Lampe 2010

“Socratic Therapy” from Aeschines of Sphettus to Lacan
Author(s): Kurt Lampe

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Classical Antiquity, Vol. 29, No. 2 (October 2010), pp. 181-221
Published by: University of California Press
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KURT LAMPE
“Socratic Therapy” from Aeschines of

Sphettus to Lacan
Recent research on “psychotherapy” in Greek philosophy has not been fully integrated into
thinking about philosophy as a way of life molded by personal relationships. This article
focuses on how the enigma of Socratic eros sustains a network of thought experiments in the
fourth century BCE about interpersonal dynamics and psychical transformation. It supplements
existing work on Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus with comparative material from Aeschines
of Sphettus, Xenophon, and the dubiously Platonic Alcibiades I and Theages. In order to select
and illuminate commonalities among all of these, it also draws critically upon Jacques Lacan’s
psychoanalytic technique and his numerous comparisons between Socrates and psychoanalysts.
What emerges is a more complex and qualified but no less sincere appreciation for the ideal
of reflective, cooperative aspiration toward Beauty portrayed in Plato’s dialogues.
It is widely acknowledged that among the principal goals of Socrates and

his followers was not only to understand virtue and knowledge, but also to
develop these ideals in auditors and readers. Socratic “philosophizing” hence
comprehended both the ideas generated by their conversations as theoretical
investigations and the transformations of character targeted by the same as
interpersonal activities. The focus of this article will be on one particular aspect of
the latter process, namely the interpersonal dynamic created by Socrates’ “erotic”
self-representation. In exploring this dynamic, I will draw upon a range of texts
from Xenophon, Aeschines of Sphettus, and dialogues ascribed—with various
degrees of confidence—to Plato. I will also be making frequent reference to
psychoanalytic literature on clinical practice. My aim in using these parallels
I would like to thank my colleagues in both classics and philosophy at the University of Bristol
for their constructive criticism of the talk out of which this paper arose, as well as the anonymous
referees and editor at Classical Antiquity, whose feedback has been instrumental in (re-)formulating
my conclusions.
Classical Antiquity. Vol. 29, Issue 2, pp. 181–221. ISSN 0278-6656(p); 1067-8344 (e).
Copyright © 2010 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please
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DOI:10.1525/CA.2010.29.2.181.
182 classical antiquity Volume 29 / No. 2 / October 2010
from psychoanalytic “talk therapy” is to highlight how Socratic authors think

