Key Arguments

• Alcibiades first answers that what improves a state is ‘the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division’ and clarifies that by friendship he means ‘Agreement.’
• Socrates works through clear cases where agreement stems from shared expertise: arithmetic makes cities and private individuals ‘agree about numbers,’ and measurement makes them agree about ‘the comparative length of the span and of the cubit’ and the balance.
• Alcibiades tries to explain political friendship as ‘such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife,’ but Socrates shows that in crafts like spinning and the use of arms, the knowledgeable and the ignorant cannot genuinely ‘agree.’
• From this, Socrates concludes that where men and women have different knowledge, ‘in their knowledge there is no agreement,’ and if friendship is agreement, ‘Nor can there be friendship,’ undermining Alcibiades’ initial model.
• Alcibiades attempts to rescue his view by claiming that states are well administered and friendly ‘for this very reason, that the two parties respectively do their own work,’ but Socrates points out the inconsistency: earlier Alcibiades denied friendship where there was no agreement, yet now he asserts friendship where the parties do different, unequally known tasks.
• Socrates exposes the contradiction by asking ‘how can there be agreement about matters which the one party knows, and of which the other is in ignorance?’ and forces Alcibiades to concede that doing one’s own just work in the state must produce some friendship, leaving Alcibiades unable to say what this friendship or agreement really is or among whom it exists.

Source Quotes

What is that by the presence or absence of which the state is improved and better managed and ordered? ALCIBIADES: I should say, Socrates:—the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division. SOCRATES: And do you mean by friendship agreement or disagreement?

ALCIBIADES: I should say, Socrates:—the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division. SOCRATES: And do you mean by friendship agreement or disagreement? ALCIBIADES: Agreement. SOCRATES: What art makes cities agree about numbers?

ALCIBIADES: Agreement. SOCRATES: What art makes cities agree about numbers? ALCIBIADES: Arithmetic. SOCRATES: And private individuals?

SOCRATES: But what is the nature of the agreement?—answer, and faint not. ALCIBIADES: I mean to say that there should be such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife. SOCRATES: But can a man, Alcibiades, agree with a woman about the spinning of wool, which she understands and he does not?

ALCIBIADES: I mean to say that there should be such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife. SOCRATES: But can a man, Alcibiades, agree with a woman about the spinning of wool, which she understands and he does not? ALCIBIADES: No, truly.

ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then in their knowledge there is no agreement of women and men? ALCIBIADES: There is not. SOCRATES: Nor can there be friendship, if friendship is agreement? ALCIBIADES: Plainly not.

SOCRATES: That was not what you were saying before; and what do you mean now by affirming that friendship exists when there is no agreement? How can there be agreement about matters which the one party knows, and of which the other is in ignorance? ALCIBIADES: Impossible.

ALCIBIADES: I suppose that there must be, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then what do you mean by this friendship or agreement about which we must be wise and discreet in order that we may be good men? I cannot make out where it exists or among whom; according to you, the same persons may sometimes have it, and sometimes not. ALCIBIADES: But, indeed, Socrates, I do not know what I am saying; and I have long been, unconsciously to myself, in a most disgraceful state.

Key Concepts

• I should say, Socrates:—the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division.
• And do you mean by friendship agreement or disagreement? ALCIBIADES: Agreement.
• What art makes cities agree about numbers? ALCIBIADES: Arithmetic.
• I mean to say that there should be such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife.
• But can a man, Alcibiades, agree with a woman about the spinning of wool, which she understands and he does not?
• Then in their knowledge there is no agreement of women and men? ALCIBIADES: There is not. SOCRATES: Nor can there be friendship, if friendship is agreement?
• how can there be agreement about matters which the one party knows, and of which the other is in ignorance?
• Then what do you mean by this friendship or agreement about which we must be wise and discreet in order that we may be good men? I cannot make out where it exists or among whom; according to you, the same persons may sometimes have it, and sometimes not.

Context

Socrates moves from defining the political art’s end to examining Alcibiades’ claim that friendship or agreement preserves the city; through examples from arithmetic, measurement, and gendered crafts, he undermines Alcibiades’ naive model of familial and civic friendship and generates philosophical perplexity.