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Alcibiades: The Perfect Personification Of Socrates

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It is interesting how the plot twists; Alcibiades opts out praising Eros, and instead, he expresses his reverence towards Socrates. For this politician and playboy, Socrates seems as the perfect personification of Eros, and therefore, deserves the most cordial and sincere admiration. Alcibiades begins his speech with praising Socrates’ skills of a true philosopher and a distinguished speaker. However, Socrates’ reproach for others’ unjustified praise cannot be applied to Alcibiades’ one. “…I’m going to tell you the whole truth…” (217b), says Alcibiades. Then Alcibiades states that even the world knows many other philosophers, none of them can be compared to Socrates. Not only Socrates’ speeches make people listen to them, but also they motivate people to think about and reflect on their lives, to become better versions of themselves. …show more content…

For this, Alcibiades admires Socrates. Socrates speech cannot leave him unmoved; conversely, he realizes that the life he lives is not worth living. Even though perception of this hurts him and he tries to avoid hearing Socrates’ teaching, he still cannot deny that Socrates does his job as nobody else. He feels ashamed and “embarrassed” (216c). Nevertheless, why? Because Alcibiades loves Socrates, respects his opinion and ideas, and cherishes the friendship with him. Were those words spoken by a stranger, they would not affect him; however, since they belong to Socrates they could not have a more compelling effect. He mentions that Socrates is “the only man who can appeal to” his “better nature” (216b). I think that it is very important for Alcibiades to know that person whom he admires and reveres can see something promising, something good in

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