La ‘desiderabilità’ del bene in un passo problematico dell’Alcibiade I (115a-116b)

Abstract

The ‘desirable’ good in a problematic passage of the First Alcibiades (115a-116b)

This passage of the First Alcibiades is today often criticized as logically inconsistent and maybe not Platonic (along with the entire dialogue). Here Socrates proposes to identify the right (dìkaion) and the good (agathòn), progressing from an examination of what is honourable or admirable (kalòn). Definitely he advances a new notion of the good, based on what the moral subject may desire and welcome (dèchesthai), to the point that he declares he could not live without it. This notion of the good is applied to those acts – as helping friends in danger – that not only, as useful to others, are commonly thought as kalà, but, in this new vision, can make good (apergàzesthai) the subject’s soul itself. Moreover these acts, because they satisfy a person’s deep and authentic desire, really gound that person’s eudaimonìa. The passage not only seems strictly consistent, but various analogies and confirmations of its arguments can be found in other Platonic texts (Symposium, Republic and particularly Gorgias).