BEAUTY OF SOUL AND SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

Abstract

It is sometimes said, and more often assumed, that Alcibiades' speech in the Symposium adds nothing of substance to Diotima's account of love as related by Socrates. 1 In this article I argue to the contrary that Diotima's account of love cannot properly be understood without an understanding of Alcibiades' speech. In particular I argue, against the view of most scholars, that the important lesson to be learned from Diotima's teaching, when this is interpreted in the light of what Alcibiades says, is that the splendour of the 'true lover' 2 lies, not in his communion with Beauty, but in his beauty of soul and speech.I begin by examining Diotima's account of love, and because my comments are often controversial I keep close to the text, at the risk of seeming to go over ground already gone over before. 3 I Diotima begins by describing love's nature ( , 204b7). 4 Love is not beautiful or good, she says, nor is it ugly or bad; it is something in between. Nor again is it to be numbered among the gods, since it lacks ( , 202d2-3) what they always possess: it lacks what is beautiful and good. 5 But while love is not a god, and 69 1 Taylor [33], 233, makes the assertion that Alcibiades' speech contributes nothing of importance to our comprehension of the Socratic or Platonic philosophy. In similar vein, Guthrie [13], 395, says that Diotima's 'lofty conclusion is the climax of the whole work, and a lesser writer might have made it the end'; Guthrie further asserts that the appearance of Alcibiades 'brings us back to earth', a sentiment re-echoed by Waterfield [35], xxxvii. When Grube [12], 96-105, discusses the Symposium, he summarises and comments on the speeches, but ends abruptly with that of Socrates; cf. Cornford [8], passim and Raven [29], 107-18. An influential exception to all of this is Nussbaum [23], who comes close to treating the speech of Alcibiades as the most important of the dialogue. However, her interpretation rests on a portrait of Socrates as a man of stone, unfeeling and obsessed with the non-individual -a man who, like the Forms, is 'hard, indivisible, unchanging'. The portrait that I find in the Symposium and elsewhere is of a man passionately concerned for the true good of other individuals -'women, men and youngsters alike'.2 For the sake of convenience I use the expression 'true lover' to refer to the lover who has apprehended 'the true' ( , 212a5) and is fully initiated in the rites of love. 3 See especially White [36] & [37], passim. I take the view of the majority of scholars that Diotima speaks for Plato. For the contrary view, see Neumann [22], 34-7 and, more recently, Osborne [25], 56-7. 4 The description of love's nature runs from 201e6 to 204c6. (Throughout this article my references are to Burnet's OCT.) 5 The fact that beautiful and good are mentioned together here and elsewhere is often taken to mean that according to Plato these characteristics are the same and their terms interchangeable (e.g. Markus [21], 137, Taylor [33], 231), but the fact that good and beautiful go together...

Platonic Personal Immortality

“…So too, what she refers to earlier as 'immortality' is not true immortality, but as in the case of virtue, the genuine article belongs to the philosopher. 16 Although White (2008) takes Diotima's view to be consistent with the immortality of the soul, he thinks that her speech is about vicarious immortality (cf. Luce, 1952).…”

“…I take it that Diotima employs ‘εἴπερ’ in these passages to emphasize likelihood (cf. Smyth 2379 and the LSJ entry on ‘εἴπερ’: ‘to imply that the supposition agrees with the fact’), which I am arguing means that Diotima is claiming true immortality is available to the philosopher. It is also worth comparing the several instances in the Phaedo where Plato employs ‘εἴπερ’ in relevantly similar contexts.…”

“…Although White () takes Diotima's view to be consistent with the immortality of the soul, he thinks that her speech is about vicarious immortality (cf. Luce, ).…”

“In learned conversation”: Plutarch’s symposiac literature and the elusive authorial voice

“…457-501. F. Frazier, 2006, has criticized the approach of F. Ildefonse for an interesting twist in interpreting Plato, see F. C White, 2008,. who holds that Alkibiades' speech is more important than that of Diotima.…”