Commentary on Plato's Alcibiades

to detach oneself, and not to envy those who are powerful in the city. By learning from him, one is ignited toward the contemplation of the truly divine nature, and of the care appropriate to such a nature. And while those who spend time in these matters say that we hit the mark, they do not, however, succeed in grasping a divine understanding from the disposition of truth. They linger over the final matters and touch upon the instruments of logic, but they fall short of the correction of actual things. Others among them, more solemn, think the Laconian style should be maintained, and that he Alcibiades should rejoice in the rational faculty, as it is the only demonstrative one. And they deem him worthy of handling this logic even in the incomparable matters, the first great syllogism logical argument, in which he shows that:
1 Alcibiades does not know what is just.
Second, the one that declares that the many are not good teachers, and thus dismisses the many.
2 Third, the one concluding that when someone is speaking or answering, it is not the questioner who has spoken, but the respondent.
Fourth, in which it is shown that it is the task of the same science to persuade many and one.
Fifth, the one reasoning that the just and the advantageous are indeed the same.
Sixth, the one adding his own point, that for whom the good is chosen, it is the noble that is good.
Seventh, the one establishing that the opinions of which Alcibiades is ignorant are not noble, while simultaneously urging him on.
And wherever those who refute him argue that not even the good is known by himself Alcibiades, which some arranged in syllogisms, as many declare...