13. Compare the presentation of Eros in Symposium
with the presentation of Eros
and the appetitive aspects of the soul in Republic. Be sure to discuss the poros and penia
myth, the daimon, and the
ascent passage along with any other relevant dramatic detail.
[AT note: Below I mostly follow J. Frank’s outline from
2011, but I reorganized it a little and am including a possibly helpful (thesis-containing)
paragraph from an unpublished essay I found online (sketchy?)]
secondary source
help:
Dr. David Naugle on “one of the fundamental tensions between
the Symposium and other Platonic
writings, especially the Republic”:
In the Republic (and elsewhere), Plato divides the human
soul into three parts—reason, spirit, and appetite—and maintains that the
appetites inflamed by the desires or aspirations (eros) of the body are maddening and irrational, and must be
subordinated to the rule of reason if one is to live a balanced and good life.
No such teaching about the soul is found in the Symposium. Here, the
tripartite, hierarchical, regimented Platonic soul seems negated, and erotic
love is perceived as the proper, motivating force prompting the soul,
especially reason, to ascend the metaphysical ladder in pursuit of true beauty
and the highest good. Appetitive love, rather than thwarting the hegemony of
reason, actually assists it in its quest for transcendental truth.
outline:
1. eros
in Symposium
a.
Content
i. Love is a mean
1.
Love
needs to be distinguished from its object. Its object is the Good or Beautiful, and it is what leads us
there.
ii. Love is creative
1.
“You
thought Love was being loved rather
than being a lover.” (204c) Love is
an active thing. The soul
is supposed to realize its immortality, detaching itself from the physical (see
Diotima’s ladder).
b.
Function
of eros (i.e. it’s purpose)
i. to bring you to the Beautiful…
1.
Poros/Penia Myth: On Aphrodite’s birthday
Poverty date rapes a drunken, sleeping Plenty to get child support and gave
birth to Love who consequently paradoxically shares characteristics of both
lacking and having.
2.
Daimon – So love is a daimon,
which is a non-god spirit that acts as a go between for men and gods and leads
men to the gods.
ii. …from the particular to the
general
1.
Diotima’s ladder - Love
leads men to the good through an ascent from the physical and transient to the
immaterial and eternal, in this order: a) Loving beauty of one body, b) to
loving same beauty in all bodies, c) to loving beautiful mind and discourse, d)
to loving laws and order, e) to loving truth and knowledge, f) to loving beautiful
itself, g) to seeing beauty itself.
c.
Context/mode
of presentation
i. dialogue, not monologue
ii. myth
2. eros
in Republic
a.
Content
i. love is desire, usually bad
ii. love is potentially destructive
1.
It
can destroy the harmony of the soul.
b.
Function
of eros (i.e. how it works)
i. Each
part of soul has its own love of a different kind of object which determine
different kinds of people
1.
Rational part loves wisdom
2.
Spirited part loves honor and victory
3.
Appetitive part loves many material pleasures
and base things
a.
Unrestrained love leads to tyrannical person who
is described as “erotic”
b.
Socrates describes him as one who is ruled by
love. Love is a “winged drone” which lives in his soul surrounded by madness
and desires which serve as its armed guards. 572e.
c.
Context/mode
of presentation
i. Relevance?
3. Making
the comparison/contrast explicit:
Symposium shows how love or eros
is necessary to come the truly good, because one must be drawn up to it by
desire for it, but in Republic, love is not unqualifiedly a beneficial thing
because it much more often drags people down into base desires for false,
apparent goods. Cf. Alcibiades.
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