Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Plato, Symposium & Phaedrus
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Symposium: The speech of Alcibiades and conclusion
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In the end, Socrates shows himself to be impervious to physical love, to fatigue, and to drink.
Roger wrote: "In the end, Socrates shows himself to be impervious to physical love, to fatigue, and to drink."Alcibiades talks up Socrates' toughness as well, mentioning he took the hardships of the campaign much better than I ever did—much better, in fact, than anyone in the whole army. standing up to hunger, his amazing resistance to the cold, as well as a cool efficiency in battle.
Alicibiades also mentions a prior instance of Socrates' habit of standing frozen in thought, as he was before his arrival at the party.
He simply stood there, glued to the same spot. By midday, many soldiers had seen him, and, quite mystified, they told everyone that Socrates had been standing there all day, thinking about something. He was still there when evening came, and after dinner some Ionians [d] moved their bedding outside, where it was cooler and more comfortable (all this took place in the summer), but mainly in order to watch if Socrates was going to stay out there all night. And so he did;And Alicibaides forshadows Socrates movments at the end of the party by ending his story,
he stood on the very same spot until dawn! He only left next morning, when the sun came out, and he made his prayers to the new day.I wonder if all of this praise is meant to impress, inspire, and perhaps cause the reader to fall in love with Socrates because of these his qualities and virtures?
Maybe Plato's Socrates is just more than human.
Roger wrote: "Maybe Plato's Socrates is just more than human."Alcibaides agrees,
The best you can do is not to compare him to anything human, but to liken him, as I do, to Silenus and the satyrs, and the same goes for his ideas and arguments.
Thomas wrote: "Is there a reason, literary or thematic, that Alcibiades speaks last? ..."For me, the previous speeches represented idealized versions of love while Alcibiades' speech is the bittersweet reality of a person in love.
In the previous week, David wrote: "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. . ...."
214d "Besides, my gifted friend, you are surely not convinced by anything that Socrates has just told you? You must know the case is quite the contrary of what he was saying."
Emil wrote: "214d "Besides, my gifted friend, you are surely not convinced by anything that Socrates has just told you? You must know the case is quite the contrary of what he was saying.""This speech from Alcibiades are a realistic example of unrequited love in contrast with the idealized versions of love presented in the previous speeches. Alcibiades speaks anectdotally from personal experience and reflects the bittersweet outcome of unrequieted physical love. His speech adds balance and complexity with the unpredictability of love, and how it can often become a difficult source of pain and suffering. From an appropriately inebriated Alcibiades we get a reminder of the passionate uncontrolled, jealous, and possessive side of love, to balance with the reasoned controlled descriptions and self-centered demonstrations from Socrates we have been exposed to so far.
Regarding Socrates' use of the term, sophist it is my understanding also that the term was often used as a pejorative term in ancient Athens, so it is possible that Socrates' use of the term was intended to be somewhat ironic or tongue-in-cheek. However, despite Alcibiades blame on those ideals for his failed physical relationship with Socrates, it is clear that Socrates himself respected Diotima's wisdom in chosing to follow her advice. He rejects Alcibiades saying,
You seem to me to want more than your proper share: you offer me the merest appearance of beauty, and in return you want the thing itself, ‘gold [219] in exchange for bronze.’Even Alcibiades must praise the argument in the end when he says,
If you are foolish, or simply unfamiliar with him, you’d find it impossible not to laugh at his arguments. But if you [222] see them when they open up like the statues, if you go behind their surface, you’ll realize that no other arguments make any sense. They’re truly worthy of a god, bursting with figures of virtue inside. They’re of great—no, of the greatest—importance for anyone who wants to become a truly good man.
I wonder if what Alcibiades sees in Socrates goes beyond the physical. Socrates is not a handsome man, after all -- he's snub nosed and his eyes bug out and he resembles Marsyas, the satyr. But Alcibiades says he has the same power that Marsyas has, "to reveal those who need the gods and rites of initiation." I'm not quite sure what that means. Alcibiades says that Socrates is the only man before whom he feels shame because he "neglects himself and attends to the affairs of Athens." And then he says he'd gladly see Socrates dead, were it not that he would miss him.
Most of the description of Socrates we get from Alcibiades focuses on Socrates' untouchability -- alcohol, the cold, fear of death in battle, nothing touches him. And Alcibiades can't touch him either. That untouchability reminds me of the untouchability of Ideas, the Platonic forms. It is literally embodied in Socrates.
Thomas wrote: "But Alcibiades says he has the same power that Marsyas has, "to reveal those who need the gods and rites of initiation." I'm not quite sure what that means. "My translation (A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff) says,
...his [Marsyas'] melodies have in themselves the power to possess and so reveal those people who are ready for the god and his mysteries. That’s because his melodies are themselves divine. The only difference between you [Socrates] and Marsyas is that you need no instruments; you do exactly what he does, but with words alone.Alcibiades is saying that Socrates' words alone, like Marsyas' instrumental music, captivate and thereby expose those individuals who are spiritually receptive, i.e., need the gods, and are prepared to be introduced to a deeper understanding of spiritual or philosophical truths., i.e., ready to be initiated, as initiated into a mystery religion.
It is interesting to note that Socrates and Marsyas do not reveal divine truths, but just identify the people who are ready and willing to receive them. This highlights another reason these mentor philosophers seek out younger men and boys with more pliable and open mindsets rather than older people who have become jaded or set in their ways making them more resistant to new ideas. Cult recruitment 101.
It is clear to me one object Plato had in mind in writing this dialogue was to demonstrate that Socrates was the greatest of all the Athenians.
David wrote: "This highlights another reason these mentor philosophers seek out younger men and boys with more pliable and open mindsets rather than older people who have become jaded or set in their ways making them more resistant to new ideas. Cult recruitment 101"This is exactly what Socrates was accused and convicted of, but it seems that Plato doesn't agree with the charge. It's interesting that two of the speakers in the Symposium were involved in the accusations against Socrates: Alcibiades, because he supposedly was corrupted by Socrates and subsequently turned traitor against Athens, and Aristophanes, who accuses Socrates of sophism in the Clouds. Both charges stuck, and both were false, according to Plato and Xenophon.
Of course despite appearances, Socrates was no Charles Manson. Nevertheless, in the political climate of the time, or may I say any political climate, that values rhetoric and persuasion over truth-seeking, and where so much power depends upon manipulating people's assumptions and their credulity, that someone like Socrates, who encouraged critical thinking, questioning assumptions, and truth-seeking, would be perceived as a threat to those in power. Therefore it is quite conceivable for such a political body to leverage the appearance of Socrates' methods into charges of corruption as a convenient way to remove a political threat, rather than as a legitimate concern.
Emil and David both contrasted the idealized presentations of love in previous speeches with the down to earth reality of Alcibiades's love of Socrates. I find it interesting that the only realistic speech about love is directed at an idealized Socrates. At least, I would laugh if any of my friends described their love interest in the superlative terms Alcibiades describes Socrates, or indeed as Plato represents Socrates. I wouldn't laugh in mockery but because it's sweet to see someone love so uncritically. No one is that perfect. I'm surprised that there wasn't more said or suggested on the ways love makes us foolish. Even in this case, I don't think Plato meant the excellence of Socrates to be so unbelievable, but it is to me.Which brings me to an opinion that might not be commonly shared: I don't like Socrates. To my taste in character, he displays too much. His expressions of ignorance are false modesty on one rhetorical level and inappropriate irony on another. I'm aware that he is often extolled as an intellectual hero, so often and widely that it makes me uncomfortable to even admit my dislike. (I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of the Grand Canyon and can only muster a "Meh, too much red." Surely I'm missing something!)
