Alcibiades II

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The beginning of Alcibiades II in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript, the Codex Clarkianus written in 895

Alkibiades II ( ancient Greek Ἀλκιβιάδης δεύτερος Alkibiádēs deúteros , German "Second Alkibiades" or "Little Alkibiades", Latin Alcibiades minor ) is an ancient literary dialogue in ancient Greek, which supposedly originates from Plato , but is considered false in research today. The term "second Alcibiades", which was already used in antiquity, serves to distinguish it from Alkibiades I , the "first" or "great" Alkibiades , a possibly authentic dialogue also attributed to Plato.

A fictional conversation between the philosopher Socrates and the still young Alcibiades , who later became famous as a politician and general and was very controversial, is reproduced . The two interlocutors discuss the problem of prayer from a philosophical point of view. The starting point is the question of how to pray properly. Socrates convinces Alcibiades that only he who knows what is good for him can ask something of the gods in a meaningful way. Accordingly, reasonable prayer presupposes philosophical reflection on the good .

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Socrates, the fictional interlocutor of Alcibiades in the dialogue with Alcibiades II . Roman bust, 1st century, Louvre , Paris

The fictional dialogue takes place in Athens . The time at which the author allows the conversation to take place is not apparent from the text. Pericles is mentioned as living, so the summer of the year 429 BC is mentioned. The last possible time.

The young Alcibiades, who is probably still a boy, wants to go to a temple to pray. On the way he meets Socrates, who realizes his intention, because Alcibiades is wearing a wreath and offerings. Socrates approaches him and engages him in a conversation about prayer. It turns out that Alcibiades hadn't given any thought to his plan. Socrates points out that although the gods sometimes grant people what they ask for, the fulfillment of a carelessly expressed wish can later prove to be the cause of serious disaster. As an example, Socrates cites a supplication by the mythical king Oidipus , with which the latter had dire consequences for his sex and his homeland. According to legend, Oidipus cursed his two sons Polynices and Eteocles out of anger and asked the gods to see to it that one day they would share their paternal inheritance with the sword. The request was granted; the power struggle between Polynices and Eteocles led to war, the Seven against Thebes and the two warring brothers fell in a duel, one by the hand of the other. Alcibiades considers the example unsuitable; he objects that Oidipus, when he turned to the gods with the fateful prayer, was insane and that no one in their right mind would ever pray like this. This leads to a discussion about reason (phrónēsis) , unreason and madness . Socrates defines madness as one of the various types of unreason. It differs from the other species only in the special degree of unreason that is given in a madman. Socrates defines as unreasonable those who do not know what to do and what to talk and then make mistakes out of ignorance. They also include those who pray who do not know what is good for them and therefore ask for something that really harms them.

Socrates gives examples of careless wishes. For example, someone strives for a position of power, but when he has achieved it, he falls victim to the pursuit of opponents, is banished or even killed. Another wants children, but when he has them, they turn out to be imprecise or he loses them and then spends the rest of his life in grief. Some curses what they used to passionately desire. As the dialogue progresses, it turns out that knowledge is not necessarily good and that ignorance is not inherently bad. If someone unreasonably plans a harmful act, for example murder, but an error about the local conditions prevents him from carrying out, this error is to be preferred to a correct assessment of the given circumstances.

This leads to the conclusion that knowledge about individual facts usually does more harm than good if it is not connected with the knowledge of what is best. All other knowledge is usually worthless without knowledge of the best, because it alone provides the criterion for a correct differentiation between what is desirable and what is harmful and thus for sensible decisions.

Finally, the discussion leads to the conclusion that one should not ask the gods for the fulfillment of certain wishes if one does not overlook the consequences of what is hoped for. Attempts to make the gods gracious by making sacrifices and to bribe them in this way also prove pointless. Rather, according to Socrates' conviction, an ignorant person should only ask for the good in general. He should not presume to be able to determine what is specifically good for him in individual cases. Alcibiades sees this and decides to postpone his planned prayer and sacrifice; first he wants to receive instruction in order to free himself from his ignorance. Socrates suggests that he himself is the right teacher for this, but Alcibiades does not go into it. After all, in gratitude for Socrates' good advice, Alcibiades puts on the wreath that he wanted to bring to the temple. Socrates, who has a homoerotic affection for the beautiful Alcibiades, gladly accepts the gift.

Author, date of origin and sources

In modern research as early as the 19th century, the conviction that has prevailed since then that Alcibiades II was not written by Plato, but by an unknown writer who imitated the style of Plato's dialogues. Linguistic considerations and literary deficiencies are cited against the authenticity, as well as the fact that the author was based on the model of the dialogue Alkibiades I and took Plato's material from other, certainly real dialogues, although he did not always pay attention to the context.

