Plato's Socrates as Educator

Gary Alan Scott is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Peter's College.

• AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction 1. Socrates and Teaching 1.a. Why Socrates Denies Being a Teacher1.b. Conventional Athenian Assumptions about Teachers and Teaching1.c. Socrates as Student: The Contrast between a Market and a Gift Economy1.d. The Meaning of "Teaching" in the Gorgias: "Additive" versus "Integrative" Models1.e. Conclusion: The Socratic Paideusis 2. The Lysis: Limits and Liberation in Socrates' Encounter with Lysis 2.a. The Threshold Imagery in the Dramatic Setting and Prologue (203a1–206e2)2.b. Socrates' First Conversation with Lysis (206e3–211b5) 2.b.1. Step One—The Unsettling: Disturbing What Is Familiar2.b.2. Step Two—The Arousal: Fanning the Flames of Desire2.b.3. Step Three—The Chastening: Reimposing Limits 2.c. Conclusion: The Positive Results of the Lysis 3. The Alcibiades I: Socratic Dialogue as Self-Care 3.a. Disarming Alcibiades: The Preliminary Contest3.b. Introduction to the Problem of Taking Trouble over Oneself3.c. The Meaning of Taking Trouble over Oneself3.d. Practices for "Taking Trouble": Gumnastike and Mathesis 3.d.1. Gumnastike and Dialogue3.d.2. Learning What Needs to Be Learned 3.e. Conclusion: The Ominous End of the Alcibiades I 4. The Symposium: Eros, Truth Telling, and the Preservation of Freedom 4.a. Alcibiades' Motive in the Algon with Socrates4.b. Alcibiades' Attempt to Dominate Socrates 4.b.1. Eros and Thumos4.b.2. The Vindication of Socrates' Approach to Others 4.c. Irony and Inebriation: Two Ways of Telling the Truth 4.c.1. Six Points of Emphasis in Alcibiades' Speech4.c.2. Inebriation and Parrhêsia in Truth Telling 4.d. Conclusion: Adjudicating the Agon over Truth Telling 5. Dramatic Failure and the Gift in Socratic Paideusis NotesSelected BibliographyIndex

"This book is exceptionally important and useful. It combines three things usually found separately (if at all): sensitivity to the dialogues as integrities of drama and argument; a clear philosophical understanding of the issues relating to human freedom; and a thorough appreciation of the complexity and subtlety of Socrates as an educator. The discussions work together thematically, and are also interesting just as interpretations of the three dialogues. The book is an exceptionally important and useful work." — W. Thomas Schmid, author of Plato's Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality