Symposium: the Speech of Socrates

[Thomas]

In response to Agathon, Socrates asks: Isn't love OF something, a relation rather than a thing in itself? And what is it that the lover wants? Something he has, or something he doesn't have? Clearly the lover's love is for something he lacks. So is love an expression of lack, a desire to possess something?

If so, then what is it that love loves? (I can't resist James Joyce's answer: "Love loves to love love.")

The Platonic answer is probably The Good. In the context of sexual attraction, The Good is made manifest as the beautiful, whether it is a beautiful body or a beautiful mind, or both.

Socrates develops his thoughts through a conversation that he once had with a woman named Diotima. She draws an interesting parallel between love and knowledge: there is a middle ground between knowledge and ignorance called "true belief". Similarly, love exists in a middle ground between mortality and immortality. Love is therefore a spirit, a "daimon", something between a god and a mortal. (Socrates speaks about his personal daimon in the Apology, which always warns him about mistakes he is about to make.) Is love a kind of daimon then, a messenger or mediator between the gods and humans?

To further explain how love mediates between extremes, Diotima tells the myth that Love is the son of Plenty and Poverty. isn't love the desire for more and more? This is love in one direction, toward satiety. Assuming that this satiety is actually achieved, that we have all of whatever goodness we desire on a permanent basis -- can we call that happiness?

Diotima echoes Aristophanes' story when she asks, unprompted, about the meaning of love as people looking for their other halves. I think the concern here is to account for physical and sexual desire -- does she successfully tie the previous argument to this one so that it explains sexual desire? She seems to explain this aspect of love as an instinct, which makes sense in itself but I'm having trouble linking it to the previous discussion. "Love's purpose is physical and mental procreation in an attractive medium." That could use some unpacking.

The desire for procreation is a desire for immortality, Diotima argues, and this procreation can be physical or mental. Mental "offspring" are things like virtue and wisdom, self-discipline and justice. But then she argues that someone with a "mental" pregnancy goes around searching for beauty, including physical beauty, and having found that beautiful person begins to undertake their education. Presumably this results in the birth of both physical and mental offspring. (Examples of mental offspring include the works of Homer and Hesiod.)

Diotima wraps it up with some advice for Socrates. Even he, she says, can be initiated into the ways of love, though he may not be ready for the final mysteries. First he should focus on physical beauty, starting with specific bodies, and then move step by step up the "ladder" to the universal idea of beauty itself. (She describes an ascent that is familar from the Republic: the myth of the cave and the image of the divided line.) At some point the physical falls away entirely. What happens then?

[Donnally]

It is interesting that Diotima's speech is the only speech in The Symposium from a female. It also stresses more than any of the others the love of mental beauty (the sort of love which has come to be called 'Platonic love').
There is some question as to whether Diotima was an actual historical figure, since there is no mention of her anywhere else. Dio-tima means 'honor god'. According to Plutarch, the name of Alcibiades' female consort was Tim-andra, which means 'honor man'. Was she invented to create a clear contrast to the sort of lust and immoral conduct associated with Alcibiades?

[Mike]

It is interesting that Socrates’ speech about Diotima is a story within a story within a story (if I have the screen right in my head). Is this done to remove an issues with the speech away from Socrates (therefore Plato)?

[David]

Thomas wrote: "(I can't resist James Joyce's answer: "Love loves to love love.")"

Doesn't this mean that love is self-sufficient and therefore has no need of anything but itself?

Love is neither beautiful nor good, because it is lacks both, AND it constantly desires beauty and goodness as means to its ultimate end of immortality. Therefore Love is a consumer of beauty and good and a producer of immortality. Does that sum up Socrates meaning of love?

[Thomas]

Donnally wrote: "It is interesting that Diotima's speech is the only speech in The Symposium from a female. It also stresses more than any of the others the love of mental beauty (the sort of love which has come to..."

She is one of the only women to speak at all in the dialogues, albeit indirectly through Socrates. The other instance of note is Aspasia, who delivers the oration which forms the bulk of Menexenus (again, she speaks indirectly through Socrates).

What Diotima says is largely consistent with Platonic doctrine in the other dialogues, which makes me wonder why here he chooses a woman to speak in the midst of a discussion that is mostly about homo-erotic love.

[Thomas]

David wrote: "Thomas wrote: "(I can't resist James Joyce's answer: "Love loves to love love.")"

Doesn't this mean that love is self-sufficient and therefore has no need of anything but itself? "

I think Joyce is just playing with words. "Love" in this case serves as a noun, a finite verb, an infinitive, and a subject, all in the same sentence. But it does sort of point out an issue with the speeches we've heard so far in Symposium: it isn't clear what eros is. Is love a subject, as in the god Eros, who acts as an agent of some sort? Or is it Eros the effect of love, a natural force that acts on or between people? Or is Eros the object of affection, something capable of objective beauty? It seems to be all of these and more, which makes it difficult to observe and talk about.

[David]

In my translation of Symposium by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff the term Eros only appears once in the introduction.

To gratify Phaedrus, who indignantly regrets the neglect by Greek poets and writers of the god of Love, the company agree to give speeches in turn, while they all drink, in praise of Love. ‘Love’ (Greek erôs) covers sexual attraction and gratification between men and women and between men and teenage boys, but the focus here is also and especially on the adult male’s role as ethical and intellectual educator of the adolescent that was traditional among the Athenians in the latter sort of relationship, whether accompanied by sex or not.

Other sources indicate Eros is often used interchangeably with the term love. Eros does have components of physical or emotional attraction but is associated with the higher form of love that leads one towards the contemplation of beauty and truth and is an essential component of the philosophical quest for wisdom. The term love is a more general term that can refer to various forms of attraction or attachment.

[Alexey]

Greek has many terms for the word love, and they say each has distinct meaning. I believe Plato should have kept this distinction straight, but I've heard and read translators' rant on how Greeks mixed them and assumed meaning of the terms are often (usually?) helpless in real texts. I recall using of word Agape for the desire of a rapist.

[Thomas]

David wrote: "The term love is a more general term that can refer to various forms of attraction or attachment. "

This is what Diotima suggests in her definition of eros (205-206) where she uses the example of art (poeisis.) There are different kinds of art, and different kinds of artists, but they all have something in common: they create something that didn't exist before. Similarly, there are different kinds of love and different kinds of lovers, and what they all have in common is a desire to possess the good, physical or moral.

Where things get a little more complicated is when Diotima talks about "begetting in beauty, with respect to the body and soul." I'm not sure that the good is always beautiful, or that the soul always wants beauty.

The difference between eros and agape is largely one of dialect -- like all languages, Greek changed over time, and Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament) lost the term "eros." The term "eros" is not used in the New Testament, and "agape" assumes its function. (Along with "philia.") So I think we have to look to context. Sometimes "agape" is translated in the New Testament as "charity," which is certainly different from any of the common meanings of eros in classical Greek, but it is still arguably a desire for the good.

[Tamara]

In last week’s discussion (#29), Thomas said, “I'm starting to wonder if the dialogue exists in a sort of middle ground between truth and fiction, a story that may not be entirely factual but still true in the way that a myth can be true. Plato elsewhere calls this sort of thing an "eikos mythos," a "likely story." It guides the listener to the truth via a fiction.”

Picking up on what Thomas said, I think this fits in very well with how Diotima defines the gods. She argues Eros, like all the gods, occupies an intermediate space between mortal and immortal. That’s how I read mythology.

The stories in myths are not necessarily factual, but they embody universal truths. We continue to read them not because we want to know about gods and goddesses or because we believe they are responsible for occurrences in nature. We read them because they speak to us on a human level. We can relate to them. We see the consequences of Achilles rage; we see the impact on Demeter as she mourns for her kidnapped child; we see Hera directing her anger at Zeus’ lovers for her spouse’s infidelity. We recognize these qualities in ourselves or in people we know. In that sense, the truth embodied in myths are universal. They tell us about the actions of the gods, but they speak to us as humans. They lead us to truths about ourselves through fiction. They occupy a liminal space between truth and fiction, between mortal and immortal.

Isn’t that how Diotima defines the gods? And by defining them in this way, isn't she suggesting we should not take them literally but as metaphors, as ways of directing us to universal truths?

[Emil]

While the first five speeches appear to me somehow satirical, representing limited views of the concept of love, the speech of Socrates is much more insightful.

It's just my translation, of Socrates is scolding the host for his previous speech?

To whom belongs this speech by the way? To Diotima? Or to Socrates? Or to Plato?

[David]

I cannot stop thinking of Mill! Diotima and Socrates establish happiness as an end that is common to all,

“That’s what makes happy people happy, isn’t it—possessing good things. There’s no need to ask further, ‘What’s the point of wanting happiness?’ The answer you gave seems to be final.”
“True,” I said.
“Now this desire for happiness, this kind of love—do you think it is common to all human beings and that everyone wants to have good things forever and ever? What would you say?”
“Just that,” I said. “It is common to all.”

All this is missing is the argument that happiness is the only end. Is Plato making an argument for Utilitarianism? Before we dismiss the idea and say Plato was less concerned with external factors and more concerned with virtue bringing about as a state of inner eudaimonia or development and personal growth, recall Mill argued that over time, the pursuit and practice of virtuous behavior can become habitual and thereby incorporated into our very concept of happiness.

[Thomas]

I think it's quite possible that the first five speeches are satirical, but if that's the case then I suspect Diotima's is as well. She makes some highly suspect arguments, such as when she argues that what is mortal has a share of immortality via procreation. Mortality and immortality are categorically opposed to each other. Perhaps there is a metaphorical way in which her argument is true, but taken as a statement it is self-contradictory. At this point Socrates asks, "Why really, my most wise Diotima, are these things actually true? And she replied as the accomplished sophists do, Know it well, Socrates." Telling the man who trusts only in dialectic, and who claims to know only that he doesn't know anything, to simply "know it well" strikes me as quite possibly satirical.

It is interesting to contrast Socrates' treatment of Diotima with the way he treats Agathon's argument. It does sound like scolding, in a way. At the end Agathon admits, "Very likely I did not know what i was talking about." But Socrates gives him credit for the form of his speech: "And yet you spoke so beautifully, Agathon." He could give Diotima's speech the same treatment, but he doesn't. Why does she get a pass?

[David]

In his speech, Pausanias said,

Love’s value to the city as a whole and to the citizens is immeasurable, for he compels the lover and his loved one alike to make virtue their central [c] concern. All other forms of love belong to the vulgar goddess

Does not Socrates' speech concentrate only on the heavenly love, by expanding on the reasons and explanations of why the ties between love and virtue exist and where it all leads, leaving out entirely the "vulgar" side? The closest he seems to come to the vulgar side is when Diotima mentions physical attraction, not necessarily its vulgar side, as a starting point when she says,

“A lover who goes about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies.

[David]

Thomas wrote: "She makes some highly suspect arguments, such as when she argues that what is mortal has a share of immortality via procreation. Mortality and immortality are categorically opposed to each other. Perhaps there is a metaphorical way in which her argument is true, but taken as a statement it is self-contradictory."

It suggests to me that the immortality that Diotima speaks of is not meant to be taken literally as a physical or biological immortality. Instead, it refers to a kind of immortality achieved through the creation of something that leaves an impact on the world after we're gone, i.e., a legacy, such as generations of offspring, or an enduring creation including structures, inventions, or works of art, etc. Now, I am thinking of Ozymandias for some reason. . .

[Thomas]

David wrote: "I cannot stop thinking of Mill! Diotima and Socrates establish happiness as an end that is common to all,
“That’s what makes happy people happy, isn’t it—possessing good things. There’s no need t..."

I don't know much about Mill, but my suspicion is that because their theories of knowledge are so radically different they would not be able to agree on what happiness is. Mill was an empiricist, Plato an idealist. Mill might get more traction with Aristotle, who was far more practical.

[Thomas]

David wrote: "It suggests to me that the immortality that Diotima speaks of is not meant to be taken literally as a physical or biological immortality.."

I think you're right, but if she means it metaphorically then it is literally not true, which is why Socrates says "Wait! Is that really true?"

Diotima uses a strange example at one point when she says that Achilles died for Patroclus because he wanted his courage to be remembered forever, i.e., he acted from a desire for immortality. This seems to me obviously false -- Achilles died because he loved Patroclus. Of course Plato knew this, and so I suspect he put this into Diotima's speech as a sophistical flourish, a red flag maybe. It strikes me as odd in general that the desire for immortality is central to Diotima's conception of love when Socrates already believes the soul to be immortal (and therefore not an object of desire.)

[David]

Thomas wrote: "Diotima uses a strange example at one point when she says that Achilles died for Patroclus because he wanted his courage to be remembered forever, i.e., he acted from a desire for immortality. This seems to me obviously false -- Achilles died because he loved Patroclus."

I am thinking the lines between immortality and love are being blurred here and merged, especially for the virtuous for they are driven by love toward immortality. If love is a consumer of beauty and the good as a means to produce what it desires most, immortality, then love and immortality are, in the higher sense, the same thing, or at least aligned.

[Donnally]

David wrote: " If love is a consumer of beauty and the good as a means to produce what it desires most, immortality, then love and immortality are, in the higher sense, the same thing, or at least aligned.

But eros brings two beings together to create a third being. And then the two who were brought together pass away. So what is immortal? Eros also means death.

[David]

Donnally wrote: "But eros brings two beings together to create a third being. And then the two who were brought together pass away. So what is immortal? Eros also means death. "

Interesting point. While we agree that Eros and death are associated, I'm not sure that Eros means death. Instead, I am coming to understand it is the recognition of human mortality, i.e., death, drives a desire for immortality through a powerful force that drives people to unite with others or seek excellence in themselves through beauty and goodness, i.e., love, to achieve immortality by several means: the creation of physical offspring, the pursuit of artistic or intellectual excellence and wisdom, or since souls are apparently immortal, the spiritual union of two souls, that will transcend our mortal limitations and achieve a kind of immortality.

[Thomas]

David wrote: "I am thinking the lines between immortality and love are being blurred here and merged, especially for the virtuous for they are driven by love toward immortality. "

The blurring is what I find suspicious. The physical immortality that Diotima describes is actually vicarious immortality. Immortality is an infinite concept and here it's being applied to finite beings. It makes some sense that desire for an ideal, like absolute beauty, is infinite, if, and only if, the soul or subject doing the desiring is also immortal, because it will never fully possess what it desires in all its perfection. But physical desires for physical things cease to be once they possess whatever they desire.

Also, isn't it a little weird that this speech about procreation is being spoken amongst men who are erotically oriented towards other men?

[Emil]

Thomas wrote: "At this point Socrates asks, "Why really, my most wise Diotima, are these things actually true? And she replied as the accomplished sophists do ..."

I am not sure about Plato's stance on sophists, maybe reading Theaetetus/Sophist would help.

If I google "Plato and Sophism", every single article implies that he hated them to the bone.

This is what I've got from a Wikipedia article on sophism:
"Plato sought to distinguish sophists from philosophers, arguing that a sophist was a person who made his living through deception, whereas a philosopher was a lover of wisdom who sought the truth. To give the philosophers greater credence, Plato gave the sophists a negative connotation."

So saying that "she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist", Plato/Socrates is actually mocking Diotima.

I would say that the character Socrates is mocking everyone by showing them that even Diotima, a wannabe Sophist, would define Eros a lot better than they did.
Maybe Socrates did not want to join the party in the beginning because he suspected all he will get would be speculation, superstition, and style over substance.

[David]

Thomas wrote: "Also, isn't it a little weird that this speech about procreation is being spoken amongst men who are erotically oriented towards other men? "

Yes, procreation is not the main focus in the discussion of love in the text, and is mentioned only as the lowest starting point to get us to the higher, implying better or preferred, creative outcomes of the spiritual/developmental forms of love between men. Could this possibly be due to the low regard for women and a belief that they were only capable of physical relationships. Based on the defensive tone in Pausanias' speech, possibly Socrates is also presenting a more reasoned justification for their lifestyle practices.

[David]

Emil wrote: "So saying that "she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist", Plato/Socrates is actually mocking Diotima."

It is true that Plato often distinguished between philosophers and sophists, and criticized sophists for their use of rhetoric to manipulate and deceive. Socrates was not opposed to persuasion, but rather to persuasion that relied on falsehood or fallacy and does not use the term in the pejorative sense 100% of the time.

I don't get the sense that Socrates was necessarily mocking Diotima by calling her a sophist and may have been using the term in a more neutral or descriptive sense. Rather than an insult or criticism he uses the term to recognize her rhetorical skill and underscore the persuasive power of her argument. . .if only to persuade Thomas over his doubts about Achilles motives in dying for Patroclus for love or for glory, which in this work is apparently an immortal-ish result that love strives for :) Recall Achilles' mother, Thetis, told him that fate has given him two options—either live a short but glorious life in Troy or return to Phthia and live on in old age but obscurity. I think Patroclus' death was the deciding factor for glory, making it all the more tragic.

[Donnally]

Plato rarely concludes his dialogues with any kind of conclusive statement. However, Sophist is an exception. After spending the entire dialogue trying to describe the essence of what it is to be a sophist, he concludes:

"The art of contradiction making, descended from an insincere kind of conceited mimicry, of the semblance-making breed, derived from image making, distinguished as a portion, not divine but human, of production, that presents a shadow play of words -- such are the blood and lineage which can, with perfect truth, be assigned to the authentic Sophist."

[Roger]

I find it hard to take seriously the connection made by Diotima (via Socrates) between love of persons and love of the good. The love we're talking about here is eros, i.e. lust. The love of beauty, virtue, or goodness seems to me to be altogether different, even if they can occur at the same time.

[David]

“A lover who goes about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies. First, if the leader45 leads aright, he should love one body and beget beautiful ideas there; then he should [b] realize that the beauty of any one body is brother to the beauty of any other and that if he is to pursue beauty of form he’d be very foolish not to think that the beauty of all bodies is one and the same. When he grasps this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies,

if one progresses to this point and accepts that everything is equally beautiful, doesn't beauty then cease to exist? Or is the opposite true, that if everything is equally beautiful then everything is the objective form of beauty?

[Thomas]

Roger wrote: "I find it hard to take seriously the connection made by Diotima (via Socrates) between love of persons and love of the good. The love we're talking about here is eros, i.e. lust. The love of beauty..."

The argument here is the same as the one in the Republic, that there is a natural progression from the particular to the absolute, that lust for physical beauty is only a hop, skip, and a jump from the contemplation of beauty itself. It's interesting that he is not able to demonstrate this dialectically, even if his attempts are enlightening in their own way. Ultimately he needs a myth to explain how one transcends the particular world of bodies.

[Thomas]

David wrote: "
“A lover who goes about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful bodies. First, if the leader45 leads aright, he should love one body and beget beautiful idea..."

Who might this unnamed leader be? What sort of qualities might he or she have, I wonder?

My guess is that he or she would resemble Socrates. (Which might explain why the Symposium is told from the point of view of Aristodemus, lest Socrates have to praise himself to Apollodorus.)

[David]

Thomas wrote: "David wrote: "
“. . .First, if the leader leads aright, he should love one body and beget beget beautiful idea..."
Who might this unnamed leader be? What sort of qualities might he or she have, I wonder? "

A footnote in my text explains the leader to be love itself. So I understood the phrase to mean if love guided the relationship properly, instead of if anyone in particular leading the relationship. Of course there is a big, if, in there acknowledging that love may guide the relationship improperly.

However, I do agree that Socrates probably does think himself, the philosopher, to be the best qualified mentor in these relationships.

[Thomas]

What a cute footnote! It almost sounds like a pop song: "Let love lead..." But there are problems with that interpretation, as you point out.