AN ANALYSIS OF THE DIALOGUE Plato: ALCIBIADES I. Question: 1-10 á bls. 1-6. The dialogue starts in the Agora, below the high point of Athens: Acropolis. The year is 430 before Christ. Socrates has for a long time observed the young and promising Alcibiades, but for some reason does not want to talk to him until now, that he is fully grown.
01. The first part of the dialogue can be called an introduction. Let’s find out where it begins and ends. Socrates starts by asking the young Alcibiades questions. Google their respective births. We know when the dialogue takes place, how old are they? Socrates: _____ Alcibiades: _____
We learn that Socrates has long observed Alcibiades, but never talked to him. Why not? ________
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02. What descriptive words do you see regarding Alcibiades’s outer appearance. Name a few: ____
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03. Do you see any indications that there is a romantic relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades? Write down a few instances indicating this from the first pages. __________________
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04. Alcibiades was raised by someone called Pericles, who was some great person in the Greek Golden Age. Google him. What is he famous for? ______________________________________
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05. Can you imagine why all these persons were rejected by Alcibiades (Socrates is the only one left)? ________________________________________________________________________
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06. Socrates wants to start a dialogue with Alcibiades. This he always does by praising his interlocutor and then tries to get a definition of a concept from him. What is that term? To find out, what – exactly – is the question that Socrates asks (the famous Socratic question)? ________
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07. Rewrite this question so that it is about one specific concept. What is it that Alcibiades has and Socrates wants to discuss / question / examine? ________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________
08. How does Alcibiades answer the Socratic question? Does he have this „X,“ he is asked about? How much of it „X“ does he have? _________________________________________________
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09. The introduction is hereby over, when you find the exact spot in the dialogue where Socrates asks Alcibiades to now give him his full attention and listen carefully. To what shall he listen? ___
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10. After Socrates has repeated the basic Socratic question and when Alcibiades has answered (defined) it, then the game is afoot (as Sherlock Holmes used to say!). Where exactly do they start this „game?“. What is one of them supposed to do, and then the other in response to that? ______
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Grade __________ Comment _____________________________ Teacher