Who actually wrote the Dialogue Alkibiades II and when this happened cannot be reliably determined. The dating approaches vary between the time of Plato's teaching (around 387 BC to 348/347 BC) and around the middle of the 3rd century BC. It can be assumed that the author belonged to the Platonic Academy . A presumption first expressed by Ernst Bickel in 1904 is that it was probably an academic who lived at the time of the Scholarchen (head of the school) Arkesilaos († 241/240 BC), i.e. in the initial phase of the era of "Arkesilaos" Younger Academy ”. The characteristic of this epoch is academic skepticism , a fundamental doubt about the ability of the mind to produce certain knowledge. The objection to this hypothesis, however, is that the dialogue does not reveal any epistemological skepticism; Although assumed false knowledge is discarded, both participants in the conversation consider reliable knowledge to be achievable in principle.

According to the alternative hypothesis, the author is to be sought among the members of the "Older Academy", although opinions differ on the question of early or late dating. In the opinion of Aldo Magris, the writing falls in the first decades of the 3rd century BC. BC, the time before the Scholarchat of Arkesilaos, which began in 268/264. Magris suspects that Arkesilaos wrote the dialogue himself, but at an early stage of his philosophical development, when he was not yet heading the academy and had not yet developed his later skepticism. Hubertus Neuhausen advocates the late 4th or early 3rd century. Other researchers advocate earlier dating approaches. Holger Thesleff thinks that the work could have been created during Plato's lifetime, but also considers a possible allusion to Alexander the Great , which speaks in favor of Neuhausen's dating. Joachim Dalfen believes that Alcibiades II and other spurious dialogues are works that Plato commissioned his first students to create. With this hypothesis, Dalfen explains the proximity of these works to Plato's early writings and the lack of elements that are typical of the later real dialogues.

The unknown author of Alcibiades II quotes Homer and Euripides . It has been suggested that he reacts to stoic , cynical and peripatetic doctrines and, in particular, received statements by Antisthenes that are unknown today , but this cannot be clearly identified.

reception

The beginning of Alcibiades II in the first edition, Venice 1513

In the tetralogy order , which was probably established in the 1st century BC Was introduced, the Alcibiades II belongs to the fourth tetralogy. The doxographer Diogenes Laertius led the Alcibiades II to among the genuine works of Plato. He counted it to the " Maieutic " dialogues and gave "About prayer" as an alternative title. In doing so, he referred to a now-lost script by the Middle Platonist Thrasyllos . However, there were already doubts about the authenticity of the work in antiquity; in the late 2nd century, Athenaeus reported that "some claimed" that the author was Xenophon . In doing so, Athenaios referred to Nikias von Nikaia, the author of the now lost history of philosophy “The Succession of the Philosophers”.

In the Arabic-speaking world, Alcibiades II was not entirely unknown in the Middle Ages; the philosopher al-Fārābī wrote a paper on the philosophy of Plato in which he gave a brief summary of the outcome of the dialogue.

The handwritten tradition does not begin until the end of the 9th century. The oldest manuscript is the famous Codex Clarkianus , which Arethas of Caesarea had made in 895.

The humanist Marsilio Ficino considered Alcibiades II to be genuine and translated it into Latin. He published the translation in Florence in 1484 in the complete edition of his Latin translations of Plato. The first edition of the Greek text appeared in 1513 by Aldo Manuzio in Venice.

In 1699 André Dacier published a French translation of ten dialogues handed down under Plato's name, including Alcibiades II . Floyer Sydenham published an English translation in 1776. The first translation into German appeared in 1805 in the second volume of the complete translation of Plato by Friedrich Schleiermacher . In Russia, the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev produced a Russian translation, which he published in Moscow in 1899.

In modern research, the Alkibiades II received relatively little attention for a long time; The main focus was on the evidence of inauthenticity and literary inadequacies. In the 21st century, however, interest in the pseudoplatonica (works ascribed to the spurious Plato) has increased, and in 2010 Hubertus Neuhausen published a thorough study of Alcibiades II .

Editions and translations

  • Antonio Carlini (Ed.): Platone: Alcibiade, Alcibiade secondo, Ipparco, Rivali . Boringhieri, Torino 1964, pp. 254–321 (critical edition with Italian translation)
  • Joseph Souilhé (Ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , Vol. 13 Part 2: Dialogues suspects . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1930, pp. 1–42 (critical edition with French translation)
  • Otto Apelt (translator): Plato: Alkibiades I / II . In: Otto Apelt (Ed.): Platon: Complete Dialogues , Vol. 3, Meiner, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7873-1156-4 (translation with introduction and explanations; reprint of the 3rd edition, Leipzig 1937)
  • Franz Susemihl (translator): Alkibiades the second . In: Erich Loewenthal (Ed.): Platon: All works in three volumes , Vol. 2, unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 821-840 (only translation)

