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Philosophy 430 Paper 1

1. Because he had a bad case of hiccoughs, Aristophanes was not able to present a
speech when it came time for him to do so; instead, on Eryximachus' advice,
Aristophanes spent the time trying to get rid of his hiccoughs by first holding his breath,
then gargling and then inducing sneezing while Eryximachus delivered his own speech
(Symposium, 185d-e). The juxtaposition of Eryximachus delivering a pretentious
speech on the nature of love as that which harmonizes oppositions, all based upon an
analogy to Eryixmachus' medical profession and the manner in which a doctor tries to
heal a body, with Aristophanes trying various humorous bits of medical advice to end his
hiccoughs indicates that Plato probably did not think very highly of Eryximachus'
attempts to interpret love through the prism of a doctor analogy because such an
understanding of 'love' far outstrips how we actually understand and use this term and
instead simply seems to be only a rhetorical exercise in developing a grand but unhelpful
analogy.
2. After finally coming into Agathon's party, Socrates is invited by Agathon to sit
next to him because Agathon hopes (in jest at least) that being near Socrates will allow
him to absorb some of Socrates' wisdom. Socrates replies that it would be wonderful if
wisdom were like water that could run from a full vessel to an emptier one, implying that
wisdom, of course, does not actually act like this (Symposium, 175d-e). Instead, in order
to get wisdom from someone, one has to work at , something which Plato illustrates by
means of another metaphor via Alcibiades who compares first Socrates and then Socrates'
arguments to statues of Silenus which are hollow and can be split apart to reveal within
smaller statues of the gods (Symposium, 215b & 221e-222a). Alcibiades notes that


Socrates' arguments often appear at first glance to be ridiculous but "if you see them
when they open up like the statues, if you go behind their surface, you'll realize that no
other arguments make any sense. They're truly worthy of a god, bursting with figures of
virtue inside" (Symposium, 222a). The implication here is that it is not simply enough to
sit next to a wise person to gain their wisdom; one must first of all be capable of
discerning a wise person from the non-wise despite whatever the exterior of a person may
be hiding and must have the ability to break into the rich, inner core of that wise person.
Hence, by means of these metaphors, Plato attempts to show that gaining wisdom is less
akin to siphoning off water and more akin to cracking open a nut, a task which itself
requires hard work, patience and even the possession of certain skills already.
3. Socrates spends his speech recounting his own conversation about the nature of
love with a woman called Diotima, who argued that "love is wanting to possess the good
forever" because people love that which is good and in so loving it, they desire that that
good be theirs indefinitely (Symposium, 206a). However, in order to possess something
forever, one must have immortality, which we humans do not. It is for this reason,
Diotima argues, that love causes humans to try to achieve immortality through various
artificial means. For some people, this means producing offspring to carry on one's
lineage, and this is done by falling in love with a husband or wife: "Now, some people
are pregnant in body, and for this reason turn more to women and pursue love in that
way, providing themselves through childbirth with immortality..." (Symposium, 208e).
For others however, the pursuit of 'immortality' comes from eternal remembrance via
performing great achievements, such as a leader who sacrifices his life for his people so
that they will perpetually honor him (Symposium, 208c-d). Such people are driven to


seek out other people with beautiful bodies and souls because it is with such people that
they most easily generate virtues, new ideas and inspirations for great accomplishments
which will earn them immortality. Such people include Homer who achieved immortality
through the production of his poems and Solon, who earned enduring fame through the
creation of his system of laws (Symposium, 209b-e). Such people are honored high above
those who seek immortality only through the literal procreative process: "Already many
shrines have sprung up to honor them for their immortal children, which hasn't happened
yet to anyone for human offspring" (Symposium, 209e).
However, Diotima argues, if an individual is led correctly by love, he will not stay
focused upon the beauty of a single partner. Love plants in him the desire to (pro)create
to achieve immortal life so that he can possess the good forever and this desire to create
causes him to love a beautiful partner. But eventually, he should learn to transcend this
particular beauty and come to appreciate universal beauty; in other words, love should
drive him on to contemplate the Form of Beauty itself (Symposium, 210b-211c). It is in
the contemplation of this form, when one is connected with beauty itself rather than a
mere example of it, that an individual will be able to give birth to true virtue. Whereas
before, the individual consorted with a beautiful person to produce virtue and other
'immortal children,' now, by consorting with the Beautiful itself, one can produce virtue
that is incomparably more real in nature because it is made through a 'procreative' act
with an infinitely more powerful procreative partner. And through the birth of such
virtue, the individual will earn the love of the gods, which itself might earn him true
immortality or at least the act of which would make his name immortal (Symposium,
212a).


