Images for the Sake of the Truth in Plato's Symposium

Classical Quarterly 63 (2):558-566 (2013)
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Abstract

After arriving drunk (‘plastered’ in one translation) at Agathon's party, Alcibiades offers to praise Socrates instead of love, the object of the other characters' praise. In praising Socrates, Alcibiades says that he will have to use images (εἰκόνων, 215a4–5). He assures his companions, however, that this ‘is no joke: the image will be for the sake of the truth’ (ἔσται δ' ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἕνεκα, οὐ τοῦ γελοίου, 215a6). Alcibiades goes on to present his famous images of a Socrates who is full of divine images (ἀγάλματα), and who casts spells with his words (λόγοι). Later, Alcibiades describes those words themselves as ‘bursting with images of virtue’ (ἀγάλματ' ἀρετῆς, 222a3–4).

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Yancy Dominick
Seattle University

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Open Minded. Working Out the Logic of the Soul.Jonathan Lear - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):254-257.
A study in violets : Alcibiades in the symposium.C. D. C. Reeve - 2006 - In James H. Lesher, Debra Nails & Frisbee Candida Cheyenne Sheffield (eds.), Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Harvard University Press. pp. 124--146.
Beauty of soul and speech in Plato's symposium.F. C. White - 2008 - Classical Quarterly 58 (1):69-81.
The Trial of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium.Robert Metcalf - 2009 - Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 14 (1):39-55.

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