Book contents
- Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades I
- Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades I
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Self-Knowledge Necessity
- Chapter 2 Exalting Eros
- Chapter 3 How Should I Live?
- Chapter 4 What Do I Want?
- Chapter 5 Who Am I?
- Bibliography
- Names Index
- Passages Index
- Subject Index
Chapter 1 - The Self-Knowledge Necessity
Opening Remarks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2024
- Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades I
- Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades I
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Self-Knowledge Necessity
- Chapter 2 Exalting Eros
- Chapter 3 How Should I Live?
- Chapter 4 What Do I Want?
- Chapter 5 Who Am I?
- Bibliography
- Names Index
- Passages Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The first chapter begins the project of weaving together the commentaries of Proclus and Olympiodorus, and argues that both commentators attempt nothing less than a transfiguration of the human soul and its reorientation toward the desiderative longing characteristic of the contemplative life, the consequence of which is their student’s ascent through the hierarchy of virtues that Neoplatonic pedagogy coordinates with the reading of particular Platonic dialogues. The Alcibiades I, with the commentator’s direction, is the doorway through which an initiate must pass, enduring a cleansing that shepherds him toward the sanctum of the real. The Neoplatonic analysis of the dialogue’s thematic structure is also adumbrated: Socrates proposes that Alcibiades change how he lives only to undermine what he wants and finally concludes that Alcibiades is misguided about both because he assumes a mistaken conception of who he is. This progression is itself framed on both sides by eros.
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- Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades ICrafting the Contemplative, pp. 12 - 27Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024