through the transformative potentials and problems of Socratic eros not only with
their arguments and myths, but also in their dramatization of his conversations.
P1 I should clarify immediately that I do not presume that the texts in question
simply record the behavior and motivations of the Real Historical Socrates.
Although the significant convergence among these Socratic authors gives us some
reason to suppose that there is a substantial element of historical truth here,1 the
growth of the Socratic legend even in the generation after his death means that
some of this convergence could be an artifact of literary history.2 Moreover, the
Socratic authors were all deeply invested in the depiction of his character, so
that no rigid line can be drawn between “authentic” recollections and “distorted,
manipulative” re-workings of the original.3 For these reasons, I will stipulate
that what I am investigating is not how Socrates really behaved, but a network
of thought experiments in Socratic literature inspired by how Socrates behaved.
Besides liberating my inquiry from the perennial and intractable debates about
the historical Socrates, this approach will also make the authorship of the Platonic
Alcibiades I and Theages less pressing, since I consider them as part of an ongoing
meditation on eros and the production of character among fourth-century Socratics
rather than as first-hand reports about Socrates. 4
I should also add a word about the inspiration for my application of modern
psychotherapy to ancient ethics. The book-length treatments of Nussbaum and
Sorabji have brought the question of “therapy” into the mainstream for studies
of Hellenistic philosophy, and in asking how the “ancient exercises” operate, they
have also sparked debate about the relations between these exercises and modern
therapeutic models.5 In his response to Sorabji (1997), Williams objects that
Freudian psychoanalysis differs from Stoic psychotherapy, the most thoroughly
documented and studied of the ancient models, in a crucial respect: in psycho-
1. See Vlastos 1991: 45–106 regarding the convergence between the Socrates of Plato’s “early”
dialogues and the figure we find in other sources, and Döring 1984: 26–30 regarding Aeschines’
Socrates.
2. See Gigon 1947: 179–207; Montuori 1981: 42–53; Döring 1979: 1–17; Kahn 1990: 294–95
and passim.
3. A telling example of his followers’ investment in the question “What would Socrates do?”
is Aristotle’s discussion of argumenta ad auctoritatem (Rhet. 1398b29–31): “When Plato, as he
thought, had said something rather peremptory, Aristippus replied, ‘Well, our friend never <said>
anything like this,’ meaning Socrates.”
4. For an interpretation of these dialogues tightly integrated with a reconstruction of teaching
practices in the Old Academy, see Tarrant 2005 (who concludes by athetizing both them and the
midwifery passage of the Theaetetus). Regarding the debate over Alcibiades I (which I henceforth
cite simply as Alc., since I never cite Alc. II), see Denyer 2001: 14–26, who cautiously assigns it
to Plato. On Theages, see Cobb 1992, Joyal 2000: 121–56, and Bailly 2004: 49–71.
5. Nussbaum 1994 and Sorabji 2000. Important predecessors to these works include Pigeaud
1981, Gill 1985, and Hadot 1995 (original published in 1981). Foucault’s lectures from 1981–1982
also touch upon many of these themes, though they were only published in French in 2001 and in
English in 2005.
lampe: “Socratic Therapy” from Aeschines of Sphettus to Lacan 183
analysis, “it is not just the content of the helper’s help that does the work, but
one’s relation to the helper.”6 Sorabji is quick to acknowledge this distinction and
the consequent incapacity of ancient therapies to treat what we today would call
“mental disease.”7 The rigidity of this distinction is an important backdrop for my
investigation; without claiming that Chrysippus could have treated Dora or the Rat
Man, I propose that ancient philosophers were more aware of the importance of
pedagogical relationships than we have often acknowledged.8 I hope eventually
to explore this awareness in Hellenistic and Roman philosophy. It seems best,
however, to begin with Socrates, first because of the literature already existing on
his “anticipations” of psychoanalysis, and second because of later philosophers’
sustained and ambivalent interest in his “erotic” relationships.9
Since the breadth of ancient and modern works I will be using raises method-
ological questions I must address, and my argument about patterns in these works
is fairly complex, I have broken this article into the following sections. I begin by
defining more carefully just which aspects of the dialogues of Plato, Xenophon,
and Aeschines I will and will not be addressing (section 1). I then outline my
rationale in borrowing from modern theorists of clinical practice (Sigmund Freud
and Jacques Lacan, section 2). Here I indicate in brief how Lacan relates to
Freud and how they believe therapeutic progress occurs (i.e., what happens in the
psyche). This section concludes by anticipating how psychoanalytic theories of
therapeutic progress will illuminate the Socratic evidence in the rest of the article.
Sections 3 through 6 then work through that evidence more or less systematically,
carrying through the plan announced in this anticipatory survey. In section 7,
the conclusion, I take stock of the powers and limitations of Socrates’ erotic
relationships as vehicles for ethical therapy.
1. SOCRATES’ THERAPEUTIC EROS: DEFINING THE EXPLANANDUM
The Socratic authors themselves not only immortalized their master’s erotic
behavior in dramatic dialogues, they also put forward diverse theories of what
eros is and how it contributes to ethical progress. The Platonic corpus alone
provides at least three substantial, and substantially different, accounts of eros.
6. 1997: 212.
7. 2000: 212.
8. One text whose interpersonal dynamics have already received attention is Philodemus’
On Frank Criticism, discussed by Foucault 2005: 387–91, Nussbaum 1994: 134–36, and most
penetratingly now by Tsouna 2007: 91–118. The interpersonal dynamics of Socratic philosophizing
have also been touched upon by a number of authors who appear throughout the footnotes to this
article, none of whom, however, has drawn on the full range of fourth-century Socratics (Morrison
1994 comes closest).
9. One extreme is represented by the Epicureans: “They don’t think the wise man will be erotic
. . . nor that eros is sent from the gods” (D.L. 10.118). The denial that eros is theopemptos recalls
Plato’s Phaedrus: “eros is sent (epipempetai) to the lover and the beloved from the gods” (245b6).
On the Stoics’ treatment of eros, see below n.35.
First, there is the Symposium’s speculative ascent from the beautiful beloved
toward Beauty Itself, in the presence of which the “pregnant” lover procreates
virtue and other aspects of Goodness (199c2–212c3). Second is the Phaedrus’s
divine madness, in which the beloved’s beauty reminds the lover of Beauty Itself,
and incites him to refashion both himself and the beloved in the (virtuous) image
of whatever deity he followed before incarnation (243e9–257b6). And third, in
the Alcibiades, is the beloved’s recognition in the lover’s soul, which he uses like
a mirror, of those aspects of himself which he ought most to identify with and
nourish (132d1–135e8). The “theories” of Xenophon and Aeschines, to whatever
extent they can be gathered and codified from diffuse or fragmentary evidence,
are different yet again. To deal with each of these systematically is obviously
beyond the scope of my project. Much less will I be concerned to account for how
these relate to the key ethical, epistemological, or metaphysical theories attributed
to each of these philosophers. My focus will rather be on what Socrates says to
young men, how they react both emotionally and practically to his words, and how
these interactions as a whole contribute to transformations of character. In other
words, I am primarily interested in narrative drama rather than argumentation,
and in praxis rather than psychological theory. But this is certainly not to say
that I will neglect the theories; selective reference to them will complement and
help to orient my attention to the dramatic action.
The next task, then, is to stipulate which dramatic patterns will come under
investigation. Socratic authors portray their subject in a range of “therapeutic”
scenarios. The scenarios that interest me involve Socrates conversing, often after
carefully scripted romantic overtures, with beautiful young men. In most cases
the beauty in question is external, but marks the potential for tremendous inner
beauty. The pertinent features of Socrates’ behavior include (a) the implication,
and often avowal, that he is in love, (b) the implication or open promise that
he can, through his unusual sort of love, benefit his interlocutor, and (c) the
communication that his interlocutor will have to work with him, to give as well as
take, in order to benefit from their interaction. This third feature is represented
both by the strange “purity” of Socrates’ eros, which frustrates the expectations of
his ostensible “beloveds,” and by his disavowal of knowledge.
One important text that attributes to Socrates a therapeutic method, but which
does not precisely fit these parameters, is Plato’s Theaetetus (148e6–151d6).
Here Socrates represents himself not as a lover, but as a “midwife.” Although
he himself is without wisdom, he explains, he has the ability to see when someone
is “pregnant” with mental “offspring,” to induce “labor pains,” and to decide
whether to keep or expose the “baby.”10 These “labor pains” and “pregnancy” are
certainly compatible with an erotic ambience, as we see in Plato’s Symposium
(208e1–209a4). In the Theaetetus, however, the atmosphere is more paternal than
erotic. In the introductory narrative that frames the dialogue, which is recounted
10. On infant exposure at Athens and its relevance to this passage, see Golden 1981: 316.
after Socrates’ death and as Theaetetus lies dying,11 Euclid recalls that Socrates
had “admired <Theaetetus’> nature” (142c7–8). Within the dialogue, Theodorus
goes out of his way to say that no one would consider the boy an object of desire
(epithumia, 143e7). “In fact,” he tells Socrates, “he’s like you, with his pug
nose and bulging eyes” (143e8–9). The boy is more like Socrates’ son than his
potential lover, both in his physical ugliness and in his amazing mental acumen
(144a1–3). These metaphors (midwifery and paternity) both establish important
relationships, but neither creates erotic tension.
Because of this difference in the self-representation of Socrates vis-à-vis his
interlocutor, which will turn out to be of therapeutic importance, I will not deal
with the “midwifery” model in any detail in this article. Whether it represents
Plato’s own imaginative tribute to Socrates, as Sedley cogently argues,12 or
one of the roles that the historical Socrates occasionally played, as others have
maintained,13 is immaterial for my purposes. The coherence of the erotic model is
not diminished by Plato’s portrayal of an alternate way of thinking about Socrates’
effect on his young friends. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that it partly meets
the criteria I established above: Socrates emphatically asserts that although he
lacks knowledge (150c4-d7 = c above), his continued involvement is essential
for the betterment of those who associate with him (150d8–151a1 = b above).
2. THERAPEUTIC ‘‘EROS’’ IN LACAN: THE COMPARATIVE MODEL
I draw upon psychoanalytic theorists in this article because they have pro-
duced what are arguably the most sophisticated and well-known models of talk-
therapy praxis available, particularly with regard to the manipulation of emo-
tions. There is also an established tradition of relating Platonic theories of eros to
Freudian theories of sexuality, beginning with Freud himself.14 But Freud limited
the comparison to psychological theory rather than clinical practice. The psycho-
analyst who has spoken most voluminously about Socrates’ behavior is Jacques
Lacan,15 who refers frequently to Socrates throughout his seminars and published
Écrits, and devotes much of his eighth seminar to a reading of Plato’s Symposium
(Lacan 1991). A secondary aim of this article is to contribute to existing eval-
11. From wounds and dysentery, probably in 392/1 BCE. See Nails 2002, s.v. “Theaetetus.”
12. 2004: 8–13.
13. E.g., Tomin 1987.
14. Freud compared his theorization of sexuality to Platonic eros at SE 7: 134, SE 18: 57–58 and
90–91, SE 19: 218, and SE 21: 210. These references are given by Santas 1988: 154–55, whose
book systematically compares Freud’s and Plato’s theories of love. See also Gould 1963—whose
analysis is marred by his decision to ignore psychoanalysts other than Freud (p. 14)—and Lear 2005:
82–87.
15. But see also the important work of Lear 1999: 148–66 and 2006, who is both an academic
and a practicing psychoanalyst. Lear’s interpretations differ from mine in that they are based rather
on Freud than Lacan and focus on Plato alone rather than fourth-century Socratic literature more
broadly.
uations of Lacan’s use of Socrates,16 but I do not pursue this aim with a systematic
reading of any Lacanian text. One reason for this is that Lacan explicitly refuses to
occupy the “discursive position” of a philosopher, with the result that his texts are
famously elliptical, enigmatic, and polysemous.17 I will therefore be presenting a
streamlined version of Lacanian thought, which—in keeping with normal practice
among Lacanian exegetes—I will supplement with more immediately intelligi-
ble quotations from Freud. These Freudian references are limited to points of
overlap between Lacan and the founder of psychoanalysis,18 and mostly derive
from Freud’s “papers on technique” (esp. SE 12: 75–183). The other rationale
behind my handling of Lacan is that I wish to keep the primary focus on the
Socratic authors, whose ways of articulating and dramatizing these issues must
not be reduced to partial approximations to later psychoanalytic insight. So the
test of Lacan’s interpretation will be how much light it sheds on these texts in
all their richness and complexity.
Before bringing Lacan’s thought to bear on those texts, it will be helpful
to summarize how he thinks talk therapy can help an analysand. Lacan devoted
much of his career to refining the psychoanalytic understanding of the conscious
and unconscious psyche, and his ideas can only loosely be mapped onto the
Freudian ego-id-superego triad.19 It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide
even an overview of the linguistic models, quasi-mathematical algorithms, and
topological metaphors through which Lacan grappled with these questions.20
For our purposes, it suffices to say that the “normal”21 Lacanian subject, like
the Freudian, establishes the coordinates for desire and satisfaction during the
resolution of the “Oedipal complex.” Prior to this resolution, he22 still yearns to
attain a mythical state of complete fulfillment in return for satisfying the desires of
the maternal figure or (m)Other.23 His unarticulated wish is that this figure should
16. See Chiesa 2006, Buchan 2006, and Miller 2007: 100–32.
17. On “the four discourses” see Lacan 2007 with Fink 1995: 129–37.
18. Rabaté 2003 provides a sophisticated introduction to the question of Lacan’s fidelity to
Freud.
19. For this triad as it appeared in Freud’s later thinking, see Lecture XXXI of the New
Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (SE 22: 57–80). Cf. Lear 2005: 165–91.
20. The best English-language treatment of Lacanian subjectivity remains Fink 1995, although
Chiesa 2007 is better for detailing the development of Lacan’s thought. For concise treatments,
see Nobus 2003 and Zizek 1989: 87–129. Lacan’s own discussions tend to be neither systematic
nor comprehensible to those uninitiated into Lacanese, but key readings include Seminar XI (Lacan
1977) and especially “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian
Unconscious” (Lacan 2006: 671–702).
21. “Normality” is a problematic notion in psychoanalysis. The outline I provide here applies to
those Lacanians call “neurotics,” which is the class into which most (colloquially speaking) “normal”
people fall.
22. Because all of the individuals involved in Socratic literature are “inscribed” in what Lacan
might call the male “position” or “structure” (see Lacan 1998: 71–81 with Fink 1995: 98–125), I will
concentrate here on the Oedipal complex as it occurs in this gender.
23. The spelling “(m)Other” emphasizes that the Other encountered in adult life will stand in for
the maternal figure, from whom the subject sought satisfaction as a child. The maternal figure does
both satisfy his physiological needs and urges and respond to his inarticulate
demands with unlimited love. The Oedipal complex is gradually resolved as the
subject, acknowledging the paternal figure’s influence over the (m)Other’s desire,
identifies with the symbolic code he grasps through the paternal figure’s behavior.
This is called “castration”: in exchange for giving up the hope for complete
fulfillment, he gains access to compensatory modes of gratification. He will
now desire to live according to the “symbolic” (socially mediated, linguistically
conceptualized) code. In this way he recuperates his pre-Oedipal demand for
love, which he now seeks to earn by identification with norms associated with
his father, school, religion, political institutions, etc. But these socialized desires
do not replace his yearning for complete satisfaction; he now comes to associate
that mythical state with some “traumatic” scene of excitement from before the
resolution of his Oedipal complex, which he is compelled to reenact through
his “fundamental fantasy.” The fantasy is a particular, idiosyncratic scenario for
captivating the desire of the Other and thus receiving complete satisfaction from
him or her.24 It invests a series of circumstantial triggers with libidinal energy,
which Lacan calls objets a. The drives (oral, anal, scopic, etc.) come into play
during encounters with these objets a, creating painfully intense excitement and
satisfaction—reminders of the aforesaid mythical satisfaction—that Lacan calls
jouissance. The subject’s “fantasies” ramify from this intense core throughout his
patterns of thinking and acting.25
Now, the important point for the purposes of this article is that neither the
subject’s “symbolic” values nor his “fundamental fantasy” are entirely transparent
to consciousness and capable of alteration. The symbolic values are available for
critique only down to a certain level, because the foundations on which they
rest are determined by commitments established during the resolution of the
Oedipal complex, which make the subject who he (consciously thinks he) is.26
The subject’s fantasies may or may not line up with his consciously maintained
symbolic identifications. Where they do, the subject will feel inclined to do
and will enjoy doing more or less what he consciously desires to do and val-
not need to be the biological mother or even of female sex, nor does the paternal figure need to be the
father or even a biological male.
24. Fink 1997: 56 provides a (simplified) example: “If, at the most profound level, a woman’s
desire comes into being because a man looks at her in a particularly impertinent way, her fantasy
depicts her being looked at in that way; it brings together in one and the same scene the look and
herself (being provocative, perhaps, or passively inert).”
25. Among the most prominent complications I have elided in this “streamlined” presentation of
Lacanian thought are the different psychical configurations (obsessional, hysteric, etc.), the different
stages of Oedipal resolution, the three Lacanian “orders” (Imaginary, Symbolic, Real), and the
substantial development Lacan’s thought underwent during his career.
26. At issue here is the proto-subject’s anchorage in language through a series of “Master-
Signifiers.” Without points of anchorage, the subject can still manipulate and understand words,
but they have no readily comprehensible implications for him; in short, he is “psychotic.” See Lacan
2006: 445–88 with Fink 1995: 55–58 and 74–76, 1997: 86–94, and Chiesa 2007: 107–25.
ues doing.27 Where they do not, there will be unsettling disjunctions among
inclination, enjoyment, desire, and valuation. For example, the subject may
have no idea why he compulsively steers his relationships back to certain, of-
ten apparently undesirable, scenarios (for example, he may establish vituperative
relationships with every authority figure, or only pursue lovers he cannot re-
spect, etc.); or he may choke off his fantasies, and then find himself listlessly
unable even to formulate desires or ways to pursue satisfaction. In these situ-
ations, he cannot simply think through his values and thus correct his harmful
behavior or kick-start his frozen libido. He requires someone else’s intervention
to help him rework his fantasies or the relations among his symbolic commit-
ments.
Lacanian psychoanalysis aims to do precisely this through a carefully man-
aged emotional relationship. Talking alone cannot shift the analysand’s deepest
motivations, even if the analyst successfully uncovers his fundamental fantasy,
the trauma around which it is constructed, and the symbolic commitments that are
hindering the expression and satisfaction of his desires.28 What is required, first, is
the analyst’s display of a benevolent attitude conducive to keeping the analysand
from fleeing therapy. What analysands encounter in analysis is a much more dis-
turbing and intrusive intervention than they were seeking. There is consequently
a danger that they may stop coming. Second, the analysand himself must begin
to relate to the analyst as he typically relates to those from whom he seeks love
and satisfaction. In order to facilitate this development, the analyst must suppress
all signs of her own desires and personality so that the analysand finds her a
blank slate onto which to project his basic expectations. This is called being “in
transference,” and is indicated by the analysand’s faith that the analyst “knows”
(what his problem is, how to cure it, etc.). After a time, it will also involve the
analysand acting out his fantasies through the analytical relationship.29 Third,
once this affective tension is established, the analyst must impede the analysand’s
efforts to pursue satisfaction either by conforming to the dictates he perceives in
her “knowledge” or maneuvering her into a position consonant with his fantasies.
Both of these are strategies the analysand may employ to make their relationship
comfortable, i.e., to position both of them where he feels he is satisfying her
desire, and thus can hope she will satisfy his. To prevent this establishment of
comfort, the analyst will prefer enigmatic and multivalent to clear interpretations
of his thoughts and behavior; she will “punctuate” the analysand’s speech with
27. Chiesa 2007: 159 suggests that “the object a in the ‘standard’ phallic fantasy . . . must
necessarily refer to the secondary (symbolic) identification with the father” (cf. 2007: 108).
28. The classic example here is Freud’s failure to help “Dora” by simply explaining the source
of her symptoms (SE 12: 7–122 with Lear 2005: 117–43).
29. In fact, as Fink 1997: 70 explains, “the fundamental fantasy is not so much something that
exists per se prior to analysis, as something constructed and reconstructed in the course of analysis.
In a certain sense, it is distilled out of the whole network of fantasies that come to light in the course
of analysis.”
brief, thought-provoking interruptions; and she will end each session after an
unpredictable duration.30 All of this is designed to prevent the analysand from
trusting that the secret to his own satisfaction can be discovered by figuring out
what will satisfy her. This leads to the fourth step: when the analysand no longer
hopes to find satisfaction in a predictable relationship with the analyst, but remains
emotionally invested in this relationship, this affective charge can be redirected to
exploring his past and the ways in which it has shaped his character, his relation-
ships with others, and even how he has tried to configure his relationship with the
analyst. In a certain sense, this will still be something he does for her; her desire is
now the “cause” of his deeper self-reflection. It provides the energy necessary
to create new relations among his symbolic commitments and to reconfigure his
fundamental fantasy.31
I will revisit the steps in this process as I use them to interpret Socrates’
behavior. The broad parameters of that interpretation, to take up again the three-
stage Socratic “method” I outlined in the previous section, are as follows. First, I
propose that one effect of Socrates’ erotic self-presentation may be to keep his
young interlocutors from fleeing what Plato, Euthydemus, and Aeschines depict as
a very disturbing critique of their character. Second, I suggest that when Socrates
says it is because he is erotically inspired that he can be of service, one way to
make sense of this claim is by thinking about “transference.” In short, Socrates
recognizes and sometimes even encourages the establishment of an emotional,
therapeutically important relationship marked by the Lacanian supposition of
“knowledge.” Third, other Socratic actions destabilize any complacency his
“beloveds” might feel regarding either his affection or his knowledge. This frees
up the erotic tension generated by transference, which in Lacanian analysis would
be turned to exploring emotionally significant repressed memories. Of course
Socrates does not investigate these kinds of memories,32 so it is perhaps not
coincidental that the Socratics’ sustained meditation on his “failures” focuses on
just what happens once he has brought people to this point. After analyzing some of
these failures in detail, I address Socrates’ successes in the concluding section. My
suggestion is that certain followers direct this energy not so much to fundamental
psychical changes as to rebuilding their basic values into beautiful and elaborate
new fantasies—of which the Socratic dialogues are an outstanding example.
As a final proviso, it is important to note that I do not intend the psychoanalytic
parallel to produce either an exhaustive or an exclusive explanation for Socrates’
30. See Fink 1997: 14–19, 45–47.

