Analysis of the demonstration of philosophy in Platos Alcibiades Essay

Analysis of the demonstration of philosophy in Platos Alcibiades - Essay Example The dialogue provides the reader with an insight to the truth of ethics. The dialogue serves as the best means of discussion about such an abstract term as â€Å"ethics†, because the reader gains the most rational understanding of ethics based on his/her personal analysis of each and every aspect of the whole dialogue instead of the author convincing the audience by imposing his/her beliefs on it through the text. The articles presents a dialogue between Alcibiades, a young and energetic man, and Socrates who astonishes Acibiades by making him contradict his own beliefs, based upon which, Alcibiades was all set to guide the Athenians. Socrates expresses his lack of faith in Alcibiades’ premature assertions, realizing which Alcibiades makes an attempt to address the query of Socrates. Socrates first makes Alcibiades think of the division between just and unjust, and then between just and expedient. Alcibiades feels very confident in his concepts of these terms but looses his confidence as Socrates plays with words to turn the meanings opposite. This leads both of them to an argument in which Socrates confuses Alcibiades with concepts, beliefs and experiences in such a way that Alcibiades feels like loosing his argument to Socrates in the end, and makes a confession that he knows too little to influence the Athenians, and chooses Socrates as his â€Å"master†. An in-depth analysis of the dialogue suggests that Socrates’s arguments were too generic and often misleading, though Alcibiades did not realize it in the heat of discussion. Socrates’s arguments reflect idealism. He tends to draw conclusions by slithering the concepts through such paths which were full of pitfalls.