the object before us to the form and decide that it is a chair.There is likewise a "form" for everything we can know. What, for Socrates, are the most important things in life?Plato was not the last thinker to suggest that this world must be "used" in order to gain entry to higher truths orexperiences. What does he say is the "use" of this world? What do you think Plato means by "divine beauty"? By "reality" (orrealities, top of p. 34), Plato means "real virtue": "for he has hold not of an image but of a real virtue, and bringing forth andrearing true virtue, he will become the friend of God..."So Socrates claims that all this wonderful stuff he has so glowingly described contains none of his own ideas--yet anotherway in which Plato distances us from the subject, obfuscates (look it up) once again. He's a slippery one--why? That does n otseem to be the way the people around him "hear" what he has to say. Apollodorus presents Socrates as the hero of thepiece, surely. What are we supposed to think?Plato plays Columbo in more ways than one. You'd think the dialogue would end here, but, no, a drunk stumbles in (a perfectColumbo move), supposedly disrupting the whole evening, with its high-toned discussion, only to add something further to thewhole discourse (look it up) on love--something very down to earth. Who is Alcibiades? He claims he is "speaking the truth";that should pique your interest.Now, you'd think that someone like Socrates might be a lover of someone like Alcibiades, but no, quite the opposite--and thedrunkard (in vino veritas--there is truth in wine) describes the philosopher as "the fairest of the company," though by allaccoun ts Socrates was anything but handsome. Enjoy Socrates' dry sense of humor. He has his tongue in his cheek most ofthe time. Having spoken so deprecatingly of himself up to now, here he acts as if he knows he is extremely (physically)desirable. Why do es Alcibiades call him "this universal despot"?OK, g...