Jacob wrote: "I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of the Grand Canyon and can only muster a "Meh, too much red." Surely I'm missing something!"I don't think you are missing a thing, except maybe how closely your comments echo Alcibiades sentiments and I think maybe you need to admit you actually love Socrates. :)
Jacob wrote: "I'm aware that he is often extolled as an intellectual hero, so often and widely that it makes me uncomfortable to even admit my dislike."
Alcibiades said,
Socrates is the only man in the world who has made me feel shame—ah, you didn’t think I had it in me, did you? Yes, he makes me feel ashamed:Jacob wrote: "His expressions of ignorance are false modesty on one rhetorical level and inappropriate irony on another."
Alcibiades said,
Also, he likes to say he’s ignorant and knows nothing. Isn’t this just like Silenus? Of course it is!Jacob wrote: "I don't like Socrates."
. . . In public, I tell you, his whole life is one big game—a game of irony.
Alciabiades said,
You [Socrates] are impudent, contemptuous, and vile!And yet here you are and having been exposed to Socrates, he is stuck in your head like an earworm. :)
. . .Sometimes, believe me, I think I would be happier if he were dead. And yet I know that if he dies I’ll be even more miserable. I can’t live with him, and I can’t live without him! What can I do about him?
. . .My whole life has become one constant effort to escape from him and keep away,
Regarding your opinion on Socrates, it's perfectly valid to not like him as a character or his methods; at least you are behing honest about it. Otherwise, I might have thought you were trying to mask them by pretending to be drunk, like Alcibiades when it is revealed his irrational passions over Socrates were not the alcohol talking, but from love alone.
. . .Socrates, who immediately said to him: “You’re perfectly sober after all, Alcibiades. Otherwise you could never have concealed your motive so gracefully. . .
Ha! Well replied! Indeed, it’s almost as if I protested too much…
Socrates is intentionally irritating. In the Apology he calls himself a gadfly, someone whose purpose is to sting others out of their complacency and get them to question their beliefs. Agathon, after delivering a beautiful speech, admits that he has no idea what he is talking about after Socrates' questioning. This is what Socrates does to people. But Socrates is also irritating because he is the quintessential critic. His approach is entirely negative, refuting others' definitions, so we have a clear idea of what he doesn't believe, but he doesn't have a set of defined principles that he lives by. Even his personal daimon doesn't tell him anything positive -- just when NOT to do something. In the Theatetus he fancies himself a midwife, not a father, and unfortunately the children he helps bring into the world are usually not viable. (Diotima's speech about procreation seems highly suspect to me for this reason.)
I see Socrates ultiimately as a cynic, but an odd one because he somehow remains hopeful. He keeps talking to people and searching for the Good despite the inadequacy of philosophy to prove its existence in the world. Maybe this search is his own peculiar kind of Eros.
Thomas wrote: "Is there a reason, literary or thematic, that Alcibiades speaks last?"At first I thought Alcibiades was just there to give an example of the emotional downside of love. But in fact he recapitulates the themes from each of the previous speeches given in a theoretical manner as his own personal experience.
Phaedrus spoke of the motivational force of love, and even lovers on the battlefield never leaving each other. Alcibiades exemplifies it.
Pausanius spoke of the common and heavenly aspects of love both of which Alcibiades feels for Socrates.
Eryximachus talks about how love promotes health or sickness when it is in or out of balance. Alcibiades tells us the negative effects of his pain and suffering over pursuing a failed physical relationship wtih Socrates as well as the positive influences Socrates has had on him.
Aristophanes spoke about the love being the search for wholeness and completeness. Alcibiades states he cannot live without Socrates.
I am still working out the themes in common between Alicbiades and Agathon's and Socrates' speeches.
The end of the Symposium has always fascinated me. Socrates is compelling Agathon and Aristophanes to agree that tragedy and comedy involve the same art. The occasion for the Symposium is the success of Agathon's tragedy, and Aristophanes is known for his comedies, so I guess it could be considered shop talk, but why is Socrates *enforcing* this point on them at this juncture? What does it have to do with the preceding discussion of Eros? Or is it instead a comment on the dialogue as a whole?