4. Diotima rejects the notion that "...lovers are those people who seek their other
halves" unless it is the case that that half or the whole that would result from such a
unison is itself good (Symposium, 205e). Diotima's whole theory of love centers around
the notion that love is really a desire, a longing to permanently have that which is good
(Symposium, 206b). It is not clear just what exactly this means or if there is a subjective
element to it (i.e. does a lover want that which is truly good or what he believes is good?)
but it seems possible to say that if a lover believes he is missing half of himself and that
being united with his other half would be good for him, then he would be desiring the
good or at least what he believes is good and hence this could count as a form of love.
However, it is clear that such Aristophanic love could not allow us, on Diotima's account,
to give birth to true virtue because such love is necessarily not love of the Beautiful itself
but rather only love of a particular individual, the other half of an individual who was cut
off by Zeus (Symposium, 191e-192b). Even if this individual is participating in the Form
of the Beautiful, he is not himself the Beautiful and hence, procreation with such an
individual would only allow him at most to give birth to 'images of virtue,' not true virtue
which requires a more pure and unlimited source.
5. Plato's discussion of love throughout this dialogue is quite strange but perhaps the
most crucial part of the dialogue with which I disagree occurs during the discussion
between Socrates and Agathon after Agathon has delivered his speech. At this time,
through a series of questions, Socrates gets Agathon to admit that (1) love must be love
of something, (2) love desires that which it is the love of and (3) something cannot desire
that which it already has because it desires that which it needs and it does not need that
which it already has. From this, it follows that Love cannot have those things which it


loves, such as beauty, because if it loves them, it desires them and if it desires them, then
this must mean that it does not yet have them (Symposium, 199e-201c). Something about
this argument is very strange because it would seem to imply that as soon as someone
obtains something which he has been loving, such as a desired soul-mate, he can no
longer love that thing per se but at best can only desire that thing will remain his in the
future. But such a desire is not the same as actually loving that person and hence, this
whole argument would seem to indicate that as soon as a desired relationship is achieved,
the love which drove that relationship just as soon vanishes. But this seems very strange.
Perhaps rather than defining love as simply the desire for something, it would make more
sense to speak of love as the desire that good things will happen for a person, whereas the
actual desire for that person is more akin to lust or some other transitory emotion. Hence,
rather than being such a possessive entity, love is really the most charitable emotion of all
because, even after winning someone over, we can still desire that good things happen for
that person. Hence, Love can still love Beauty (i.e. want it to prosper) while still also
possessing them as well.
However, one aspect of this dialogue which I did find fascinating and plausible is
Diotima's discussion of our desire for immortality. According to her, we all have a desire
to live continuously, which we express through begetting children to carry on our lineage
or by trying to perform great deeds so that others will remember us after we pass away.
All of this strikes me as true but a more difficult question to answer is, why do we have
this desire? Diotima answers that it is because we all desire to possess good things
forever. Even if I would not refer to this desire as love (see above) it still seems to be true
that we have such a desire and that this desire is what drives us; otherwise, if we had no


such desires for thing that are or that we consider good, there would be no point to living:
a life without beauty or companionship and so on would not be worth living. But once we
do have the desire to live because we desire to enjoy good things, that desire does not
leave us. And so we fear death and attempt to circumvent it by creating a legacy for
ourselves. Such legacies cannot help us to enjoy good things after we have died but they
can at least answer the psychological fear of death which arises due to such desires.
























Citations

S. Marc Cohen, editor, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Hackett
Publishing Company, Inc. 2011).

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