Gifted words: the sense of audition in the dialogical erotics in Plato’s Alcibiades I
Keywords:
eroticism, discourse, Alcibiades, PlatoAbstract
This study investigates the relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades in the dialogue First Alcibiades, with an emphasis on the articulation between desire and philosophy. The analysis focuses on the erotic performance that structures Socratic dialogue, especially in the roles of questioner (ὁ ἐρωτῶν) and respondent (ὁ ἀποκρινόμενος), which operate as dramatic gears of dialogue. It is argued that Socrates mobilizes a discursive topos of an erotic nature, through which he leads his interlocutors to self-examination and philosophical reflection. The dynamic between erastés and erómenos is understood as a pedagogical device that tensions body and soul, desire and reason, revealing a philosophical mode of expression that is constructed at the intersection between eroticism and dialogue. The work thus proposes that Socratic discourse in the First Alcibiades is inseparable from the affective dimension that permeates philosophical exercise.
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