The Paradox of Socrates

One of the over arching themes of the Alcibiades is the idea of just and unjust, and how we come to form a true conception or genuine knowledge based on two seemingly subjective abstract notions. This raises the question of how we learn to interact with and form judgments based on vague understandings of universal concepts. The other as that which we learn through seems to be one of the follies of ignorance and a main point Socrates exposes to Alcibiades. The concept obfuscated by Socrates' persistent question brings about an introspection and ultimately persuasion to re appropriate ones philosophy. I got the impression that Socrates truly believed in transcendental norms that apply to ideas such as just and unjust, but in his questioning he also demonstrates the elusive nature of these ides. A unified sense of being instead of a contradictory hypothesis of multiplicity is at the core of Zeno's paradoxes to prove Parmenides' idea of Being as One, this view still functioning as a key idea in contemporary views such as Heidegger's ontological approach to b/Being.

Zeno's paradox of Achillies and the Tortoise is an analogy that fits perfectly within the Alcibiades. It seems that both Socrates and Zeno enjoy playing with purely logical reason that disagrees with our most immediate experiences of objects around us. In Zeno's paradox he presents us with a subject object relationship which we all experience through goals, desires, and various drives. When you begin to learn an instrument you typically have the drive to learn more, or maybe you just quit, but once the drive to get better becomes normative, the object of our desire is something that we continually approach yet is also always at a distance--you can always get better or learn more. The aim of attaining knowledge of just and unjust combined with the goal of understanding coordinates our search for knowledge. The aim is the thing we intend to do or path while the goal is the destination. I interpreted Socrates' questions as to what is just and unjust as a way to show that the way we follow our path to attain knowledge and the judgments we hold during our aim is that thing that truly generates knowledge. The aim itself becomes the goal for those striving for knowledge, but if we live through the other, which may or may not engender ignorance, the subject will experience the same fate as Achilles trying to acquire the Tortoise. The nature of knowledge can be interpreted as a constant movement along this perpetual aim/goal loop.





Random Thought: Zeno's paradox is meant to be known as "impossible" but its possibility is realized in fantasy space. Branches of psychoanalysis give rise to understanding our learned desires through our fantasies, which we can trace back to Zeno and Socrates.