31. Like Freud, Lacan changed his mind throughout his career about how analysis ends and
precisely what it achieves. For a mature Freudian statement, see SE 23: 216–53; compare Lacan
2006: 489–542, with Fink 1997: 205–17.
32. The temptation here to drag in Platonic “recollection” should be resisted, both because
it never involves what Freud calls “working through” childhood memories (SE 12: 147–56), and
because it appears to be a specifically Platonic rather than broadly Socratic concept. (On its relation
to “remembering” in Xenophon’s Oec., see Morrison 1994: 205–207.)
behavior. It is not exhaustive because it doesn’t explain all aspects of that

behavior. In saying that Socrates’ erotic posture keeps his interlocutor engaged,
for example, I by no means imply that Socrates is merely posing, or deny that
he is genuinely interested in cooperative inquiry into concepts like beauty, justice,
and temperance. I take it, rather, that key elements of Socratic behavior like his
erotic posture are overdetermined: they are grounded in multiple reflective and
pre-reflective motivations. My explanation is not exclusive for the same reason:
its compatibility with other explanations of Socrates’ behavior needs to be judged
on a case-by-case basis, and often it will complement rather than replace existing
accounts.
3. EROS AND INITIATING THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS
Socrates’ erotic proclivities are firmly established in fourth-century Socratic

literature. “As for me,” Xenophon’s Socrates says, “I can’t remember a time when
I haven’t been in love with someone (ν οκ ρ
ν τινος διατελ
)” (Symp. 8.2;
cf. Mem. 2.6.28, 4.1.2). Phaedo of Elis, Aeschines of Sphettus, Antisthenes,
and—of course—Plato also portray Socrates erotikos in their dialogues.33 When a
group of philosophers began assembling around the Painted Stoa in the late fourth
century BCE, and inaugurated a new philosophy based on Socrates’ inspiration,34
it’s consequently no surprise that they attempted to integrate Socratic eros into
their thoughts on ethics. As one lineage from this group solidified into the Stoic
school, however, the founders’ erotics became something of an embarrassment.35
After all, what had love got to do with the engendering or transmission of wisdom?
Weren’t friendship and benevolence enough, not only for Plato’s Theaetetus, but
also for Roman Stoics like Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Epictetus? Why had
Socrates adopted this erotic persona?
The therapeutic perspective gives us one response to this enduring enigma.
While our authors would differ over many aspects of Socrates’ teaching, they agree
on a key methodological point. This is that while Socrates begins by challenging a
particular aspiration or belief, he swiftly progresses to encouraging substantial
shifts in self-conception and behavioral patterns. Interlocutors are dialogically
coerced to reconsider what is truly important to them and how this should find
reflection in their goals and activities. This experience can be very disturbing.
In a series of passages, for example, Socrates begins by drawing a comparison
between an ambitious young man and a famous politician such as Themistocles,
33. See Kahn’s discussion of the development of erotic themes among the Socratic authors in
1990: esp. 288–94. For the probable testimonia of Phaedo’s Zopyrus see Rossetti 1980.
34. Zeno supposedly turned to philosophy after reading Xenophon’s Socratic Memorabilia
(D.L. 7.2–3). On the original Stoic circle, see Sedley 2003: 9–15.
35. The first-century BCE Stoic librarian at Pergamum, Athenodorus Cordylion, supposedly
expurgated Zeno of Citium’s writings on erotics (D.L. 7.34). On the contradictory sources and
interpretations of eros in the Stoa, see Fiasse 1999.
thus exciting his pride and eliciting pleasant emotions, then brings to light the
youth’s comparative inadequacy, thus reducing him to tears or other signs of
emotional disturbance (e.g., Plato Alc. 105b-e, Aeschines fr. VI A 46 and
49 Giannantoni,36 Xenophon Mem. 3.6.2, 4.2.2).37 For example, he begins his
seduction of Euthydemus “the Beautiful” by hanging around the saddler’s shop
where the youth is known to pass his time.38 The first conversation recorded by
Xenophon opens with the following question from one of Socrates’ companions:
“Was it because of association with someone wise or through his own nature that
Themistocles so excelled his fellow citizens?” (Mem. 4.2.2). Socrates explains to
his companion—intending the words for Euthydemus,39 of course—that all crafts,
above all politics, require good teachers. On another occasion, Xenophon next
tells us, Socrates makes the same point using Euthydemus as his example:
It’s clear from his behavior that young Euthydemus here won’t refrain
from offering advice when the city puts forward an item of business. And
he seems to me to be preparing a good opening for his speeches by taking
care not to be seen learning from anyone. Clearly he’ll open something
like this: “I’ve never learned anything from anyone, men of Athens. I
neither attempted to associate with those I heard were capable in speech
and action nor worried about having a teacher with understanding. Quite
the opposite!”
4.2.3–4
We aren’t told about Euthydemus’ response to this amusing display, but he must
have found the laughter of Socrates’ friends (πντες . . . γλασαν, 4.2.5)
shameful. It is only after a series of overheard conversations like this that Socrates
directly addresses Euthydemus about his qualifications for “speaking and acting.”
Here Xenophon goes out of his way to tell us that Euthydemus starts out happy
to discuss his book collection—he χαιρεν κοων, Socrates noticed that he
was σθντα (4.2.9–10)—but becomes increasingly upset as Socrates reveals his
ignorance about justice, his own nature and capacities, goodness and badness,
and happiness (4.2.11–39). Ultimately he subsides into self-deprecating silence:
“I’m thinking I should just be quiet, since it looks like I’m totally ignorant”
(4.2.39). Xenophon intrudes again here to comment on his emotional state: “And
36. All subsequent citations of Aeschines’ fragments are from Giannantoni 1990.
37. For speculation regarding the lines of influence among the authors of these passages,
see Dittmar 1912: 121–59. Xen. Mem. 2.6 is another near-parallel for these passages, although
Critoboulus is not as ambitious or proud as the other interlocutors.
38. For an analysis of Socrates’ conversations with Euthydemus that places more emphasis on
Xenophon’s apologetic purposes in the Memorabilia, see Morrison 1994: 191–94. For an overview
of how Euthydemus fits into Mem. 4, see Gray 1998: 150–57.
39. Socrates answers, according to Xenophon, “with the intention of moving Euthydemus”
(βουλ μενος κινε!ν, Mem. 4.2.2). For an alternate analysis of Socrates’ method in this passage, see
Morrison 1994: 183–91.
he went away feeling dejected (θμως χων), despising himself (καταφρον#σας

$αυτο%), and convinced he was a slave” (ibid.). Close parallels to this entire
pattern appear in the Platonic and Aeschinean Alcibiades. In the latter, the title
character “becomes very dejected, puts his head in his lap, and cries” (κλειν
θντα τ&ν κεφαλ&ν π' τ( γ νατα θυμ#σαντα, fr. VI A 51; cf. 52). “Many
people who were put in this condition by Socrates,” Xenophon remarks apropos
of Euthydemus, “no longer approached him” (Mem. 4.2.40).
One role for eros here is that it might help to keep the patient, as it were,
in therapy. This would not be an option for all interlocutors: given their cultural
contexts, no one would imagine Socrates was enamored of an older man like
Gorgias, for example. But the possibility of an erotic relationship is often in the air
during conversations with younger men, especially when they are famous beauties
like Euthydemus and Alcibiades. Here conventional assumptions about lover
(erastês) and beloved (erômenos) could help to mitigate the alienation caused by
Socrates’ dissection of beliefs and aspirations central to his interlocutors’ self-
esteem. Besides possibly being flattered by Socrates’ interest, potential beloveds
could also hope that he envisaged an intimate friendship (philia) premised on
mutual satisfaction.40 Erotic relationships between younger and older men in
Athens were idealized, at least, as free and gracious exchanges of gifts, favors, and
education.41 Alcibiades exemplifies these assumptions in narrating his thoughts
after he had become fascinated by Socrates in Plato’s Symposium:
I thought that he was interested in my youthful beauty, which I thought
was a god-send and amazing stroke of luck: if I gratified Socrates, I’d
be able to hear whatever he knew.42
We’ll see later that Alcibiades has some important misconceptions about erotic
education, and we should also bear in mind that various pressures in Athenian
society encouraged boys to be wary of potential lovers.43 But Socrates’ put-downs
may have been more effective in capturing wary beloveds’ interest than others’
prayers and promises. (Compare what modern pick-up artists call “the neg,” a
back-handed compliment calculated to lower a woman’s self-esteem and make
her seek the artist’s approval.)44 At the same time, his focus on their personal
and political virtues might reinforce associations between eros and personal
development. So eros could provide a framework for seeing Socrates’ criticism as
40. Important treatments of Athenian pederasty include Dover 1989: 89–91; Foucault 1992:
187–225; Winkler 1990: 45–70; and Davidson 2007, who digests the previous literature at 101–66.
The most relevant parts of Davidson’s analysis are summarized at 473–84.
41. See esp. Davidson 2007: 38–50.
42. Cf. Socrates’ prediction of Critoboulus’ zeal on behalf of those he would like to be his
“friends” at Xen. Mem. 2.6.35.
43. As Pausanias most famously discusses in Plato’s Symposium (181e7–185c1; cf. Phdr.
255a4-b1). Davidson 2007: 418–45 situates this passage against contemporary literature and vase
paintings.
44. I by no means impute this sort of sinister calculation to Socrates.
a prologue to a constructive relationship rather than as a malicious assault on his

interlocutors’ intelligence and character.
The foregoing suggestion stands on its own, but it is worth recalling now that
a loose analogue is available in Lacanian clinical practice. Contrary to Freud’s
admonition (SE 12: 133–34), Lacanians advise against immediately locating the
analysand on the couch, facing away from the analyst.45 The analyst must be able
to engage the analysand with her “desire,” where “desire” connotes a learned and
carefully maintained affective attitude conducive to therapy.46 In the first instance,
this means communicating her desire for the analysand to make progress rather
than alienating him with the cold, impersonal couch. No matter what specific
symptom has brought the analysand to therapy, he, like Socrates’ interlocutors,
will inevitably be faced with a thorough dissection of the springs from which
flow his identity and satisfactions in life.47 For those facing this disturbance,
the desire of the analyst presents a fixed point, a sort of surrogate for their
own disoriented motivations. In Socrates’ case, we might postulate that it is his
demonstrated wish to improve Euthydemus, for example, which leads the latter
to keep coming back even after the disturbing initial conversation. Euthydemus’
prior intention to become capable in “speech and action,” and thus to be worthy of
governing, no longer has clear practical implications after Socrates’ revelation
of his complete failure hitherto. Euthydemus neither grasps the character which
renders someone able to govern nor how to acquire this character.48 He would thus
be uncertain what to do next, and Socrates’ desire for him (to continue associating
with Socrates, and thus to come to care for and know himself) will temporarily fill
this motivational gap. In other words, Euthydemus will begin to look to Socrates
to determine what his shorter-term desires, at least, should be. Xenophon shows
this happening already halfway through the conversation. By the time Socrates
has convinced Euthydemus that “knowing himself” is important, Euthydemus is
already disoriented:
Believe me, Socrates, I’m entirely convinced that one really ought to
know oneself. But from what point should one begin inspecting oneself?
For this, I look to you, if you’d please explain it.
Mem. 4.2.30–31
45. Fink 1997: 14.

46. Lacan reformulates this issue many times, but its centrality to his praxis is well represented
by its foregrounding in The Four Fundamental Concepts: “What must there be in the analyst’s desire
for it to operate in a correct way?” (1977: 9).
47. Fink 1997: 3–10.
48. Compare Miller 2007: 116–17, who suggests that in the aporetic elenchus, which renders
the participants “dizzy” and “drunk” on language, “the intellectual and emotional fetishes (political
ambition, vanity, sexual fixation) that stand between the student and the pursuit of wisdom are shown
for the fragile and shoddy constructions that they are, and the possibility of a beyond of the fantasy
life they structure is envisioned.”
This involvement with Socrates’ desire is central to the therapeutic relationship.