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Alcibiades II 143e.
  2. ↑ See on the subject of the legend Karl Kerényi : Die Heroen der Greeks , Zurich 1958, pp. 114f., 315–322.
  3. ↑ Alkibiades II 138a-141d.
  4. ↑ Alkibiades II 141d-144c.
  5. ↑ Alkibiades II 144d-147e.
  6. ↑ For the history of this thought see Aldo Magris: The "Second Alcibiades", a turning point in the history of the Academy . In: Grazer Contributions 18, 1992, pp. 47-64, here: 51f., 55f.
  7. ↑ Alkibiades II 147e-151c.
  8. ↑ One of the few scholars who advocated authenticity is Manfred Forder: Zum Homerischen Margites , Amsterdam 1960, pp. 20-25, especially p. 25 Note 1. For a few other authenticity advocates see Holger Thesleff: Platonic Patterns , Las Vegas 2009, p. 377, note 722.
  9. ↑ Joseph Souilhé (ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes , Vol. 13 Part 2: Dialogues suspects , Paris 1930, pp. 7–9, 13; Aldo Magris: The "Second Alcibiades", a turning point in the history of the Academy . In: Grazer Contributions 18, 1992, pp. 47–64, here: 49f .; Hubertus Neuhausen: The Second Alcibiades. Investigations on a pseudoplatonic dialogue , Berlin 2010, pp. 7-10, compilation of the linguistically conspicuous passages, p. 243; Antonio Carlini: Alcuni dialoghi pseudoplatonici e l'Accademia di Arcesilao . In: Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere, Storia e Filosofia , Volume 2 Vol. 31, 1962, pp. 33-63, here: 46-48; Eugen Dönt : The position of the excursions in the pseudo-Platonic dialogues . In: Wiener Studien 76, 1963, pp. 27–51, here: 36–38. On the linguistic aspect, see Gerard R. Ledger: Re-counting Plato. A Computer Analysis of Plato's Style , Oxford 1989, pp. 167f.
  10. ↑ Ernst Bickel: A dialogue from the academy of Arkesilas . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 17, 1904, pp. 460–479, here: 472–474. In later research, Bickel's opinion found a proponent in Antonio Carlini: Alcuni dialoghi pseudoplatonici e l'Accademia di Arcesilao . In: Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere, Storia e Filosofia , Volume 2 Vol. 31, 1962, pp. 33-63, here: 54f., 62.
  11. ↑ Aldo Magris: The "Second Alcibiades", a turning point in the history of the Academy . In: Grazer Contributions 18, 1992, pp. 47–64, here: 47–49, 63; Hubertus Neuhausen: The Second Alcibiades. Studies on a pseudo-Platonic dialogue , Berlin 2010, pp. 240f.
  12. ↑ Aldo Magris: The "Second Alcibiades", a turning point in the history of the Academy . In: Grazer contributions 18, 1992, pp. 47–64, here: 58–64.
  13. ^ Hubertus Neuhausen: The second Alcibiades. Studies on a pseudoplatonic dialogue , Berlin 2010, pp. 5–7, 240–242. Joseph Souilhé (ed.) Thinks similarly: Plato: Œuvres complètes , Vol. 13 Part 2: Dialogues suspects , Paris 1930, pp. 13, 17f.
  14. ↑ Holger Thesleff: Platonic Patterns , Las Vegas 2009, p. 13, note 24 and p. 377f.
  15. ↑ Joachim Dalfen: Observations and thoughts on the (pseudo) Platonic Minos and other spuria . In: Klaus Döring , Michael Erler, Stefan Schorn (eds.): Pseudoplatonica , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 51–67; Joachim Dalfen: Plato: Minos , Göttingen 2009, pp. 29–67.
  16. ↑ Hubertus Neuhausen suspects intense antisthenes reception and an antistoic and anti-peripatetic thrust: The Second Alcibiades. Studies on a pseudo-Platonic dialogue , Berlin 2010, pp. 3–6, 27–30, 41, 56–61, 117–127, 220–238, 241f. Michael Erler, on the other hand, is cautious: Platon , Basel 2007, p. 294. See Joseph Souilhé (ed.): Platon: Œuvres complètes , vol. 13 part 2: Dialogues suspects , Paris 1930, p. 10f. and Antonio Carlini: Alcuni dialoghi pseudoplatonici e l'Accademia di Arcesilao . In: Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere, Storia e Filosofia , Volume 2 Vol. 31, 1962, pp. 33-63, here: 52-54.
  17. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3:59.
  18. ↑ Athenaios 506c.
  19. ↑ Muhsin Mahdi : Alfarabi: Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle , 2nd edition, Ithaca 2001, p. 58 (English translation of al-Fārābī's work).
  20. ^ Jacob A. Howland: Socrates and Alcibiades: Eros, Piety, and Politics . In: Interpretation 18/1, 1990, pp. 63-90, here: 63f. Howland objects to what he considers to be too unfavorable an assessment of the philosophical content.
  21. ^ Hubertus Neuhausen: The second Alcibiades. Investigations into a pseudo-Platonic dialogue , Berlin 2010.
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 2, 2013 in this version .