David wrote: "At first I thought Alcibiades was just there to give an example of the emotional downside of love. But in fact he recapitulates the themes from each of the previous speeches given in a theoretical manner as his own personal experience."Nice analysis. I think I see a parallel between Diotoma's speech and the myth of the cave in the Republic -- the ladder of love image seems similar to the ascent to the light image in the cave myth -- and just as the cave dweller has to come back to earth after seeing the divine light of reason, the dialogue has to come back to earth with Alcibiades.
Alcibiades seems to be the most honest and least rhetorical of all the speakers. He contradicts himself without apology; he loves Socrates but sometimes wishes him dead; and of course he is drunk, so his capacity for clever thought is limited. His love for Socrates is passionate and illogical, which seems rather typical of romantic love. And yet Socrates never interrupts Alcibiades as he promised to do (214e) if he were to say anything false. So maybe Socrates does recognize a different kind of truth, a practical personal kind of truth that would never survive the kind of refutation he gives Agathon's speech.
Thomas wrote: "The end of the Symposium has always fascinated me. Socrates is compelling Agathon and Aristophanes to agree that tragedy and comedy involve the same art. The occasion for the Symposium is the succe..."I think it is a metaphor on the duality and transcendence of love. A skilled playwright can transcend both genres by composing a tragedy as equally well as a comedy, as skilled philosopher can bring about outcomes of both joy and pain and through love and transcend those feelings toward gaining wisdom and a deeper understanding of the true and perfect reality.
Thomas wrote: "The end of the Symposium has always fascinated me. Socrates is compelling Agathon and Aristophanes to agree that tragedy and comedy involve the same art. The occasion for the Symposium is the succe..."I always thought that the point was that Agathon and Aristophanes were so befuddled with drink, and Socrates in such perfect command of his faculties, that he was able to convince them of the absurd notion that they actually practiced the same art, before they finally passed out and Socrates left for a day's work.
Socrates is not forcing them to agree that tragedy and comedy are the same art. He is trying to convince them (at least in my translation) that "the same man might be capable of writing both comedy and tragedy." It is interesting that so far as we know, no Athenian tragedians tried to write comedy, and vice versa. Although tragedians wrote satyr plays, such as Euripides' Cyclops, which is actually quite funny, and by today's standards could qualify as a farce.I'd like to revert to a note I wrote earlier in which I attempted to put The Symposium into historical perspective. We cannot date the conversation between Apollodorus and his unnamed friend. Since it appears Socrates was still alive, it would have had to have taken place sometime before 399, and probably after the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404. But it is significant that we can date the action of this dialogue quite definitely to 416. In 416 Plato was 11 years old, and it is the last year Athens was in its heyday, before going into a disastrous decline initiated by the Sicilian Expedition in 415. So Plato is looking back to a golden age he could have barely experienced himself.
We don't know the exact dates of the birth of the people in The Symposium, but we can make some pretty good guesses, so we know about how old they were, and we know some of what happened to them. Phaedrus would have been 28 years old. In 415 he was implicated in the profanation of the Eleusinian mysteries and was forced to flee the city. He died in 393. He was the cousin of Plato's step-brother. Pausanias was the lover of Agathon; we don't know when he was born. He left Athens for Macedonia about 407 with Agathon (and Euripides) at the invitation of the Macedonian king, who was collecting tragedians. Erixymachus would have been 32. He, along with Alcibiades, was implicated in the mutilation of the herms in 415. He may have been executed, because there is no mention of him after that date. Aristophanes would have been 30. Agathon would have been 29. He moved to Macedonia in 407 and died in 401 or 400. Socrates would have been 54, the old man in this group. He was convicted of corrupting the youth and put to death in 399. And, of course, Alcibiades was implicated in the mutilation of the herms in 415 and fled to Sparta. Eventually he returned to Athens and was assassinated in 404. So this was the last opportunity for this group of comrades to be together.