Euthydemus will go much further down this road than his question here suggests,
but in order to follow him, we must pause to clarify another aspect of Socrates’
erotic self-presentation.
4. EROS AND THE CAPACITY TO BENEFIT
The connection in Socratic dialogues between eros and the capacity to benefit
is opaque but insistent. Sometimes this takes the form of forceful (though per-
haps also playful) claims, as when Plato’s Socrates tells Alcibiades that he alone
can help him achieve his plans (Alc. 105d1–106a1). Sometimes it is more cir-
cuitous, as when Socrates spins the promise to cure Charmides’ headache, which
Critias has suggested as a conversation-starter, into a story about an incantation,
Thracian doctors with powers of resurrection, and the need to corroborate bodily
health with mental temperance (Chrm. 155a8–157c6).49 Xenophon shifts the con-
nection between eros and benefaction from Socrates’ words to his own authorial
commentary (Mem. 4.1.2), but this is in keeping with his general reluctance to
allow Socrates fully to inhabit an erotic persona. The connection remains clear, if
implicit, in the progression from Xenophon’s discussion of Socrates’ eros, and
its helpful results (Mem. 4.1), to a series of conversations between Socrates and
the previously mentioned beauty, Euthydemus (Mem. 4.2–3, 4.5–6).50 Neither
Socrates’ self-presentation as a lover nor his communication of his ability to
benefit is uniform across these works, but there is enough consistency to motivate
further investigation of this enigma. The question now becomes not just “Why
eros?,” but “Why is eros associated with the ability to help?” This question in fact
breaks down into two sub-questions: first, how does Socrates represent his ability
to help? This is the topic of this section. Second, how and why do his interlocutors
believe that he can help? This is the topic of the following section. We’ll see that
the second question can be rephrased as follows: Why do Socrates’ interlocutors
suppose he “knows” (the nature of justice, how to achieve happiness, etc.) despite
Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge?
I begin this section with an analysis of a passage from Aeschines’ Alcibi-
ades, in which Socrates forcefully connects eros with the ability to benefit. Our
acquaintance with this dialogue depends on fourteen quotations, paraphrases, and
testimonia preserved by various authors and one badly damaged papyrus (fr. VI A
41–54). These allow us to reconstruct what the dialogue was generally about,
49. Although Socrates doesn’t explicitly present himself as a lover in the Charmides, the
introduction to the scene could hardly be more erotically charged (153d5–155e3). Moreover,
in Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades lists Charmides among those whom Socrates has deceitfully
approached as beloveds but turned into lovers (222b1–4).
50. Euthydemus is named alongside Charmides by Plato’s Alcibiades as a victim of Socratic
eros (Symp. 222b1–4). Compare Mem. 2.6.28, where Socrates suggests to Critoboulus, “Perhaps
I could help you hunt for noble <friends>, since I’m erotically inclined (δι( τ) ρωτικ)ς ε*ναι).”
although they leave most of its details unknown. Since this work is not readily
available in translation, I quote the relevant passage at length (section letters
mine):
(A) As for me, if I thought that I could help through any art (τινι τχνη,), I
would consider myself guilty of great foolishness. But as it is, I thought
that this <power> over Alcibiades was given to me by divine allotment
(θε-α. μο-ρα.), and there’s nothing amazing in that.
(B) After all, many sick people become healthy by human art, but others
by divine allotment. Physicians are responsible for those who are healed
by human art, but those who are healed by divine allotment are led to
what will help them by their own desire. Thus they wished to vomit when
it would help, and to go hunting with hounds when exercise would help.
(C) As for myself, because of the love I felt for Alcibiades (δι( τ)ν ρωτα
/ν τγχανον ρ
ν), my experience was just like that of the Bacchants.
For when the Bacchants are divinely inspired (νθεοι γνωνται), they
draw honey and milk from places where others can’t even get water
from their wells. So it was with me: though I had neither learning
nor understanding by which I might benefit someone in teaching them,
nevertheless I thought that because I loved him, I could make him better by
associating with him (οδ0ν μθημα πιστμενος / δ-δαξας 2νθρωπον
3φελ#σαιμ4 2ν, 6μως 7μην ξνων 8ν κε-νω δι( τ) ρ9ν βελτ-ω
ποι:σαι).
fr. VI A 53
What is it about eros, according to this account, that makes it beneficial? The
progression of thought requires a little unpacking. In (A) we learn that the lover has
a beneficial effect, not through technique or art (technê), but through something
like divine allotment (theia moira). This seems to set up an analogy between
the lover and some sort of divinely inspired (entheos), rather than technically
competent, healer. In (B) the contrast, surprisingly, is not between the technical
and the inspired healer but between the technical healer and those who are inspired
to heal themselves. One reason for this mismatch may be that the “incubants” in
temple medicine—the primary model for inspired healing in Aeschines’ time—
conceived their healing relationship to be with the god rather than with the temple
officiants.51 But this slight disanalogy is of no great importance; (B) still suffices
to explain the final assertion of (A), which is that there’s nothing miraculous
about “improvement” (beltiô poiêsai) coming from divine inspiration rather than
technical competence, since the healing in (B) is coming from the god rather than
from technically expert doctors. The new analogy introduced in section (C) now
51. See esp. Lloyd 2003: 40–41 and 52–60, with texts at 76–79. The classic text for temple
medicine (but dating to the second century CE) is Aelius Aristides’ account of his repeated visits
to the temple of Asclepius in Sacred Tales.
makes room for that divine inspiration to arrive through a human intermediary
such as Socrates: like the Bacchant inspired by Dionysus, Socrates inspired by
Eros hopes to pull honey and milk from Alcibiades’ apparently bone-dry soul.
The metaphorical scheme of this passage clearly ascribes an efficacy to eros,
but scholars have struggled to spell out what this efficacy could be. Ehlers con-
cludes that Aeschines is simply uninterested in producing sophisticated accounts
of concepts like eros and virtue; his philosophy is mostly “pragmatic.”52 Kahn
repeatedly refers to the “mysterious link between sexual eros and the urge to
aretê” in Aeschines’ fragments, but discovers no satisfactory explanation for it.53
For Döring, the “erotic art” of Aeschines’ Socrates is just “another side of” his
ability to bring his interlocutor, through “elenctic-protreptic conversation,” to ex-
amine himself, care for himself, and consequently make progress toward virtue.54
This seems probable enough, but we must be careful, in acknowledging that the
erotic and elenctic arts are co-extensive (i.e., happen simultaneously in the same
conversations), not to slip into believing that we have answered the question of
how eros contributes to ethical progress. Already Gaiser, in his review of Ehler’s
monograph, saw that what was required was to integrate eros into an account
of progress through argumentation.55 We would like to know more, for exam-
ple, about an element of erotic pedagogy presumed in Döring’s interpretation,
and forcefully thematized in Plato’s Alcibiades, but mentioned only in passing
in the fragments of Aeschines’ dialogue: making Alcibiades “care for himself”
(πιμελε!σθαι $αυτο%).56 Unfortunately, the lacunose state of Aeschines’ text
makes such questions unanswerable.
Here we must turn to Plato’s Phaedrus, in which we will find Aeschines’
metaphorical scheme extended and integrated into myths and theories of “respon-
sive love” (anterôs). The key within Aeschines’ text to explaining the lover’s
effect on the beloved should be the comparison between Socrates and the Bac-
chants in section (C). “When they’re divinely inspired (entheoi),” we read above,
52. 1966: esp. 93. Ehler’s work on the (fragmentary) Aspasia established the view, now uni-
versally accepted, that in it Aeschines furthered the discussion of eros and virtue begun in the
(fragmentary) Alcibiades. On Aeschines’ philosophical simplicity, see ibid. 23: “In den aeschineis-
chen Schriften sehen wir, wie ein Schüler, der nicht die philosophische Begabung und das abstrakt
philosophische Interesse eines Platon hatte, Sokrates aber sehr gut kannte, seinen Meister verstand.”
53. 1994: 102. Cf. 93: “How are eros and knowledge related to one another? And how is eros
related to the kind of wisdom that Themistocles lacked, according to Aeschines, or to the wisdom
that, according to Plato, Socrates vainly sought among the politicians, the poets, and the artisans? The
answers to these tantalizing questions are not clear from the preserved sections of the Alcibiades.”
See also ibid. 99.
54. Döring 1984: 25: “seine ρωτικ& τχνη und seine λεγκτικ& τχνη sind in den Augen des
Aischines zwei Seiten einer und derselben Sache.”
55. 1969: 203–206.
56. Plato Alcibiades 127e1-end. In Aeschines’ dialogue, immediately after calling attention to
Themistocles’ failure, Socrates asks Alcibiades, “So what do you expect to happen to normal men
who don’t care for themselves at all (ν μηδεμ-α. πιμελε-α. $αυτ
ν ο;σι)?” For a sustained treatment
of this theme in the Platonic dialogue and its reception in antiquity, see Foucault 2005.
“<they> draw honey and milk from places where others can’t even get water from
their wells.” This imagery of Bacchic inspiration and magical draughts reappears
in the third and climactic speech about eros in Plato’s Phaedrus, but now it is
thoroughly imbricated in the rich mythology of divine entourages, metaphysical
visions, and cyclical reincarnation. The story goes that all discarnate souls have
wings and follow the gods in a celestial circuit, during which they strive to see the
“super-celestial realm” in which true beings reside (247c3). Those who fail to
glimpse this realm lose their wings and fall to earthly incarnation (248b5-c8).
On earth, souls have differing capacities to recollect true beings when encoun-
tering their sensible instantiations (250a1–4), but the being everyone perceives
most readily is the Beauty instantiated by beautiful people (250c8-e1). Though
everyone responds erotically to what they find beautiful, different people love
in different ways. This is explained by saying that discarnate souls had vary-
ing levels of exposure to true beings, belonged to different gods’ entourages,
and have lived diverse lives since incarnation (250e1–51a7, 252c3-e1). Ferrari
persuasively argues that these elements of the myth represent the givenness of
each individual’s predispositions, whether they are innate or developed through
life’s contingencies.57 But the key point is that certain individuals, those who
are predisposed to puzzle over the powerful and confusing sentiments aroused by
eros, discover in it an opportunity better to understand who they are (their innate
or contingent predispositions) and who they want to be (the transcendental beings
they recollect).58 Socrates expresses this by saying,
If they haven’t previously undertaken this task, now they attempt it by
both learning from wherever they can and pursuing it independently.
Following the trail from within, they easily discover the nature of their
god, because they’re constantly compelled to look at him, grasp him in
memory, are inspired by him, and insofar as is possible for a human to
share in god, they take their character and habits from him.
252e5–53a5
In Ferrari’s eloquent formulation, contact with the beloved (through whom they
recollect their god) helps them to establish their “horizon of care.”
This swift overview of the lover’s experience in the Phaedrus brings us back to
Aeschines’ Bacchic draughts and our primary explanandum, the benefits received
by the beloved. The quotation I have just given leads into the relevant excerpt:
Since they consider their beloved responsible for these things, they
cherish him all the more, and if they draw from Zeus, like Bacchants
57. My interpretation of this myth in the Phaedrus (not including its relation to Aeschines) is
much indebted to Ferrari 1987: 140–84.
58. In the formulation of Hyland 2008: 64–90 and 115–35, souls predisposed to philosophy have
a non-discursive intuition of beings when they encounter beauty, which motivates a life devoted to
the discursive pursuit of further intuitions.
they pour the draught over the beloved’s soul and make him as similar
as possible to their god.
Phdr. 253a5-b1
The details of Socrates’ speech allow us to give an answer to the problem of

erotic benefaction Aeschines and Plato are working through in this mytheme.
For whatever precisely Aeschines has in mind in comparing Alcibiades to the
ground from which inspired Bacchants draw milk and honey, Plato makes the
beloved not the source, but the recipient of the draught. Hence he retains the
association between the Bacchants and Dionysus (a.k.a. Bacchus), which suggests
the confusion and perturbation Socrates encapsulates under the heading of erotic
“madness”; but at the same time, he makes Zeus—whom Socrates associates
with philosophy and leadership (252e3)—the source of this draught’s magical
power to motivate ethical and intellectual progress. In demythologized terms,
this means that as the lover glimpses both his givens and his aspirations by
contemplating how he responds to the beloved’s beauty, so the beloved, presuming
his predispositions are similar to those of the lover (252d5–6), can gradually come
to see the same things in himself by contemplating his reactions to the lover. For
although the lover is not physically beautiful, the beloved sees his own beauty
and other “true beings” reflected in the lover’s affection and aspirations. Socrates
expresses this by saying he “sees himself in the lover as if in a mirror” (255d5–6),
and labels the beloved’s reciprocation of the lover’s feelings “a simulacrum of
eros, responsive eros” (ε<δωλον ρωτος ντρωτα χων, 255d8-e1). The same
imagery of self-discovery through the mirror of a lover’s soul recurs in the Platonic
Alcibiades.59
By exploring variations of this image of the Bacchants and their magical
draughts, I have now sketched one Socratic explanation for the beneficial power
often ascribed to eros and the lover it inspires. Hence we can answer in what
way the beloved comes to know himself: he discovers who he is in the givens
and aspirations revealed by erotic experience; and how he’s motivated to “care
for himself”: those aspirations just are motivational principles directed toward
who he wants to become. Furthermore, we can explain why Socrates, as the lover,
doesn’t need to “know anything” in order to be helpful: his displays of affection
and philosophical enthusiasm should themselves inspire an appropriate beloved to
59. There Socrates explains that the “mirror” into which the beloved’s soul must look is the
best part of another soul, i.e., the part containing wisdom and whatever else is godlike (133b7-c6).
Denyer 2001: 236 rightly explains that one reason it’s helpful to look at excellent souls and at god is
that in this way we grasp how we look “from the point of view of some wise person, and above
all, from the point of view of god.” But Olympiodorus reminds us that “Eros is for the beautiful,
and what is in the soul is truly beautiful” (in Alc. 215.20 ed. Westerink). Hence we should see
here the same dynamic as in the Phaedrus, where we perceive, not inert information, but our own
beautiful aspirations in the lover’s soul. “For Alcibiades responsively loves Socrates” (ντερ9. γ(ρ
Αλκιβιδης
= Σωκρτους: ibid. 215.22–23).
“remember” his own aspirations, and the two should then cooperatively elucidate
these aspirations in conversation.
But we should also begin marking the limitations of this explanation, which
leaves out the messy details repeatedly dramatized in the dialogues. For example,
it does not account for Socrates’ combination of implicit promises and explicit
criticisms, which I discussed in the previous section, or for the beloved’s emo-
tional reaction to them. Nor does it differentiate among the subtly different ways
in which the beloved, through his emotional response to the lover, relates to his
own values and compulsions. Far less does it address how the lover can help
the beloved to make these relations healthy. I will turn to Socratic dialogues’
dramatization of these problems in the following two sections. Then, in the con-
clusion, I will return to integrate my results into an expanded theory of responsive
eros.
5. EROS AND THE SUPPOSITION OF KNOWLEDGE
One common way in which Socrates’ beloveds relate to themselves through

their response to Socrates is by “supposing that he knows” (what is good for
them, how they can acquire it, what they should do next, etc.). In order to
illustrate this pattern of “supposing that Socrates knows,” let me take up again
where I left off at the close of section 3, in which I remarked that the bewildering
effects of Socratic interrogation, combined with his erotic self-representation,
lead Euthydemus to ask Socrates for instructions about what to do next. A very
similar drama plays out in Aeschines’ Alcibiades, in which Socrates once again
uses the example of Themistocles to highlight his interlocutor’s inadequacies:
“‘Consider, Alcibiades,’ <Socrates said>, ‘that not even his knowledge, great as
it was, preserved him, worthy as he was, from being exiled and stripped of his
rights by the polis’” (fr. VI A 50.38–41). I have already mentioned Alcibiades’
tearful reaction. Cicero paraphrases the words accompanying these tears by saying
that Alcibiades “begged Socrates to give him virtue and drive away his vice” (fr. VI
A 52). Like Euthydemus, Alcibiades senses his inability to identify the steps that
will save him from Themistocles’ unhappy end, and therefore asks for Socrates’
guidance in channeling his vague aspirations into effective actions. The Platonic
Alcibiades ends on a very similar note. Asked if he knows how he can escape
the “slavish” condition he has been convinced he is in, Alcibiades responds,
“Yes: if you want me to” (135d3). In each of these three dialogues the young
man comes to believe that Socrates perceives clearly what he only hazily aspires
to, and that the key to progress lies in Socrates’ willingness to reveal what he
knows.
It is not only to Socrates’ words that his admirers attend once they are con-
vinced that his “knowledge” should guide them. Rather, we often see his followers
imitating his behavior as well. After the final conversation in Memorabilia 4.2,
for example, Xenophon narrates that Euthydemus
suspected that he would never be anyone worthy of note, unless he spent

