Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts: Plato's Alcibiades I & II, Symposium (212c-223a), Aeschines' Alcibiades

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts: Plato's Alcibiades I & II, Symposium (212c-223a), Aeschines' Alcibiades
Authors and Contributors      By (author) David Johnson
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:124
Dimensions(mm): Height 229,Width 153
Category/GenreWestern philosophy - Ancient to c 500
ISBN/Barcode 9781585100699
Audience
Undergraduate

Publishing Details

Publisher Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co
Imprint Focus Publishing/R Pullins & Co
Publication Date 1 October 2002
Publication Country United States

Description

Socrates and Alcibiades: Four Texts gathers together translations our four most important sources for the relationship between Socrates and the most controversial man of his day, the gifted and scandalous Alcibiades. In addition to Alcibiades' famous speech from Plato's Symposium, this text includes two dialogues, the Alcibiades I and Alcibiades II, attributed to Plato in antiquity but unjustly neglected today, and the complete fragments of the dialogue Alcibiades by Plato's contemporary, Aeschines of Sphettus. These works are essential reading for anyone interested in Socrates' improbable love affair with Athens' most desirable youth, his attempt to woo Alcibiades from his ultimately disastrous worldly ambitions to the philosophical life, and the reasons for Socrates' failure, which played a large role in his conviction by an Athenian court on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato's immediate audience.

Author Biography

David Johnson is Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where he teaches in the Classics Section of the Foreign Languages Department. He has published articles on Plato's Alcibiades I and Xenophon's depiction of Socrates.