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Plato (429-347 B.C.E.)

Plato (429-347 B.C.E.). Recall Singer’s estimation of Plato’s importance Plato is where we must begin our study (see p. 7). Plato’s doctrine is “the most fertile and powerful single body of thought about love that anyone has ever created throughout Western civilization” (12). . Reading Plato.

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Plato (429-347 B.C.E.)

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  1. Plato (429-347 B.C.E.) • Recall Singer’s estimation of Plato’s importance • Plato is where we must begin our study (see p. 7). • Plato’s doctrine is “the most fertile and powerful single body of thought about love that anyone has ever created throughout Western civilization” (12).

  2. Reading Plato • Plato is complex and open to multiple interpretations. (Cf. xii) • The works we’ll be reading are from the Middle Period: Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic. • Laws is a later work.

  3. “Love” in Ancient Athens • Eros: erotic, sexual love based on physical attraction, closer to passionate and romantic love • Philia: friendship, “brotherly love,” love based on kinship or a common interest, not sexual attraction, also “love” of wisdom, related to virtue • Consider Socrates’ philosophy • “my whole care is to commit no unjust or impious deed” (Apology 32d) • “no human being should do injustice in return or do evil, whatever he suffers from others” (Crito49c) • Still, Philô se is used to say “I love you” to one’s sexual partner, so the distinction isn’t absolute.

  4. More Greek Words for Love • Agape: term used for love in New Testament, unconditional love of God for humans and humans for “neighbors,” charity • Storge: familial love, affection

  5. Sex in Ancient Athens • A historical context in Singer (28) • Paid-erasteia (pederasty: love of boys) • “socially regulated intercourse between an older Athenian male (erastês) and a teenage boy(erômenos, pais), through which the latter was supposed to learn virtue” (xxi). • A rite of passage from a warrior past? • Compare the term “pedophilia” (1906, sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object) • A “normal” sex life for an upper-class male included being a passive boyfriend in adolescence, the active, instructive male in adulthood, and also a married man with other women.

  6. Symposium: Introduction • Plato’s best known work? • Sym-posium literally means “drinking together,” but note that most of the participants have a hangover, and Eryximachus, the doctor, shares some “accurate information as to the nature of intoxication” (176d) • So they choose to focus on discussion, not drinking. • The subject of discussion: the seldom praised god of love (Erôs) • When did this gathering take place and what was the occasion? • 416 BCE, “When we were still children, when Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy” (173a) • Apollodorus, Socrates’ emotional friend, relates the details of this event as related by Aristodemus, while also suggesting that only philosophical discourse is meaningful (173c)

  7. Symposium: An Outline • Introductory Dialogue • At Agathon’s: Socrates’ idiosycracies and irony (175e & 177e) • The art of love = the art of asking questions (see xix) • The Speech of Phaedrus: “the father of the subject,” an erômenos (student) • The Speech of Pausanias: a legal expert, an erastês (teacher) • The Speech of Eryximachus: a doctor • The Speech of Aristophanes: a comic poet • The Speech of Agathon: “Goodman,” a tragic poet • Socrates Questions Agathon • Diotima Questions Socrates (the speech of Socrates, a teacher and philosopher, based on what he learned from a wise woman) • The Arrival of Alcibiades • The Speech of Alcibiades (a statesman, a beautiful man, Socrates’ lover) • Conclusion

  8. The Speech of Phaedrus • Love is a great god (love is divine) • …most ancient…born after Chaos and Earth • Love guides us to act well and avoid shameful acts, be gentle • love as a kind of conscience? • seeing things through the eyes of the other (the beloved) • That which leads us to do the good, to be perfect, no shame but honor (love is the source of improvement, love as a task) • The best possible foundation for society and defense • “no one will die for you but a lover” (179b) • Summary 180b, note that this speech emphasizes a mythological conception of love

  9. The Speech of Pausanias • Love is not yet well-defined; it is complex; there are two kinds of love, which is not in itself praiseworthy. • “Love is not in himself noble and worthy of praise; that depends on whether the sentiments he produces in us are themselves noble” (181a). • The heavenly and the common Aphrodite • Common Aphrodite: the younger goddess, related to both female and male, moves the vulgar to focus on sex with whomever • Heavenly Aphrodite: older, of purely male descent, moves men to focus on older boys

  10. The Speech of Pausanias So, what’s the main message of the speech?

  11. The Speech of Pausanias • In short, there is a key distinction between heavenly love focused on the virtue of the soul and earthly love focused on physical, sexual appetites of the body. • The improper, vile love that follows the Common Aphrodite focuses on the body; this love is inconstant (like bodies). • The proper, honorable love that follows the Heavenly Aphrodite focuses on the soul—and the love of wisdom and virtue. • Athens’ superior customs and laws provide for the heavenly kind of love.