as much time as possible with Socrates. And he no longer left his side
except when it was necessary. He even imitated some of his personal
habits (νια δ0 κα' μιμε!το ν κε!νος πετηδεετο).
Mem. 4.2.40
Elsewhere, Xenophon indicates that imitation was a common reaction to Socrates’

enchanting influence:
He made many people yearn for virtue, and gave them hope that they
would be good people (καλο@ς κγαθο@ς σεσθαι) if they took care
of themselves. Of course, he never promised to teach this, but by
obviously having this character himself, he made those who spent time
with him hope that they would acquire such a character by imitating him
(μιμουμνους κε!νον).
Mem. 1.2.2–3
Mimicry is by no means restricted to Xenophon’s characters. Perhaps the most

famous Socratic mimic is the diminutive Aristodemus, who was “one of Socrates’
most fervent lovers” in Plato’s Symposium (173b3–4), and went so far as to
imitate the master’s tendency to go barefoot (173b2). Plato’s Apollodorus, whom
Xenophon calls a “vehement desirer (epithumêtês)” of Socrates, seizes rather
on what he perceives to be Socrates’ conversational habits and aims.60 After
his rather artless indictment of his interlocutors’ unphilosophical pursuits, one
of them objects, “You’re always badmouthing yourself and others. You seem
to me to think that simply everyone except Socrates is miserable” (Plato Symp.
173d4–6). That Apollodorus sincerely believes something like this is indicated
not only by his fervent embrace of Socrates’ hortatory themes, but also by the
reverential attention he directs to everything Socrates says and does. “It is not yet
three years,” he says, “that I have been spending time with Socrates and making
it my business to know whatever he says and does every day” (172e3–6, emphasis
mine). What these Socratic imitators are doing is not—or not only—making
their reflective values conform to those expressed and defended by Socrates
in conversation. In addition to attending to his ideas, they also scrutinize his
everyday behavior in order to discover further clues to what they should pursue
and avoid.
The profundity of these young men’s engagement not only with the “knowl-
edge” explicitly formulated in Socrates’ words, but also with that implicitly ex-
pressed by his actions, would be puzzling enough on its own. But it is sharpened
by Socrates’ frequent insistence that he neither knows nor can teach anyone the
60. Plato and Xenophon both describe Apollodorus as the most vociferous mourner at the death
of Socrates (Plato Phd. 59a7-b1, 117d3–6; Xen. Apol. 27–28).
answers to big questions about beauty, goodness, and happiness.61 In Aeschines,

we saw that he has neither “art” (technê) nor “understanding” (mathêma epista-
menos) by which he could help Alcibiades. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates says,
“I deny that I understand (epistasthai) anything except matters concerned with
eros” (177d8; cf. Lysis 204b8-c2, Theages 128b2–4). And we have just seen that
even Xenophon, by far the most dogmatic Socratic author, writes that Socrates
never promised to teach anyone to be good (Mem 1.2.3). Nevertheless, many of
his young companions seem to believe that Socrates does indeed know how they
should live their lives.
Lacan offers one way of understanding this paradox. As I summarized in
Section 3, Lacan believes that in the therapeutic relationship, the analysand
relives his fundamental quest to elicit love and satisfaction from key figures
in his formative years. This is not the situation at the beginning of an analysis;
at first, the analysand will probably speak to the analyst as he would to any
other casual acquaintance.62 He says whatever comes to mind, and expects the
analyst to reply to each of his utterances. But the analyst, as we saw, does not
accommodate herself to normal etiquette: she may remain silent, or speak with
deliberate ambivalence, or unpredictably declare the session finished. At the
same time, she displays the benevolent desire for him to keep coming back and
improving. As she consistently maintains this disposition over many sessions, the
analysand should begin projecting onto their relationship his search for a way to
satisfy key individuals in his life, so that they will reciprocate and satisfy him. This
is the first stage of that emotional engagement with the analyst which Freud called
the “transference.”63 The tone of this emotional engagement is usually positive
at first, but Lacan does not believe that scrutinizing the analysand’s expressions
of emotion is the best way to be sure he is “in transference.” “The question is
first,” he says,
for each subject, where he takes his bearings from when applying to
the subject who is supposed to know. Whenever this function may
be, for the subject, embodied in some individual, whether or not the
analyst, the transference, according to definition I have given you of it, is
established.64
61. The locus classicus for Socrates’ claim that he knows only that he does not know (erotics is
the key exception) is Plato Ap. 20a6–21d7. Key treatments of this complex aspect of his philosophy
include Reeve 1989: 33–62, 124–44, 160–69 and Vlastos 1994. Regarding the related topics of
“perplexity” and “irony,” see Vlastos 1987, Matthews 1999, Lear 2006.
62. As Lacan remarks (1977: 233), “Experience shows us that when the subject enters analysis,
he is far from giving the analyst this place [of supposed knowledge].” In Lacan’s technical jargon,
the analysand’s relation to the analyst is mostly “Imaginary” at this stage (Fink 1997: 31–33).
63. Freud discusses the transference in his postscript to the Dora case (SE 7: 112–22) and
throughout his papers on technique (SE 12: 91–171), the first and last of which are devoted
exclusively to this phenomenon. For a concise treatment with further references, see Lear 2005:
117–44.
64. 1977: 233.
In other words, whenever the analysand begins evincing faith that the analyst
“knows” what his problem is and how he can improve, he is in transference. This
faith in the analyst’s knowledge is just a way of getting the analyst to tell him what
he should pursue and avoid. In other words, although the analysand may think
he is asking for the analyst to supply “information,” his motivation is actually
to solve the riddle of her desire. He can then fulfill it, and in this way get some
satisfaction out of their relationship.65
Let us return to Socrates. Like the analysands, Euthydemus and Alcibiades
are far from making him the key to their desires when he first encounters them.
Plato’s Alcibiades is merely curious why Socrates keeps following him around:
“In fact I was thinking before of coming and asking you just what you’re after,”
he says, “what you’re hoping for, and why you keep turning up wherever I
am and bothering me” (Alc. 104d1–3). The fragments of Aeschines’ Alcibiades
don’t preserve any comparable remark about Socrates “bothering” Alcibiades,
but Aeschines does tell us that Alcibiades was so proud “he thought no one [else]
was worth anything” (fr. VI A 46). Xenophon attributes a similar conceit to
Euthydemus (Xen. Mem. 4.2.1). Here it is Socrates, unlike the analyst, who
initiates the relationship. But as we have also seen, the junior partners soon
reciprocate his desire for their company. Indeed, it is a commonplace in Socratic
literature that his beloveds become “lovers” and “desirers” in their own right.
Part of the reason why these young men become so attached to Socrates is surely
because he has demonstrated his intelligence in argumentation. He has revealed
in their reflectively maintained desires, e.g., to rise to prominence in Athenian
politics, unacknowledged and unmet prerequisites, e.g., the sort of self-knowledge
that encompasses temperance and a feel for justice.66 And if he can take them apart,
presumably he can rebuild them better and stronger. But as we’ll see in more detail
in the following section, Socrates also shares the psychoanalyst’s refusal to occupy
a “normal” and predictable role. Although he says or implies he can help them,
he simultaneously denies that he can simply “teach” them what they want to
learn from him. He is neither a sophist (exchanging wisdom for money) nor a
typical lover (exchanging wisdom for “favors”). The Lacanian parallel leads us to
suspect that this evasiveness actually encourages the supposition of knowledge: as
his followers begin to be interested in “satisfying” Socrates, but are unable to grasp
what he wants from them, they are compelled to scrutinize his words and habits
for signs of his elusive desire. Their compulsion to extract his “knowledge” thus
exceeds any proofs he gives of it, since the drive to satisfy the desire articulated
in that knowledge, and thus to earn his attention and love, has become more
65. This emotional engagement with people “supposed to know” regularly extends beyond
psychoanalysis, as Zizek 1994: 172 exemplifies with reference to Wittgenstein, and Deresiewicz
2007: 43 (whose analysis is not explicitly psychoanalytic) with reference to university English
professors.
66. Lear 2006 presents a deeper psychological analysis of this revelation of unrecognized
aspirations.
fundamental than their interest in testing the soundness of the ideas or behavior
they are learning. In this way irrational compulsions “transferred” onto Socrates
become the foundation for what appears to be the shared pursuit of knowledge
and virtue.
If this sounds like an unpromising foundation for such a pursuit, then we
should be reassured to find that Socratic dialogues repeatedly problematize this
sort of dynamic and emphasize the need to move past it. With further help from
Lacan, I’ll explore in the next two sections their investigation of how some
Socratic loves end in disaster while others achieve the sort of transformative
potential idealized as “responsive eros.”
6. EROS, EVASIVENESS, AND THE LIMITS OF SOCRATIC THERAPY
Lacanian thought leads us to anticipate two problems in the harnessing of

asymmetrical (though reciprocal) erotic relationships to the project of personal
transformation. First, there is the problem I have just adumbrated: when the
beloved supposes the lover knows, the influence the lover gains over him is based
on an unstable and often transient emotional dynamic. Second is the beloved’s
tendency compulsively to act out the fundamental fantasies that structure his
relationships with all important people in his life. In this section we will see that
Socratic authors clearly perceive the first problem, and reflect on how Socrates’
persistent denial of knowledge and odd frigidity as a lover counteract it. I will then
turn to Plato’s representation in the Alcibiades and Symposium of how Alcibiades’
initial malleability transforms into the compulsive repetition of his fantasy. In the
process I will review and expand upon Lacan’s and Jonathan Lear’s interpretations
of the Symposium, which suggest that Socratic authors have no solution to this
problem.
The transience of Socrates’ beneficial impact is most directly addressed in the
Platonic Theages,67 where Socrates warns the title character, “Of those who make
progress <in my company>, some have a stable and lasting benefit, but others
make amazing progress for however long they’re with me, but are again no better
than anyone else when they depart” (129e9-a4). To exemplify, Socrates recalls
what Aristides,68 one of his erstwhile companions, once told him:
“I learned nothing from you, as you yourself know. Yet I made progress
whenever I was with you, even if I was in the same house, but not in
the same room—even more if I was in the same room—and I seemed to
make much more progress when I was in the same room and looked at you
while you were speaking rather than at something else. But I progressed
67. Regarding the authenticity of this dialogue, including its relation to the Theaetetus, see n.4.
68. In the Theaetetus (quoted below) Socrates mentions Aristides as an example of someone
who left his company too soon. For other appearances of Aristides in Plato, see Bailly 2004: 246
on Theages 130a4.
by far the most when I sat next to you holding and touching you. But
now,” he said, “this entire disposition has flowed away.”
130d4-e4
Aristides measures his “progress” (epedidoun) by his capacity to come off well

