Q29 ~ How does Socrates’ presentation of Diotima’s speech about love correct philosophically the five speeches offered by Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon?

29.  How does Socrates’ presentation of Diotima’s speech about love correct philosophically the five speeches offered by Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon? 

RW: Old outlines were OK (2010 better than 2011), but left out much from the Diotima exchange (i.e., they focused on the pre-Diotima interaction between Socrates and Agathon).  I expanded with Diotima info, and updated with some info from Plato class last semester.  Sorry for length.  Easiest things to cut: references to the progression of tradition and the speakers’ self-reference.

I)     Intro

A)   Setup: brief narrative description

B)    Overview:

1)    My overview: There is both a historical and philosophical progression from speech to speech.  Each speaker typifies a tradition, and describes love on the basis of his own perspective in a (sexual) love relationship.  Socrates’ speech critiques the methods of those speeches, completes the progression of traditions, eliminates the self-reference of the previous speeches, and corrects the content of the speeches through a sustained critique of Agathon’s speech.  The central critiques: To praise love one must discover what love is; contra the previous speeches, love is (1) intermediate (i.e., not great, good, beautiful, divine, nor the opposites of those qualities), (2) active, and (3) oriented toward beauty itself.

2)    Old overview: Sexual love is the basis for all the speeches.  They, in some way, get more complex and presumably more complete with each speech. This may be why Socrates critiques only the methods of the first speeches but directly critiques the last.

C)    Map:

1)    Overview of speeches

2)    Socrates’ critique

II)   The five speeches

A)   PHAEDRUS

1)    The speech

(a)   Eros is a great god, the oldest of the gods, a giver of gifts.

(b)   Two ways eros can motivate virtue.

(i)    We don’t want to shame ourselves in front of our beloved. (So eros acts as a motivation to do good things.)

(ii)  It motivates by giving us an urge to do virtuous things for the beloved, even sacrificing his life.

2)    Self-reference: Phaedrus is a beloved (of the older Eryximachus, who gives gifts)

3)    Tradition: Mytho-poetic tradition

B)    PAUSANIAS

1)    The speech

(a)   A distinction between a heavenly and common Aphrodite rightly shows two different kinds of thought about love.

(i)    Common Aphrodite is the love of the common people and is equated with lust because common Aphrodite is more bodily.

(ii)  Heavenly Aphrodite is that found between the lover/teacher, beloved/student relationship.

(i)    This is a higher love motivated by virtue.

(ii)  The student loves the teacher because the teacher can make him virtuous.

2)    Self-reference: Pausanias is shaming his lover, Agathon, who is tempted by common Aphrodite. 

3)    Tradition: Still uses some mythic language, alongside law/culture (=emergence of nomos and the formation of the polis)

C)    ERYXIMACHUS

1)    The speech

(a)   Was a doctor by trade and his praise of love is more scientific. 

(i)    Moves things out of the divine; love becomes more of a force.

(b)   He says that love is a principle of everything

(i)    A principle that encourages health or harmony.

(ii)  His view of love is more objective as a principle of movement.  However, he does recognize that love must be regulated.

2)    Self-reference: he’s a doctor, and thinks a doctor can best talk about love.

3)    Tradition: Related to the tradition of naturalistic philosophers, especially Empedocles (everything explained in terms of the interplay of love and strife).

D)   ARISTOPHANES

1)    A comedic myth about the origin of love.

(a)   Humanity came from beings composed of either a male and a male, a male and a female, or a female and a female. They were extremely powerful and apparently threatened the gods. Zeus inhibited their power by cutting them in two. Because they were by nature incomplete after this separation, whenever two humans found their original partner they would embrace one another till death, trying to become one again.

(b)   Love has an existential element to it, in that the union with the true beloved in some way completes a person.

(c)   Each person NEEDS his other half to be complete.

2)    Self-reference: he’s alone; he is without a lover and is seeking one

3)    Tradition: Comic tradition

E)    AGATHON

1)    Changes the method of praise.

(a)   The others, he claims, only praised what the gods do. He wants to praise what the gods are.

(b)   Love is one of the best gods.

(c)   He argues that the four cardinal virtues can be seen in love.

(i)    Love wrongs no one and is therefore just.

(ii)  Love masters all other desires and is therefore temperate.

(iii) Love inspires courage.

(iv) Love is wisdom as the inspiration of the poets.

2)    Self-reference: his descriptions of love may as well be descriptions of himself (e.g., 196a).

3)    Tradition: Sophistic tradition

III) SOCRATES’ Critique

A)   The basic corrective – discover what love is.

1)    The problem with the opening four speeches is they did not praise love.  In a biting way he argues that everyone thought they could praise love without considering what love is.  Socrates first wants to discover what love is.

2)    We are told at the beginning that Socrates knows the art of love.  (The other thing he knows is that he does not know.)

3)    Socrates directly critiques Agathon, who stands in for the other speeches

(a)   The symposium is at his house

(b)   The other symposiasts cheer his speech

B)    The critique

1)    The other traditions lead up to Socratic/Platonic philosophy

2)    Socrates removes self-reference (this is Diotima’s account, not his)

(a)   Yet sometimes his descriptions of love sound like Socrates too! (203c-d)

3)    Critique of love as a god, and love as great/beautiful/good: Love is intermediate

(a)   Love is between good and bad, and between beautiful and ugly

(i)    Love desires and needs good/beautiful things

(b)   Love is between god/immortal and mortal

(i)    Love is a great spirit, intermediary between gods and mortals

(c)   Love is poor, yet has a way of overcoming need

(i)    Poros/penia

(d)   Love is between ignorant and wise

(i)    A lover of wisdom, seeks after it

(ii)  This is also rooted in poros (loves wisdom) and penia (ignorant)

4)    Critique of passivity: Love is active

(a)   Love is more being a lover than being loved

5)    Critique of sexual focus: Love is for something beyond sex (viz., beauty)

(a)   Love wants to possess the good forever (206a)

(b)   Thus, the purpose of love: giving birth in beauty = immortality of a sort

(i)    Love primarily has to do with producing virtue, ordering of households/cities

(ii)  Contrast the other speeches: focused more on sexual love

(i)    Cannot stop at sexual love: Ladder of love

1.     Beautiful body (singular)

2.     Beautiful bodies (plural)

3.     Beauty of soul

4.     Beauty of law/custom

5.     Beauty of knowledge/wisdom

6.     Beauty itself