ABSTRACT
Wishing to understand Socrates, one finds in the Symposium, a mature dialogue of Plato’s, an application of a Socratic theory of desire. Proceeding through Plato, one meets in the Phaedrus, a later dialogue, an exposition of a different view of desire, familiar and not invented, from which Socrates recoiled and Plato advanced. It is presented in Socrates’ first speech (237b7-238c4, 238d8-241d1); his second speech (243e9-257b6) makes use of the mature theory that evolved out of it.