in conversation (130c2–3), so we should question whether he ever got much
of a handle on Socrates’ protreptic message. This seems to be the point of his
opening words, “I learned nothing from you (ouden emathon).” The purpose
of Socrates’ recollection of Aristides is precisely to problematize his ability
to teach Theages, but this does not mean that his companions should “learn
nothing.” They simply must realize that learning is a complex, cooperative process
rather than the transmission of some item from the knower to the learner (cf.
Symp.175d4-e7, Tht. 150b6-d6, Meno 82b6ff.).69 Aristides never realized this, or
at least never managed to go any distance along this shared road, which explains
why whatever Socratic habits allowed him to speak formidably disappeared
after he left Athens on a military expedition (129a6). What he describes as
his efficacious “disposition” was probably a combination of Socratic dialectical
strategies with basic Socratic talking points (e.g., the priority of soul to body,
the relevance of virtue to the soul’s well-being, people’s inability to define
virtues and failure to cultivate them). Other Socratic dialogues show us that
even pupils who have made little real progress can dominate a discussion with
these tools.70 But this sort of imitation is only superficially related to real
progress.
We can deepen our analysis of Aristides’ failure by comparison with another
passage with which the Theages is clearly in dialogue, namely the midwife scene
of the Theaetetus. There Socrates gives a slightly different account:
Many already, who were ignorant about this and thought themselves
to be the cause <of their progress>, even looking down on me, went
away sooner than they should have, either on their own or through being
persuaded by others, and after going away have lost what I had helped
them bring to birth as a result of bad company and because they nourished
it poorly . . . . Finally, they seemed to themselves as well as others to
be uneducated. One of these was Aristides, son of Lysimachus.
150e1–151a1
69. References to Tht. and Meno supplied by Cobb 1992: 271. This begins to answer Bailly’s
puzzlement: “It strikes a bizarre note to hear Socrates in an unsolicited explanation of what
association with him is like quoting Aristides to the effect that he made progress at what looks
like eristics or mere wit-bandying” (2004: 250, italics in original). The point of the anecdote is
that Aristides’ progress was transient precisely because he misconceived what real learning and real
progress are like. So Socrates is not committed to Aristides’ conception of progress.
70. Compare Clitophon at Plato Clit. 408d1–410a6. See also Alcibiades at Xenophon Mem.
1.2.40–46; Plato Phd. 90b4–91a6.
There is no sign in the Theages that Aristides ever “thought himself to be the
cause” of his own progress or “looked down on” Socrates; in fact, his description
of “touching and holding” Socrates conveys rather an affectionate, self-conscious
dependence.71 Moreover, his mention in the Theages of “looking at you while you
were speaking” recalls the Phaedrus’ discussion of gazing at the lover in order
to discover new desires, and thus highlights Aristides’ reliance on Socrates’
inspiration. One way of explaining these differences is by reference to the
Theaetetus’ avoidance of erotics, which I discussed in section 1. Yet this passage’s
attribution of responsibility for Aristides’ failure to “bad company” can still
supplement the account in the Theages. The reason Aristides’ disposition “flowed
away” (exerruêke) would then be that these negative influences compromised the
habits of speaking and thinking Aristides had begun to develop through imitation
of Socrates.
Just this sort of reversal, we may briefly add, is reported also by Xenophon
to account for Critias and Alcibiades. Coming to Socrates with the ambition “to
become most capable in speech and in action” (Mem 1.2.15), but considering
even death preferable to Socrates’ temperate lifestyle (1.2.16), they nevertheless
somehow became temperate for just as long as they stayed with him. During that
time, Xenophon says, “I know that they were temperate, not because they feared
Socrates would punish or hit them, but because they believed this was the best
way to act” (1.2.18). He explains this temporary change of belief a little later
by saying, “For as long as they were with Socrates, they were able to overcome
their unattractive desires by using him as an ally” (Mem. 1.2.18). Like Aristides,
then, they somehow relied on Socrates’ presence “as an ally” to maintain their
new-found disposition.72 But also like Aristides, they lost this temperance once
they left Socrates and began associating with worse people (Mem. 1.2.24–25).
We can understand the transience of these changes better by closer reference
to what Lacanians say about handling the transference. For Lacanians, faith in
the “person supposed to know” should only be a transitional stage. Apparent
improvement resting on this foundation, Freud already worried, is “a treatment
by suggestion, and not a psycho-analysis at all” (SE 12: 143). “Any response
to demand in analysis,” Lacan concurs, “reduces transference to suggestion.”73
The primary reason why the analyst must not “suggest” to the analysand what
is best for him is that any progress made in this fashion will vanish when affection
for the analyst fades. An obvious cause of such fading, which is relevant to the
Socratic examples we have just seen, is the end of analysis. Yet treatment by
suggestion can be problematic even in the middle of analyses, as Fink illustrates:
71. This is by no means to accept that the author of this dialogue attributes miraculous power to
physical contact with Socrates, as Tarrant 1958 presumes. Cf. n.69 and 74.
72. He also suggests that “exercise” (askêsis) was the key to these men’s progress and back-
sliding, but his discussion of exercise is framed in terms of social influences. “The company of good
men,” he says, “is an exercise toward virtue” (Mem. 1.2.20).
73. Lacan 2006: 530. Cf. Fink 1997: 37–38.
. . . the analysand comes to believe that he or she is doing the right thing or
getting better, attempts to build upon the approved behavior, yet remains
dependent upon the Other’s opinion. Should the analysand then spend
his or her vacation with people who do not endorse the analyst’s view,
the analysand, still slavishly influenced by other people’s views, ends up
throwing everything back into question.
1997: 37
Even a temporary separation from the “person supposed to know” can disturb
superficial progress of this kind. The problem, as Fink indicates, is that whoever
is going to make real progress must not be “slavishly influenced by other people’s
views.” Hence Socrates’ followers must not only move past the stage where they
view him like anybody else, and thus presume in their pride that they don’t need
him; they must also move past their faith that Socrates’ reactions are the key to
what they should pursue and avoid. Aristides must realize that true progress cannot
depend simply on touching and gazing at Socrates, and Critias and Alcibiades must
be able to maintain their temperance without “using him as an ally.” In short, they
must develop an interest, not in modeling their behavior on Socrates’ explicit and
implicit suggestions in order to win his approval, but in cooperatively exploring
and working through their fundamental beliefs and impulses. Only this kind of
working-through can transform their character in a lasting way.
Socrates encourages this deeper level of self-reflection through his evasive
refusal to give definitive answers or reciprocate his beloveds’ affection in the
manner they expect. As I said earlier, this is the reason he tells Theages about
Aristides’ reversal: unlike Euthydemus or Alcibiades, Theages seems all too
eager to put his faith in Socrates’ guidance immediately. He has come to Socrates
because he “wants to become wise” (121c8-d1) and has observed that, after some
of his friends have spent time with Socrates, they “appear much better than people
who used to be better than they were” (128c3–5). When Socrates asks him whether
he knows how this apparent betterment occurs, he confidently answers, “By Zeus,
of course! If you wish it ((ν σ@ βολη,), I’ll become just the sort of person they
are” (128c7–8). Socrates immediately responds, “You don’t grasp what sort of
[process] this is” (128c9), and goes on to invoke the unpredictable but central role
of his daemonic sign,74 before concluding with the cautionary tale of Aristides.
We know from Plato’s Republic that Theages does not in fact drift from his callow
adulation of Socrates into embarrassingly un-Socratic behavior, since his chronic
74. Discussion of the Theages has been dominated by arguments about its portrayal of the
daimonion, the nature of Socratic rationality in Platonic dialogues, and whether the two are
compatible. Vlastos 1991: 282, Joyal 2000: 77–97, and Tarrant 2005 respond to the last question
in the negative; Friedländer 1969: vol. 2, 147–54, Guthrie 1969: 398–402, and Bussanich 2006:
208–209 in the affirmative. What none of these analyses takes seriously is the irony of Socrates’
invocation of the daimonion here and the pedagogical function of that irony (as I intend to argue
more fully elsewhere).
bad health acts as a “bridle” on his ambitions (VI 496b6-c3). But surviving fourth-
century dialogues do not go into any detail about how he moved from this unstable
beginning into a fruitful relationship with both Socrates and himself.
For the richest thinking-through of this issue, we must inevitably turn back
to Alcibiades, and particularly to the versions of him we encounter in Plato’s
Alcibiades and Symposium. Though we have already seen that the Alcibiades
ends with the title character’s declaration of faith in Socrates’ knowledge, we
should also observe how Socrates works to displace this faith as soon as it
emerges midway through the dialogue. Thus when Alcibiades admits that, based
on Socrates’ arguments, he seems unable to distinguish justice from injustice,
Socrates objects, “it is not I who say this, but you” (113c4–5).75 Socrates
makes very clear that real conviction—stable conviction—cannot occur unless
Alcibiades takes responsibility for the conversation’s conclusions. For the same
reason, Socrates insists on maintaining the question-and-answer format: when
Alcibiades, frustrated by his inability to answer, demands that Socrates simply
explain how justice relates to benefits (114e1),76 Socrates responds that he will
only be convinced (peisthênai) if he comes to the conclusions himself. “If you
don’t hear yourself saying that just things are also beneficial,” he says, “don’t
believe anyone else who says so” (114e7–9). Alcibiades eventually agrees that
he has entirely neglected his character, and asks Socrates, “Now that I realize this,
what should I do?” (127e3). “Keep answering the questions, Alcibiades” Socrates
responds. “If you do this, and the god wishes, and if we ought to believe my
prophecy at all, you and I will be better off (σ τε κγA βλτιον σχ#σομεν)”
(127e4–6).
The conviction Socrates is creating at this point will not run very deep,
since he has only scratched the surface of Alcibiades’ pre-reflective beliefs and
compulsions, and besides is directing Alcibiades’ trust as much at himself and
his “prophecy” (manteia) as at the propositions involved. (In the opening of the
dialogue he “prophesied” that he could benefit Alcibiades, because his daemonic
sign, which previously had stopped him from speaking with him, was no longer
opposing him [103a1–106a2].) However, he is already setting the groundwork
for deeper reflection. Notice that in the final quotation in the last paragraph,
Alcibiades has explicitly asked Socrates for practical guidance, and Socrates has
responded with a vague statement about how the two of them can improve. In this
way he shifts the metaphor from one of giving and receiving to one of open-ended
cooperation. And while it is true that Alcibiades uses the same words as Theages
near the end of the dialogue, where he suggests that he will progress if Socrates
wishes ((ν βολη, σ, 135d3), Socrates denies this capacity: “<You should
75. His point is familiar from other Platonic dialogues: since Alcibiades answers the questions,
in some sense it is Alcibiades who is responsible for the conclusions (cf. Meno 85b8-c4).
76. This passage strongly recalls Callicles’ recalcitrance at Plato Grg. 497b2-c2, 501c7–8,
505c1ff., but the complexities of that dialogue do not easily fit into the erotic scheme of this article.
say> ‘if the god wants,’” he replies (Alc. 135c12-d6). Alcibiades accepts this
qualification, and promises to begin cultivating justice. But there is every reason
to think that he is primarily interested in eliciting suggestions from Socrates. “I’m
certainly going to follow you around (paidagôgêsô) from this day forward,” he
says (135d7–11).
If we now shift our attention to Plato’s Symposium, we will not only see further
instances of Alcibiades’ fruitless effort to elicit Socrates’ desire and knowledge,
but also the emergence of Alcibiades’ fantasies, the crisis created by Socrates’
non-responsiveness to them, and the ultimate failure to rebuild from this crisis
productively.77 In section 3, we saw how Alcibiades conceived a plan to “gratify”
Socrates in order to “be able to hear whatever he knew.” He put this plan into
action by sending away his usual attendant and speaking to Socrates alone; then
by wrestling with him alone (naked78 ); and finally by dining alone with him,
after which he convinced Socrates that it was too late to go home (217a6-d6).
Bedding down alone with Socrates, he now declares his willingness to gratify him
in exchange for his aid in “becoming as good as possible” (218c10-d2). “So think
about what you feel is best for you and me,” he demanded (219a5–7). But this is
precisely the sort of demand that Socrates tends to frustrate. He responds, “In
the future we’ll think about <this> and do whatever seems best to us about this
and about everything else” (219a8-b2). Alcibiades nevertheless presumes he has
succeeded. “I had cast my missiles,” he reports, “and thought he was wounded”
(219b3–4). He lies down with Socrates, wrapping him in the same garment and
snuggling close. Of course, he is disappointed: “He so far exceeded, despised, and
derided my beauty . . . by the gods, by the goddesses, I tell you: I fell asleep
and woke up no differently than if I had slept with my father or older brother!”
(219c3-d2).
The surprise and uncertainty Socrates creates here regarding his own desire
exemplify the beneficial potential of what I have called Socrates’ denial of
knowledge and frigidity as a lover. Lacan refers to Socrates’ behavior here as
“pure desiring,”79 but once again we will find it easier to begin with Freud’s more
lucid description of the analyst’s behavior: “It is, therefore, just as disastrous for
the analysis if the patient’s craving for love is gratified as if it is suppressed. The
77. It may be asked what justifies reading the Alcibiades and Symposium together and in this
order. Whether or not Plato wrote the Alcibiades (cf. n.4), there is no doubt its author knew Plato’s
Symposium and meant for his work to complement it. Certainly both dialogues were canonical
for Neoplatonists, most of whom would have read them in this order, since they stipulated that
the Alcibiades should be the first dialogue read (Olympiodorus in Alc. 10.18–11.1 ed. Westerink;
Anon. Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 219.26.18–20 ed. Westerink; Procl. In Alc. 6.7–9 ed.
Westerink).
78. Of course the Greeks always wrestled naked, as the word for “exercise” (gymnazesthai)
indicates.
79. Lacan describes Socrates’ eros as “pure” throughout his seminar, Le Transfert. See especially
his lecture from February 8, 1961 (1991: 179–95 [Stécriture 117–29]); cf. his lectures from January
11, 1961 and June 14, 1961 (esp. 1991: 126–27, 428–29 [Stécriture 76–77, 281–82]).
course the analyst must pursue is neither of these; it is one for which there is
no model in real life” (SE 12: 166). This odd middle ground between “normal”
erotic behavior and open rejection is what Lacan means by “pure desiring.” For
the analyst to counteract the transference would be disastrous, since it is only with
the motivation provided by the transference that real transformations can occur.
But if the analyst acts out the role that the analysand seems to expect, then the
latter will receive some satisfaction, and hence be unmotivated to inspect those
fundamental impulses through which he pursues satisfaction. This is why the
analyst must keep up those evasive strategies—interjections, deliberately vague
remarks, and unpredictable session endings—that we saw her using earlier. “The
analysand’s interpretation or construction of the Other’s desire can be thrown into
question only insofar as the analyst does not react as the analysand expects,” Fink
says. “Instead, the analyst must maintain a position of enigmatic desire.”80
With this in mind, let us look again at Socrates’ response to Alcibiades’
demand: “In the future we’ll think about <this> and do whatever seems best to us
about this and about everything else.” What he has done is not to reject Alcibiades’
bargain, but to defer even considering it. This keeps him in the salutary middle-
ground between gratification and repudiation, and thus prevents Alcibiades from
integrating Socrates into his life according to some pattern with which he is
comfortable. Once again, as in the Alcibiades, Socrates has also shifted the
metaphor from one of giving and taking to one of cooperation. “We’ll think about
<this>,” he says, “and do whatever seems best to us.” This shift points toward
Alcibiades’ need to develop an independent interest in investigating his desires
and how he goes about pursuing them. Rather than taking the hint immediately,
however, Alcibiades persists in believing his tactics will win him satisfaction. “I
thought he was wounded,” he says. But Socrates remains enigmatically unaffected.
Alcibiades is shocked that Socrates “exceeded, despised, and derided” what he
believed Socrates wanted from him, in exchange for which he expected a modicum
of satisfaction. But although Socrates has shocked him, he has not rejected him;
he remains benevolently eager to cooperate with him toward his betterment. So
now Alcibiades is upset and uncertain what is going on in his relationship with
Socrates.
From this point, which is set in a chronologically inexact past narrated at the
symposium, we must fast-forward to the time of the symposium itself. This is the
moment of greatest interest for Lacan, who is particularly taken with Alcibiades’
expression of his feelings about Socrates at this juncture: “He [Socrates] most
resembles the Sileni in the sculptors’ workshops,” Alcibiades says, “which the
artisans craft holding flutes and pipes. When they’re opened up, they have
agalmata of the gods inside” (215a7-b3).81 These agalmata—cult objects or
80. 1997: 59. Lacan addresses this point of clinical theory at 2006: 346–47, 430–31, 616–18.
81. Lacan’s references to agalma—which correspond to what he calls objet a—are too frequent
to tally. He analyzes the term most carefully in the lecture from February 1, 1961 (1991: 168–72
statuettes, according to LSJ82 —are later described as “divine, golden, entirely