  12. The Speech of Eryximachus • A scientific view (non-fiction) • The distinction between two kinds of love is useful, but love is a “significantly broader phenomenon” found “everywhere in the universe” (186b). • Love is the divine source of all life. • The goal of the physician is “to distinguish the Love that is noble from the Love that is ugly and disgraceful” (186d) and to promote the former, while regulating the latter. • Proper love leads to harmony between body and soul, health, plentiful harvests, piety, etc.

  13. The Speech of Aristophanes • Comic playwright, 448-380 BCE • Should we take this speech seriously? (189b) • On the power of love • Original human nature: • 1st point: Three kinds of humans: Male, female, and androgynous • 2nd point: Completely round/spherical (like heavenly bodies), with double body parts • Attacked the gods, but Zeus had a plan • Check out the Origin of Love

  14. The Speech of Aristophanes • The origin of desire (longing), hugging, and interior reproduction • “Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature” (191d). • Searching for belonging, wholeness, completion • The concept of “Merging”: “to come together and melt together with the one he loves, so that one person emerged from two” (192e). • Masculinity is best (193c)

  15. The Speech of Agathon • Love is the youngest (contra Phaedrus), happiest, most beautiful, and best god (note the focus on the qualities of love). • Love is delicate: he resides in the souls of gods and men. • Love is just and virtuous: “Love is neither the cause nor the victim of any injustice” (196b). • “Love is exceptionally moderate” (196c). • Love is brave and love is wise. • Love’s wisdom consists in making everyone he touches a poet, like himself. • A poetic finale (197d-e)

  16. The Speech of Socrates • Intro: Socrates suggests that all the speeches in praise of Love have focused on its qualities and the words used to describe Love instead of focusing on “the truth about Love” (199b). • Socrates then questions Agathon • “Is Love such as to be a love of something or of nothing?” (199d) • “Does Love desire that of which it is the love, or not?” (200a) • “Does he actually have what he desires and loves…?” • “Now then, would…someone who is strong want to be strong?” (200b) • So either one desires what one does not have or one desires the preservation of what one has in time to come.

  17. The Speech of Socrates • Love is the love of something. • The something is what one needs. • Is Love then the desire for Beauty? (Does Love need Beauty?) • “Don’t you think that good things are always beautiful as well?” (201c) (Does Love need good things?) • Now that Socrates has contradicted Agathon, he begins to recount the speech about Love he learned from Diotima, a wise woman of Mantinea.

  18. The Speech of Diotima • Love is neither beautiful nor good. • Is it then ugly and bad? No, he could be in between, like correct judgment is in between wisdom and ignorance. • Not a god? Because all gods possess good and beautiful things, whereas Love desires them. • A mortal? No, then Love must be “in between mortal and immortal” (202d). • What is in between? “A great spirit (Daimôn)”…love is spiritual, a messenger… (202e) • On Love’s birth and nature (203b-e)

  19. The Speech of Diotima • So, Love is not being loved, but the spiritual need involved in being a lover. Love is the desire to possess good and beautiful things. • But “what use is Love to human beings?” “What’s the point of loving beautiful things?” (204d) • Happiness (Eudaimonia: well-being, a flourishing life) • “Love is wanting to possess the good forever…This, then, is the object of love” (206a). • How do lovers pursue this object? What do they do? • By “giving birth in beauty, whether in body or soul” (206b) • What does this mean?

  20. The Speech of Diotima • How and why? • Reproduction & immortality • On the rites of Love: Their purpose and how they are done correctly: The upwards ascent of Love (the continuum) • In youth love beautiful bodies (ultimately of small importance) • Then beautiful souls • The beautiful activities: customs and laws • Then beauty of knowledge (not particulars, but “great sea of beauty”), philosophy • Finally, the goal: The Form of Beauty: absolute, pure, unchanging, “by itself with itself” (211b) • Only at this stage can one move beyond images to give birth to true virtue (212a)

  21. The Speech of Alcibiades • Following Socrates’ speech in praise of Love (212c), Alcibades, who is “plastered” (212e), gives a speech in praise of Socrates (215a). • What do we learn about Socrates? • He drinks, but never gets drunk (214a, 220a). • On the surface, he seems ignorant and ironic, but deep within he is godlike (216e, see also 222a). • A man of great fortitude and wisdom • Resistant to the physical (e.g., beautiful bodies and the cold) • Unique: “he is like no one else in the past and no one in the present” (221c).

  22. Conclusion: Group Timed Writing • In groups of 3-5 students, discuss and write answers to the following questions: • 1. What conclusion(s) should we draw from this text? • 2. What do you find to be most significant about this text or the most significant idea in the text? • 3. Do you have any remaining questions about this text?

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