibiades
to agree that, even if such knowledge is indeed possible, this is not so for
a “weightier” matter such as justice. For while it may be true that the many
know the Greek language and are thus capable of teaching it, they are capable
of doing so only because they are, as “knowers,” necessarily in agreement
with one another with respect to what they name when they name it. But