beautiful, and wondrous” (216e7–217a1). But the precise imagery is relatively
unimportant. What is important about these little objects is, first, that their
attractiveness cannot be adequately articulated; the profusion of adjectives seems
rather to highlight their attractiveness than to articulate their qualities. Second,
it is important that Alcibiades locates them inside Socrates, rather than describing
Socrates as “divine, golden,” etc. “Socrates is no more than the envelope of that
which is the object of desire,” Lacan comments.83 In fact the normal Lacanian
formulation for this point is that Socrates is no longer the object of desire at all;
rather, some ineffable aspect of his presence—metaphorically represented by the
agalmata inside him—is now the cause of Alcibiades’ desire. In lay terms, rather
than pursuing Socrates as if he were golden and wonderful, Alcibiades should
now discover in his uncomfortable response to Socrates a stimulus for working
through how he both deliberately and compulsively relates to the people and world
around him.
The dramatic details of the Symposium provide some evidence that such a
stimulus is at work in him. Recall that at the end of the Alcibiades, he intends
to follow Socrates around. There he is eagerly waiting for suggestions as to
what he should pursue and avoid, much as we find him scheming after Socrates’
knowledge in the seduction narrative of the Symposium. By the dramatic date of
the drinking party, however, Alcibiades is not so sure how he relates to Socrates.
He is surprised to find him at the party: “By Heracles, what’s this? You ambush
me even here?” (213b7-c1). He likens Socrates’ effect on him to a viper’s bite
(217e6–7). He even goes so far as to wish for Socrates’ death (“Often I would
happily see him not among men”), though he simultaneously acknowledges that
he would regret it (“but if this happened, I know well that I’d be even more upset,”
216c1–3). These descriptions of his feelings document how thoroughly Socrates
has “gotten under his skin,” as Lacanians put it. His comparison between Socrates
and the flautist Marsyas makes clear that a change in the object of his desire
accompanies this change in affective tone:
When I listened to Pericles and other good orators, I thought they were
speaking well, but I didn’t feel anything like this—my heart wasn’t shaken
and troubled at the thought that I was in a slavish state. But this Marsyas
has often made me feel that I shouldn’t even go on living, having the
character I do!
215e4–16a2
[Stécriture 104–14]). In the Écrits, he pithily summarizes the importance of agalmata as follows:
“The 2γαλμα in the ρ
ν proves to be the motor force [principe] by which desire changes the nature
of the lover” (2006: 723).
82. S.v. 2γαλμα, definition 3.
83. 1991: 209 [Stécriture 136].
Here further expressions of his discomfort (“my heart was shaken and troubled”)
are connected to judgments about his own character (“I was in a slavish state”).
He no longer aims to seduce Socrates in order to hear what he has to say; rather, he
is driven to reflect on his shortcomings. The ensuing passage is worth quoting
in full:
For he forces me to admit that although I lack many things, I still neglect
myself while doing the Athenians’ business instead. So I violently plug
my ears and run away, so I won’t grow old sitting by this man. I’ve
experienced with him alone something no one would think I was capable
of, the feeling of shame. Only he makes me ashamed, because I know that
I can’t deny that I ought to do what he bids, but when I leave, I know
that I’m overcome by the honor <shown me> by the crowd. So I run away
like a fugitive, and whenever I see him, I’m ashamed by my admissions.
216a4–b6
Although Socrates is now telling him what to do (“I ought to do what he

bids”), Alcibiades is no longer looking for suggestions. Instead he faces the
uncomfortable fact that there is no quid pro quo he can establish with Socrates
in order to make his life satisfying. This makes him very anxious, because he
must now take responsibility for his own desires and fantasies. His relationship
with Socrates drives him to confront these and work through them, because it is
still invested with emotion and thus makes it difficult for him simply to disregard
what Socrates thinks about him. This is why he is tempted to “grow old sitting
by this man,” and also why he feels “ashamed before Socrates” when he runs
away. His shame arises not only from awareness of the inconsistency between
his admissions and his actions, but also from his relationship with this person
to whom this inconsistency is apparent.84
Of course, in the event we know that Alcibiades did run away, and was not
reformed. But his problem in these Platonic depictions is not that of superficial
“treatment by suggestion,” as it was in Xenophon’s portrayal. Rather, a psycho-
analyst might say that although Alcibiades is now acting out his own basic desires
with Socrates rather than accommodating himself to Socrates’ suggestions, the
problem lies in how Socrates deals with this acting out. Jonathan Lear suggests
that the pattern Alcibiades is acting out involves his whole drama of seduction
and outrage, which we hear about in his narrative (directed at Socrates), and
simultaneously see repeated at the party where he does this narrating (directed
at both Socrates and Agathon).85 This pattern would be part of what Lacanians
call his “fundamental fantasy”: when he acts it out, he feels comfortable about
where he stands vis-à-vis the people in whom he is interested, because he is able
84. On this irreducible reference to the other in shame, see Williams 1993: 82–85.
85. 1999: 156–60. I came to most of my conclusions before reading Lear 1999, with which
in several ways I differ, but my formulation of Alcibiades’ “acting out” is much indebted to him.
to maneuver them into certain roles in this scenario. His ambition to “seduce,” as
it were, and rule over others politically would also be part of this same elaborate
fantasy, through which he seeks satisfaction in social life. Since the inconsis-
tency between his actions and his “admissions” has become an urgent problem
for him, and since he includes his overwhelming fascination with “the honor
shown me by the crowd” in this problem, he is in a good position to start thinking
about these patterns. But as Lear notes, Socrates’ reaction on this occasion is not
very productive. He says to Alcibiades, “you think I should love you and no-
body else, and Agathon should be loved by you and by nobody else” (222d1–3).
Lacan—perhaps somewhat playfully—suggests that this amounts to a psycho-
analytic interpretation,86 but Lear rightly objects that it is an interpretation with
no therapeutic value. For Agathon and Socrates next agree that Agathon should
sit next to Socrates rather than Alcibiades, which only encourages Alcibiades to
continue acting out his fantasy of seduction-and-outrage: “‘By Zeus!’ Alcibiades
said. ‘How I suffer at this man’s hands!’” (222e6–7). “If Socrates’ performance
is to be evaluated along the lines of analytic technique,” Lear comments, “he must
be either dismissed as incompetent or condemned as a lecherous sadist, taking
advantage of transference, rather than analyzing it.”87
Lear implies that if Socrates wants to help Alcibiades undergo a fundamental
change, at this point he needs to help Alcibiades reflect on this transferential acting
out. An analyst in this position might call attention to Alcibiades’ histrionic repe-
tition of flirtatious pursuit and outraged rejection. This pattern has only emerged
and become available for interpretation, she might say, because Alcibiades’ trans-
ference has reached a stage at which it can profitably be analyzed (a stage beyond
“suggestibility”). A Lacanian would add that in addition to bringing this pattern to
light, the transference is also the only reason Alcibiades will take an interest in the
patterns he is manifesting. That inarticulable something about Socrates, which
Lacan identifies with the agalmata, will drive Alcibiades to investigate himself for
the sake of this relationship: he wants to explore these things with this person. (He
is tempted to “grow old sitting by this man.”) Hence a Lacanian might encourage
association back to the formative events and reactions on which this “analysand,”
unbeknownst to himself, bases these patterns.88 “That’s an interesting phrase,” she
might say to Alcibiades, “that you had ‘cast your weapon’ and thought Socrates
was ‘wounded.’” Association along these and other lines might eventually take
Alcibiades back to experiences that may not have seemed important at the time, or
which never recur to memory, but in which his subsequent emotional investment
made him who he is today. The analyst might go so far as to drop her multivalent,
enigmatic style of speaking and offer a pointed interpretation: “You feel that your
guardian Pericles . . . .” By accepting such an interpretation and thus integrat-
86. See especially his lecture from February 2, 1961 (1991; Stécriture 117–28).
87. 1999: 161.
88. See Lacan 2006: 332–36 with Fink 1997: 38–41.
ing these emotional investments into the rest of his symbolic system, Alcibiades
would make the fantasies that structure his compulsions available for reflection.
In “working through” his investments in these events, he might also alter the way
he acts out those fantasies.89
Of course, Socrates does nothing of this sort. Although his followers’ child-
hoods are not excluded from his conversation topics, their emergence in conver-
sation does not mark a key therapeutic moment.90 And this, a Lacanian would
say, is why someone like Alcibiades, whose fantasies are incompatible with So-
cratic beliefs, cannot be reformed by Socrates. Although Socrates might bring
him to the point where he is aware that something is awry in his values and
motivations, and where he is motivated to address this problem, Socrates does not
guide him in reflecting on formative events. Thus he cannot call into question
his emotional investment in certain interpretations of those events, which struc-
ture his current behavior. Hence all Alcibiades can do, once the “treatment by
suggestion” of Xenophon and Plato’s Alcibiades wears off, is act out this drama
with Socrates again and again. Eventually it could even become routine, and thus
the stimulus to self-reflection provided by Socrates’ presence would be greatly
diminished: Alcibiades could integrate him into his fantasy life as the person
before whom he confesses his shortcomings, laments his “slavish” disposition,
and “feels ashamed.” Despite the drama of self-deprecation and shame, this could
actually be a satisfactory way of getting along with Socrates.
This is one of the conclusions to which Lear comes in his analysis of Plato’s
Symposium,91 with which I agree insofar as it pertains to this dialogue. But it
would be uncharitable to extend this conclusion to the versions of Socrates we
encounter in all the dialogues I have considered in this article. In the next and final
section, I therefore attempt to unify Socratic and psychoanalytic perspectives in
order to express when and how Socratic eros could yield impressively positive
results.
7. CONCLUSIONS
Socrates’ erotic relationships with young men, we must affirm, are not psycho-
analytic relationships. First, venues like drinking parties, where the “analysand”
is drunk, are not ideal settings for psychoanalytic therapy. Whereas the analyst’s
office and appointment schedule circumscribe a carefully controlled relationship,
Socrates’ premeditated and chance encounters in saddlers’ shops and drinking
parties inevitably introduce more variation. What he says to Alcibiades at the
89. See Fink 1997: 42–49, 158–60. Lacanians also foresee a further stage of analytical progress,
the “traversing of the fundamental fantasy,” which I will not address here inasmuch as it clearly does
not operate in Socratic scenarios.
90. Socrates asks about Alcibiades’ parents in Aeschines, fr. IV A 48.
91. 1999: 158.
Symposium is not only—and perhaps not primarily—intended for Alcibiades’

edification, but rather corresponds to the norms of the social setting. He is not the
only one, for example, making jokes at other symposiasts’ expense.92 Moreover,
Socrates’ humor is a consistent feature of his personality, not only a tool he uses in
order to manipulate people like Euthydemus and Alcibiades. Whereas analysts try
to conceal their personalities, and put on their “strangeness” as a learned attitude,
Socrates’ oddity is genuine: it is part of who he is.
One consequence of this is that, although he certainly brings up different topics
when speaking to different young men, Socrates does not greatly vary his tone
according to their needs and circumstances. After telling us that many people
who were treated like Euthydemus never spoke to Socrates again, Xenophon
adds, “<Socrates> considered them pretty dull” (blakoterous, Mem. 4.2.39–40).
In other words, good riddance! He apparently was not troubled by their inability
to learn with him.93 He displays the same disinterest in tailoring his behavior to
pedagogical needs in the Platonic Clitophon.94 Similarly, he will not tone down his
humor at Plato’s Symposium simply because it is counterproductive. He seems
to like this sort of joke, which appears also in Xenophon’s Symposium, where
Antisthenes calls him a “tease (μαστροπ0 σαυτο%).” “You always avoid talking
to me,” Antisthenes complains, “now making your daemonic sign a pretext, now
lusting after someone else.” “By the gods, Antisthenes,” Socrates responds, “just
don’t hit me! As your friend, I endure and I’ll keep enduring the rest of your
harshness. But let’s keep your love secret, since it’s for my physical beauty rather
than my soul” (8.3–6).95 However we may interpret this theme in his humor,
we certainly should not reduce it to a dilemma between “taking advantage of
transference” or “analyzing it.” The reasons for this behavioral pattern are more
idiosyncratic and more complex.
But this means neither that Socrates is generally uninterested in these young
men’s ethical and intellectual growth nor that his ways of encouraging it never
bear fruit. Although he sometimes qualifies the claim,96 Lacan often suggests that
Socrates is a sort of precursor for the analyst’s manners and methods. Lear objects
that “Socrates had no interest in analyzing resistance,” because “he looks on the
humanity of the human world with the indifference of the gods.”97 In other words,
his teaching is intended only for those able to learn from his bizarre, yet somehow
92. Cf. Eryximachus and Aristophanes, 189a1-c1.