The other point I'd like to touch on is Plato employing the written word as opposed to speech. All of the speakers are using spoken words to make their hearers understand what they mean. However, all of them fall short and are unable to say exactly what eros is. Plato, by writing all this down, is trying to make his readers feel and understand something that can't be said in words. I think in a very important way The Symposium is eros. This is Plato's way of showing us what love between human beings can be.
It sounds like a few of Socrates acquaintances in Symposium ran afoul of the law. Did those cases lend credibility to the charges of corrupting the youth against Socrates?
From reading The Symposium, do you think he influenced them?
Donnally wrote: "Socrates is not forcing them to agree that tragedy and comedy are the same art. He is trying to convince them (at least in my translation) that "the same man might be capable of writing both comedy..."The verb in Greek is προσαναγκάζειν, which means to force or constrain; "convince" or "persuade" are a little weak I think, but it's easy to understand why a translator would go for the weaker term. Persuasion is normally what Socrates does, but not here for some reason.
The fact that tragedians did not write comedies, and vice versa, is good to note. In the Republic, Socrates says that this is the way it should be, because each craftsman should be an expert in one art, not many. Maybe this is a point that Plato and Socrates did not agree on. As we will see, Socrates was also opposed to writing, which Plato did aplenty. There is a tradition that Plato was a tragedian before he met Socrates, and there is indeed something dramatic about the Symposium. There is enough motion, emotional and physical, that it could be staged. If we can think of the Symposium as a drama, perhaps an argument could be made that Plato is himself the artist Socrates is talking about.
David wrote: "It sounds like a few of Socrates acquaintances in Symposium ran afoul of the law. Did those cases lend credibility to the charges of corrupting the youth against Socrates?"What law are you referring to?
Thomas wrote: "What law are you referring to?"I am reading of two incidents in 415 BC:
1. the mutilation of the hermai, and
2. profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries.
It is thought Alcibiades, Phaedrus, and possibly Eryximachus were involved in one or both of these which were considered serious crimes and carried the possibility of the death penalty.
Shakespeare is the only playwright I can think of who excelled in both tragedy and comedy.
David wrote: "Thomas wrote: "What law are you referring to?"I am reading of two incidents in 415 BC:
1. the mutilation of the hermai, and
2. profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries.
It is thought Alcibiades, Phaed..."
Thanks. Socrates' relationships with Alcibiades and Critias (one of the 30 tyrants) were used as evidence that he corrupted the youth, according to Xenophon anyway. This is the first I"ve heard of Phaedrus and Erixymachus being part of the mutilation of the Herms. To my knowledge we don't know who was actually responsible for that. The investigation was a witch hunt, more or less, and Alcibiades was a convenient scapegoat, along with a few dozen others. It wouldn't surprise me if some of Socrates' friends got swept up in that dragnet.
Phaedrus was accused of being involved in the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which also occurred in 415, not the mutilation of the Herms. He was accused by Andocides in his extant speech On the Mysteries.Those interested in learning more about these scandals might find this article of interest: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa...
I apologize, the article is not open for all to read.
Roger wrote: "Shakespeare is the only playwright I can think of who excelled in both tragedy and comedy."Throughout most of history there have been notable formal differences between comedy and tragedy, and writers have generally written in only one form. One thinks of Ben Jonson vs. John Webster, Moliere vs. Racine.
In the 20th century the difference between the two genres has become blurred. Chekhov's plays, for instance, are often described as tragicomedies.
Alcibiades describes Socrates as a silenus with gods inside -- a satyr-like character (Silienus was a follower of Dionysus) with the heart of a god. What does he mean by this?
What does Alcibiades add to the discussion on love? Is his speech necessary for a complete understanding of what Plato wants to convey to the reader?
Is there a reason, literary or thematic, that Alcibiades speaks last?
Most of the participants have left or passed out by the time the sun rises, but Socrates remains awake with Agathon and Aristophanes. Socrates is trying to convince them that the tragic poet is also a comic poet, and that a man who knows how to compose tragedy also knows how to compose comedy. How does this distinction relate to the rest of the dialogue?