‘Nothing to do with Human Affairs?’: Alcibiades' Response to Socrates
‘Nothing to do with Human Affairs?’: Alcibiades' Response to Socrates
This chapter explores a further issue that arises from Socrates' account of how our desire for happiness is best satisfied: to what extent is it a human life that he advocates? It argues that Alcibaides, who arrives late to Agathon's symposium, provides the answer to this question in the final speech of the dialogue. This speech explores Socrates' apparently hubristic disdain of the world of human affairs, but Alcibiades' ‘satyric drama’, as Socrates calls it, does not undermine the account of philosophical eros and virtue, as it is sometimes held. Although Alcibiades shows that ways in which philosophical eros is misunderstood — to much comic effect — he also shows that the philosopher is deeply engaged in the world of human affairs.
Keywords: satyrs, satyric drama, Socrates'hubris, comedy, tragedy
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