93. Cf. Morrison 1994: 188–89.
94. On the authorship and purpose of this perplexing dialogue, see Slings 1999, Ausland 2005,
Bowe 2007.
95. Concerning the lines of influence between Plato’s and Xenophon’s Symposium at this
juncture, see Huss 1999: 363–64.
96. E.g., 1968: 22: “Comme tous ces cas particuliers qui font le miracle grec, celui-ci ne nous
présente que fermée la boı̂te de Pandore. Ouverte, c’est la psychanalyse, dont Alcibiade n’avait pas
besoin.”
97. 1999: 164. Lear continues provocatively, “Socrates is interested in Alcibiades only insofar
as he has the potential to develop a divine principle within himself. To that end, Socrates need only
divine, example. But while this makes sense of Plato’s Symposium, in which
Socrates’ radically abstract eros is deliberately juxtaposed with more “human”
loves,98 it does not fit many of the other dialogues we have seen. Xenophon insists
that the thought behind Socrates’ eros is that “if such men are educated, not only
will they themselves be happy and manage their households well, but they will also
make other people and cities happy” (Mem. 4.1.2).99 Compare Socrates’ cautiously
optimistic opener in Plato’s Alcibiades: “When you were younger and not so full
of promise, I think, the god stopped me from speaking <to you> so that I wouldn’t
speak in vain. But now he’s allowed <me>, because now you might listen” (105e6–
106a2). Similarly, he concludes the long quotation from Aeschines’ Alcibiades
with the thought, “I could make him better by associating with him.” These are not
the thoughts of an educator unconcerned with the effects of his tutelage on mere
mortals; they are the thoughts of someone aiming to help individuals achieve their
potential and in this way to benefit their communities as well.
Lacanian thought gives us a way to appreciate how the very same behavior
that proves disastrous with Alcibiades (and other “failures”)100 is indeed partly
responsible for the tremendous accomplishments of other Socratic followers.
Alcibiades’ eventual integration of Socrates into his compulsive patterns of
thought and action is precisely what we would expect from a Lacanian perspective.
These patterns, which are the substrate of Lacanian “fantasy,” are how people get
along with emotionally important others in their lives. Unable to address these
patterns by exploring their investment in childhood events, Socrates’ lovers can
only mitigate the anxiety provoked by Socrates’ behavior by making room for
it within their current patterns. But the fantasies of someone like Antisthenes, for
example, are different from those of Alcibiades. Thus the integration of Socrates
into those fantasies also takes a different form.
Based on his depiction in Xenophon’s Symposium, it is easy to imaginatively
reconstruct how Antisthenes may have struggled with Socrates’ uncomfortably
evasive flirtation, and eventually integrated him into his own characteristic ways
of speaking and acting. There Antisthenes represents himself as someone who
has acquired unlimited wealth from Socrates: “He neither counted nor measured
what he supplied me with, but handed over as much as I could carry” (4.43).
Of course we know that Socrates “hands over” only ethical and loosely logical
advice, and even that can only be gleaned after repeated, aporetic, and often
stand as the exemplar that he is. But insofar as Alcibiades is trapped in the human-erotic, he can,
from Socrates’ perspective, go fuck himself.”
98. For other interpretations along these lines, see Nussbaum 1986: 163–99 and Halperin 2005.
99. Compare Socrates’ persuasion of the gifted Charmides that he should engage in politics,
“since if <the polis> is in good shape, not only the other citizens, but also your friends and you
yourself will be greatly benefited” (Mem. 3.7.9).
100. Among the youthful followers different Socratic authors more or less explicitly portray as
Socratic failures are Alcibiades, Critias, Aristides son of Lysimachus, Clitophon, Thucydides son
of Melesias, Aristodemus, and Apollodorus. Of course, debates among Socratics could lead them
to consider one another failures as well, as Xenophon seems to do with Aristippus (Mem. 2.1, 3.8).
humiliating interrogation. Most importantly for Antisthenes (as we saw above),

Socrates does not give his unique affection or even undivided attention. But
Antisthenes re-describes this withholding by saying that Socrates “handed over”
the resource of self-sufficiency. “When I want to experience pleasure,” he says, “I
don’t buy expensive stuff from the agora . . . but get it instead from the store-
house of my soul” (4.41). He still spends his time at Socrates’ knee, and says the
leisure to do so is “what I value most” about this “most luxurious possession” that
Socrates has given him (4.44). But now, having re-described Socrates’ gift, he
can find a more satisfying position for himself in the ongoing drama of Socrates’
erotic “teasing.” This is the position of one who not only has learned Socrates’
lesson that true pleasure, luxury, and wealth reside in one’s own soul, but who
also now helps Socrates to disseminate the message. “As for me, I begrudge no
one,” he says, “but show my largesse to all my friends, and share the wealth
in my soul with whoever wants it” (4.43). He even gets to play this part in the
Symposium, when Niceratus—renowned for his wealth and avarice—proclaims,
“I’ll be visiting him to get a contribution of this ‘needing nothing more!’” (4.45).
In sum, we could propose that because he never received the attention he really
wanted from Socrates, he has fantasized a Socrates who gave him precisely this,
to find superabundance in the fact of receiving little or nothing. This provides
him with a new model for finding satisfaction, not only in his relationship with
Socrates, but in his relationships generally.
The particular shape of this fantasy arises both out of Antisthenes’ deepest and
least alterable patterns of thinking and acting and from Socrates’ conversational
themes and habits. Certainly Xenophon’ Socrates places great emphasis on self-
sufficiency himself, although it is not easy to pin down what “self-sufficiency”
means for him.101 Antisthenes’ appropriation of this into his own relationship
with Socrates, and from there into his own relationships generally, has a lot to
do with the “harshness” (chalepotês) for which Socrates chides him in putting off
his declaration of love. This phrase loosely describes the fundamental disposition
established in Antisthenes during his formative years, which Socrates’ methods
cannot significantly alter. What Socrates’ eros can do is to motivate intense
effort to articulate a conceptual and argumentative scheme that accommodates
both these basic compulsions and Socrates’ characteristic ideas. In Lacanian
terms, this is a “fantasy,” but whatever that term’s Lacanian or colloquial English
resonance, I do not mean for it to be derogatory. Antisthenes’ fantasy will go on
to become paradigmatic for the acerbic exhortations and ascetic lifestyles of the
Cynic philosophers whom he inspired. In some sense, then, that ethical philosophy
will grow out of Antisthenes’ drive to integrate his relationship with Socrates into
his most emotionally invested patterns of thinking and acting. And in that sense,
Socrates really has helped Antisthenes to realize his potential.
101. See O’Connor 1994, who argues that Alcibiades, Aristippus, and Antisthenes all interpret
Socrates’ autarkeia in different fashions.
I will conclude by returning to the model of responsive eros, which we can

now enrich with the results of this survey of Socratic and Lacanian texts. This
will also allow me to recapitulate the main points I have made throughout this
article. Socrates’ treatment of potential beloveds helps us flesh out what the
Phaedrus simplifies as the encounter here on earth between two former members
of Zeus’ entourage. Of course it cannot be that easy: there are not precisely eleven
kinds of people corresponding to the eleven divine entourages (the Olympian
twelve minus Hestia, who tends the divine hearth: Phdr. 247a1–2), and so the
philosophical lover and beloved do not immediately recognize their suitability
for one another like jigsaw pieces snapping together. Socrates’ intrusive and
even violent questioning tests not only a young man’s intelligence, curiosity, and
ambition (through the content of his answers), but also his courage and maturity
(through the way he handles his emotions). At the same time the potential beloved
is deciding whether this is really the sort of experience he wants to make part
of his life. Socrates’ demonstration of his lack of wisdom encourages him to
answer in the affirmative, if he can stomach the prospect of more shame-inducing
questions. Furthermore, shared assumptions about eros give him a framework
for anticipating that Socrates will become his “ally” against his own weaknesses.
Those who continue associating with Socrates face renewed aporetic discussion,
which not only does not shake their trust in him, but makes them all the more
interested in eliciting Socrates’ beliefs about how they should live their lives.
(In Lacanian terms, they “suppose Socrates knows.”) This is the first stage of
accommodation between Socrates and a beloved, but it does not yet represent
any substantial convergence in their aspirations. For the beloved is not yet seeing
his own beauty, the profound aspirations he could share with other philosophers,
reflected in Socrates’ eyes and soul; he is only looking for immediate answers
to superficial questions. (In Lacanian terms, he wants to elicit Socrates’ desire.)
The beloved really begins to see his own beauty, and is in a position where he
might share it with his lover, only after the sort of shake-up dramatically condensed
into Alcibiades’ failed seduction. He has failed to elicit the sort of attention he
wants from Socrates either by requesting it or by staging a scenario he typically
uses for getting attention (what Lacan calls his “fundamental fantasy”). This can
lead him to a genuine interest in exploring his inability to formulate, act upon, and
be satisfied by his own desires. His desire for Socrates’ knowledge is not so much
eliminated at this stage as transformed into an uncomfortable wish to conduct
this exploration because of Socrates. (In Lacanian terms, Socrates shifts from
“object” to “cause” of his desire.) And this is where he begins to see the beauty
Socrates sees in him: he sees golden, divine agalmata in Socrates, just as the lover
in the Phaedrus sees the beloved as an agalma (251a6). These ineffable causes of
desire “reflect” (as in a mirror) and ideally lead both lover and beloved to “reflect
on” both their consciously held values and their unconsciously driven fantasies.
This reflection is not productive when lover and beloved have fundamentally
different fantasy lives, which involve incompatible patterns of investing action
and thought with motivational force. In those cases the beloved cannot channel his
confusion into any sort of progress; like Alcibiades, he integrates the lover into his
existing fantasies in whatever messy fashion he can. But when lover and beloved
are fundamentally compatible, then they can help one another to harmonize their
values and compulsions in expressing who each is and wants to become. Thus it is
under the banners of beauty and eros that two souls cooperatively work toward a
fairer organization of internal energies. Inasmuch as defining oneself is always
also defining the world,102 this involves a fairer perception of that world as well.103
And in the case of philosophical individuals, this perception of oneself and the
world can take the form of the very ethical, ontological, epistemological, and
other arguments and theories we enjoy as Socratic philosophy.
University of Bristol
[email protected]
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“Socratic Therapy” from Aeschines of Sphettus to Lacan

Author(s): Kurt Lampe

“Socratic Therapy” from Aeschines of

It is widely acknowledged that among the principal goals of Socrates and

from psychoanalytic “talk therapy” is to highlight how Socratic authors think

1. SOCRATES’ THERAPEUTIC EROS: DEFINING THE EXPLANANDUM

2. THERAPEUTIC ‘‘EROS’’ IN LACAN: THE COMPARATIVE MODEL

30. See Fink 1997: 14–19, 45–47.

behavior. It is not exhaustive because it doesn’t explain all aspects of that

3. EROS AND INITIATING THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS

Socrates’ erotic proclivities are ﬁrmly established in fourth-century Socratic

he went away feeling dejected (θμως χων), despising himself (καταφρον#σας

a prologue to a constructive relationship rather than as a malicious assault on his

45. Fink 1997: 14.

This involvement with Socrates’ desire is central to the therapeutic relationship.

4. EROS AND THE CAPACITY TO BENEFIT

The details of Socrates’ speech allow us to give an answer to the problem of

5. EROS AND THE SUPPOSITION OF KNOWLEDGE

One common way in which Socrates’ beloveds relate to themselves through

suspected that he would never be anyone worthy of note, unless he spent

Elsewhere, Xenophon indicates that imitation was a common reaction to Socrates’

Mimicry is by no means restricted to Xenophon’s characters. Perhaps the most

answers to big questions about beauty, goodness, and happiness.61 In Aeschines,

6. EROS, EVASIVENESS, AND THE LIMITS OF SOCRATIC THERAPY

Lacanian thought leads us to anticipate two problems in the harnessing of

Aristides measures his “progress” (epedidoun) by his capacity to come oﬀ well

statuettes, according to LSJ82 —are later described as “divine, golden, entirely

Although Socrates is now telling him what to do (“I ought to do what he

Symposium is not only—and perhaps not primarily—intended for Alcibiades’

92. Cf. Eryximachus and Aristophanes, 189a1-c1.

humiliating interrogation. Most importantly for Antisthenes (as we saw above),

I will conclude by returning to the model of responsive eros, which we can

102. See Taylor 1989: esp. 29–52.

Lacan, J. 1968. “Proposition du 9 octobre 1967 sur le psychanalyste de l’École,” Scilicet

Rossetti, L. 1980. “Ricerche sui ‘Dialoghi Socratici’ di Fedone e di Euclide.” Hermes

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he went away feeling dejected (θμως χων), despising himself (καταφρον#σας