ABOUT THIS BOOKProviding a challenging new interpretation of the Second Alcibiades from the Platonic corpus, this treatment sees the dialogue not only as a work of philosophic ethics, but also as one steeped in ancient literature, particularly Euripidean tragedy. The dialogue’s philosophy is underpinned by an epistemology paying special attention to one’s personal viewpoint, as its language shows. Dramatically, it presents a Socrates who falls into a similar trap from the one he steers Alcibiades away from, facing the dangers of a tragic character thanks to their mutual attraction. Understood in this way the dialogue, here retranslated to bring out such features, is revealed as the work of an author with linguistic and literary gifts who is deeply conscious of the human condition. While reminiscent of the Academic Skeptic picture of Plato, it is the work of somebody still moving cautiously in that direction.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYHarold Tarrant is Emeritus Professor of Classics and former Head of the School of Liberal Arts at the University of Newcastle (UON), Australia. He was born in the UK, and studied at Cambridge University and Durham University, specializing in ancient philosophy. After a brief appointment at Manchester University, he became lecturer in Greek at the University of Sydney, from which he took up the Chair of Classics at UON in 1993. He retired in 2011, and now lives in rural Cambridgeshire, continuing to publish extensively on Platonism and related matters.