Socrates' Daimonic Art Love for Wisdom in Four Platonic Dialogues [Paperback]

A new approach to Plato's characterization of Socrates, through analysis of er?s and philosophy in four dialogues on love and friendship.This book presents a new approach to Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and Alcibiades I. It focuses on the 'erotic art' the philosopher uses to search for wisdom together with his young interlocutors. The book is addressed to specialists and students in classics and philosophy, and is accessible to all serious readers.This book presents a new approach to Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and Alcibiades I. It focuses on the 'erotic art' the philosopher uses to search for wisdom together with his young interlocutors. The book is addressed to specialists and students in classics and philosophy, and is accessible to all serious readers.Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of er?s. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.Introduction: overview of the Erotic Dialogues; Part I. Socrates and Two Young Men: 1. 'Your love and mine': Eros and self-knowledge in Alcibiades I; 2. 'In love with acquiring friends': Socrates in thel³W