First Socrates establishes Alcibiades's ignorance. They agree that an important skill of a politician is to lead the city to take just actions. But when did he learn what the less and more just is, and from whom? Alcibiades is asked these questions about many matters and finds himself in a state of confusion when he cannot answer. You can learn things in general from people, like your language, but there are many matters where people disagree on where you must defer to expertise such as health or shipmaking. And since Alcibiades has not learned how to tell the less and more just apart from an expert he must be ignorant. Justice is one subject that people have plenty of disagreements on, such as the Illiad and the Oddyssey, it requires expertise to learn.

One important lesson on knowledge that this dialogue imparts is the levels of competence:

1. Unknown Incompetence

2. Known Incompetence

3. Known Competence

4. Unknown Competence

Socrates explains the step from 1 to 3 to Alcibiades. Plato might not agree on the 4th one, to know something without knowing it. After all you can't teach what you aren't aware of. But it's still not ignorance, maybe the conclusions of the Ion dialogue about inspiration could fit here.

The dialogue explores the relation between what is good, just, admireable and advantageous. At first Alcibiades posits that some sactions are admireable but bad, such as risking your life. Then he agrees that death is preferable to cowardice. What is just is also admireable and advantages and therefore good. Like in most dialogues it is established that all virtues go together.

The importance of education is stressed. Alcibiades claims that even though he is uneducated and ignorant, his noble origins and natural talents will outclass the other politicians in Athens. Socrates angrily rebukes him that he will never realise his ambitions by having such low intellectual ambitions. If he will measure himself with the idiots of the polis he will never rival the kings of Sparta and Persia who make his own origins look humble with their noble houses and access to education.

The inscription at the temple of Delphi, "Know thyself", is central to this dialogue. What is the self that must be cultivated? As the tools of a worker are separate from the worker that uses them, the body is separate of the self that uses it. The self is identified by ruling out all but one of three alternatives. It cannot be the body, as it is ruled by the soul. It cannot be the combination of soul and body, as the body does not partake in the ruling. Then the soul is the only candidate for what the self is. It is our souls that must be improved. This definition is important as it means material thing such as accumulating wealth and other tools does not count as cultivating yourself.

The question of whether virtue can be taught is brought up, as in other dialogues like Meno and Protagoras. Again Pericles and his inept sons are shown as an example of why virtue is not so easy to learn, however it does seem to imply that teachers with real knowledge of virtue can teach it, such as Zeno?

Whether a nod or a predessor to the philosopher-kings of Republic, virtue is established as the main skill of the statesman. Good is when everyone does their own work according to expertise, and politicians must impart virtue on a city to bring good and harmony.

Observations: This dialogue is supposed to be the origin behind Platonic love, where Socrates loves Alcibiades for his soul and not (necessarily?) sexually.

My Take: I really liked this dialogue and agree that its a good introduction to philosophy. It succinctly goes over a lot of important concepts to start out thinking about things and is not too technical or long for a beginner to start with.