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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 2II
tional programme espoused in the Republic of steeping children in
beautiful things necessarily entails the instilling of sensitivity to, and
ultimately rational reception of, goodness. In other words, the goal is
the attainment of psychic health and harmony. Thus the thumos becomes
the natural ally of reason since, although the two are aiming at
different objectives in sense, in reference these objectives are one and
the same. As for the notion of andreia, it now virtually overlaps with
s6phrosune, and so has been radically transformed from its paradigmatic
manifestation in the character of Achilles. Hobbs further claims
that andreia now entails a properly trained thumos obedient to the dictates
of reason and consequently freed from any untempered aggression
that had been overly stimulated by excessive emphasis upon war as
its only sphere of action. Andreia can now exist as readily in the agora
as on the battlefield. What' is more, the mystery of precisely how the
thumos and andreia relate is resolved by seeing that Platonic andreia
controls the thumos by giving it new and more appropriate goals to
focus on. Hobbs ends this chapter with an examination of the problematic
appropriation of andreia in terms of philosophic courage. Hobbs
concludes that Plato never resolves the tension inherent within the masculine
connotations of andreia and remains deliberately ambivalent so
as not to alienate his contemporary and almost wholly male audience.
Chapter 9...Alcibiades' revenge: thumos in the Symposium." acknowledges
a core problem signaled earlier: given the inherently conservative
and self-replicating nature of a role-model society such as that
of contemporary Athens. a Catch-22 looms in that. in order to train the
thumos properly, one needs Philosopher-Rulers. But one cannot have
Philosopher-Rulers until the educational system required to create them
is in place. In the absence of such an ideal society. we are given. so
Hobbs argues, a depiction of the dangers that the choice of a role model
like Alcibiades would pose. Hobbs argues that he. like Callicles. Thrasymachus.
and Achilles. represents the tendencies of the thumos unhampered
by reason and the concomitant potential to cause enormous
harm to itself and society at large. Hobbs provides a nice overview of
his thumoeidic tendencies as portrayed in the primary sources. but
might have balanced her argument with citation of some of the secondary
literature on the figure of Alcibiades. 2
According to Hobbs's
reading. Alcibiades functions within the Symposium, as does Achilles
within the Republic, as an anti-role model: a powerfully alluring, yet
2 E.g. W.M. Ellis, Alcibiades (London 1989); D. Gribble. Alcibiades and Athens:
A Study in Literary Presentation (Oxford 1999); J. Hatzfeld. Alcibiade:
Etude sur l'histoire d'Athenes a la fin du v" siecle (Paris2 1951); J. de Romilly.
Alcibiade. ou les dangers de l'ambition (Paris 1995).