Plato’s Severed Lovers: Alkibiades and Sokrates
The Symposium’s tale of Alkibiades and Sokrates and its historical implications—of war and philosophy, of a shattered imperial democracy and a god-like leader driven out for supposed impiety and assassinated in exile, as well as a trial and execution of a philosopher for impiety and dissent—is dramatic in its own right. But its large and continuing public significance is only understandable…
The Symposium’s tale of Alkibiades and Sokrates and its historical implications—of war and philosophy, of a shattered imperial democracy and a god-like leader driven out for supposed impiety and assassinated in exile, as well as a trial and execution of a philosopher for impiety and dissent—is dramatic in its own right. But its large and continuing public significance is only understandable in the context of some unexpected debates about Plato … For rehearsing modest changes on repeated themes, Plato scholarship often resembles the long patriarchy of curation about Athena.
– From the Introduction
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Copyright, Alan Gilbert. Published here with permission of the author.