Abstract

In this paper I argue that Plato’s Alcibiades is the embodiment of what I call the epithumetic comportment, a way of life made possible by the naïve ontological assumption that appearance is all that is. In the first part of the paper, I read select portions of the Alcibiades I and establish a distinction between the epithumetic comportment, which desires gratification in exchange for flattery, and the erotic comportment, which desires care of the soul. In the second half of the paper I turn to the Symposium and argue that Alcibiades fails in his seduction of Socrates because his inability to abandon the epithumetic comportment makes it impossible for him to be a Socratic interlocutor and subsequently know philosophical Forms. Through an interrogation of Alcibiades’s character we see that his failure is to be blamed neither on ‘Platonic love’ nor on Socrates himself but should be understood as a consequence of his inability to truly care for himself. I conclude by analyzing the consequences of my argument for typical interpretations of Alcibiades’s encomium to Socrates.