ABSTRACT
From the time of Plotinus, in the third century of the common era, down to the present day, Plato’s Symposium has exercised an enormous influence on European thought. As one recent commentator has observed, the afterlife of the Symposium is ‘very nearly as broad as the breadth of humane letters in the West; in the matter of Quellenstudien, it is not a spring, but a mighty river’.1 And, whatever other significance one might wish to assign to the dialogue, it seems likely that one of its main aims was to highlight Socrates’ extraordinary qualities of mind and character.2 The comparison of Socrates to the statues of the Silenus, his extended bouts of distraction, poverty and indifference to the extremes of heat and cold, fondness for beautiful boys, power to charm his followers, use of common forms of speech, and his exercise of the elenchos or ‘testing through cross examination’ are all on display here. As a consequence, no account of Socrates’ legacy would be complete that did not consider the ways in which the Socrates portrayed in the Symposium lived on in the minds and works of later writers and artists. Two distinct, if sometimes connected, views of Socrates have their origins in the Symposium: Socrates as a mystagogue or spiritual guide, and Socrates as a paragon of ‘philosophical virtue’. Socrates as spiritual guide
The view of Socrates as one who guided others to a more spiritual way of life has its roots in the speech Socrates offers in the Symposium in honor of Erôs, the god of love or, more precisely, ‘passionate desire’.3 The occasion for his
encomium is the dinner party held at the home of the tragic poet Agathon to celebrate his victory in Athens’ spring drama festival. In accordance with an agreement that each symposiast will speak in praise of ‘the great god Erôs’(177c), Socrates offers an account reportedly taught to him by an Arcadian priestess named Diotima (201d-212b).4 As Diotima explained it to Socrates, Erôs is not a god but a spirit who moves in an intermediate region between gods and men. As ‘divinity for intermediate affairs’, Erôs is concerned neither with ignorance nor wisdom but with something in between the two, the love of wisdom, or philosophia. To speak in mythical terms, as the child of Poverty and Resource, Erôs is needy like his mother and a hunter of wisdom like his father. Erôs manifests itself in human affairs as a desire to acquire the good and possess it forever. So, in a sense, what all people ultimately seek is their own happiness, and for as long a period as possible. Some decide to achieve a form of immortality by having children; others seek ‘undying fame’ through composing poems or founding cities; while still others become teachers of the young. Yet not even this insight into the nature and functions of Erôs discloses the greatest mysteries. He who would gain that understanding must begin by responding to the physical beauty of a young man and giving birth in him to the kind of discourse that will enable him to acquire virtue. Next, he must come to appreciate the beauty in all beautiful bodies, and after that, the beauty of character or soul. He must then go on, in a process likened to ascending the steps of a staircase, to discover beauty in activities such as composing speeches, crafting laws and constitutions, and pursuing scientific or philosophical understanding. At some point, as he moves through this ‘vast ocean of beauty’, the lover will at last experience a marvellous insight into Beauty’s essential nature. Here, in communing with Beauty Itself, he will live the finest life possible for a human being and impart genuine virtue to others.
This account of Erôs differs markedly from its predecessors in the dialogue. While each of the previous speakers focused on the particular aspect of Erôs he happened to know best or care the most about, Socrates discusses Erôs in all its manifestations and stages of development. 5 Perhaps its most novel suggestion is the idea that intellectual pursuits have the power to fire the imagination and passions just as much as any physical beauty.6 What seems to be the main conclusion is a view that Plato will consider important enough to return to again and again in other dialogues: the best and most fully appropriate object of human desire is philosophia, i.e. a life devoted to the contemplation of a set of eternal, perfect, and unchanging realities. Given the novelty, scope, and explanatory power of Socrates’ speech it is hardly surprising that many later readers, especially philosophers, focused their attention on it, often to the complete neglect of other portions of the dialogue. Yet what Socrates offered to his dinner companions was more than a philosophical discourse on the nature of Erôs. Diotima was, after all, a religious figure, a priestess who spoke to Socrates in language drawn from Greek mystery religion: theômenos ephexês – ‘viewing things in proper order’, pros telos êdê iôn – ‘moving now toward a final stage’, and exaiphainês katopsetai – ‘he will suddenly see’ (210e3-4), etc. In addition, the story she told concerned nothing less than the means by which a mortal being can achieve union with a perfect, eternal, and divine being. For many later writers, especially those engaged in defining Christian doctrine during its formative period, Socrates’ speech provided a framework for understanding a truth of the utmost importance – that love is not simply an aspect of human life but the means by which mortal beings can ascend from the physical realm to become united with God. The theme of an ascent to heaven on a celestial ladder of love became a central feature of later religious thought.7 In the Enneads, for example, Plotinus redescribes the ascent in the terms of his own metaphysical theory:
