As the youngest work in the Platonic corpus, the Axiochus interacts with other texts in the corpus as well as with its contemporary philosophical milieu. How it does so, however, and what the purpose of the work is, is still unclear. This paper proposes a new theoretical approach to this text, arguing that the Axiochus anchors a number of innovations. It discusses three innovations in particular: the introduction of philosophical therapy in Platonism, the use of Epicurean arguments in Academic philosophy, (...) and a renovated Platonism on the contemporary philosophical scene. The Axiochus aims, so this paper argues, to make these innovations acceptable to different audiences by anchoring them in the Socratic dialogue and the therapeutic paradigm of philosophy, respectively. (shrink)

In the Platonic Alcibiades, Socrates raises two central philosophical questions: Who are we? and: How ought we to take care of ourselves? He answers these questions, I argue, in his famous comparison between eyes and souls. Both answers hinge upon dialectic: self-care functions through dialectic because we are communicating beings. I adduce arguments for this from the set-up and language of the comparison passage. Another important indication is that Socrates expressly refers back to an earlier, aborted attempt to describe who (...) we are in terms of using discourse. Rather than recommending to Alcibiades a life of contemplation apart from interpersonal exchange, Socrates presents such exchange as central to our self-improvement and identity. (shrink)

The Socrates of the dialogue Axiochus seems to advance incompatible arguments in his attempt to cure Axiochus of his fear of death. Is this incompatibility a foreseen and accepted consequence of the author’s therapeutic strategy? This paper argues that it is rather an intended and functional inconsistency: it serves to stimulate critical thinking in order to anchor philosophical conviction more deeply in the reader’s soul. The paper musters support for this reading by drawing attention to the different levels of inconsistency (...) in the dialogue; the multiple ways in which the text thematizes inconsistency; the importance of exercising judgement in the text; and the motivating concern of superficial persuasion. (shrink)

In this article I engage with Foucault’s reading of the Platonic dialogue Alcibiades in his Hermeneutics of the Subject, developing his view that this text offers a model of the self-constitution of the subject. Foucault’s reading is part of his larger aim to find alternative conceptualizations of subjectivity besides the Cartesian ones that he thinks have dominated modern thought. His reading has been contested; but I argue that the Alcibiades does indeed develop a notion of subjectivity as reflexive and self-constituting. (...) Moreover, two aspects of the text that Foucault misrepresents make even clearer the distance of its notion of subjecthood from a Cartesian view. First, the reflexive subject of the Alcibiades, though viewed as essentially intellectual, is the result of an ascetic practice of self-constitution. Second, this practice is essentially interpersonal, operating through reciprocal and equal dialectic. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Philologus Jahrgang: 160 Heft: 2 Seiten: 360-365.

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

This is the first collected volume dedicated to Olympiodorus of Alexandria, the last pagan Platonic philosopher at the end of antiquity.