Plato:

The Symposium

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A Written Report Submitted to

Rev. Fr. Francis Payo

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In Partial fulfillment
In the course
Ancient Philosophy

By

Sem. Christian Nemo B. Ducanes

30 September 2016
Capiz, Philippines
Introduction

Meriam-Webster’s Dictionary gave me a meaning of the word “Symposium” as “A

conference at which a particular topic is discussed by various speakers; also a collection

of opinions about a subject.”1 Hence, Symposium is a gathering to discuss certain topics.

According to Christopher Gill “Plato’s Symposium is one of the most striking and

famous studies of love in Western thought. It is both powerful philosophical

examination of love and a great work of literature, in which the dramatic representation

of characters reinforces intellectual speech-making and argument. Together with Plato’s

other works on this topic (Lysis and Phaedrus), the Symposium has been immensely

influential on thinking about love from antiquity until the present day, especially in the

Italian renaissance. It offers us a special insight into two central features of social life in

Classical Greece: the formal drinking-party and homosexuality or homo-eroticism.

Although it reflects its historical situations, it is highly accessible to modern readers. It

raises questions about love that are absolutely fundamental; the most important speech,

that of Socrates, serves a challenge to the unexamined romanticism of much modern

thinking.”2

“Apollodorus relates to an unnamed companion a story he heard from

Aristodemus about a Symposium, or dinner party, held in honor of the playwright

Agathon. Besides Aristodemus and Agathon, the guests included Agathon’s lover

Pausanias, the doctor of Eryximachus, the great comic poet Aristophanes, and the young

Phedrus. Socrates arrives late, having been lost in thought on a neighboring porch. Once

1
The Meriam-Webster Dictionary, Fredrick C. Mish, Ed. in Chief. International Edition (Springfield,
Massachusetts: Merriam-Websters, Incorporation. 2004), 726.
2
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), X.
they have finished eating Eryximachus proposes that instead of usual enertainments,

the guests should take turn giving speeches in praise of the god of Love.”3

About Love

“Is Symposium about love – or desire? Plato’s dialogue on a series of

speeches praising eros, a term usually translated ‘desire’. One of eros is

‘passionate sexual desire’: and it is also name of one of the two Greec gods of love,

Eros (in Latin Cupid). But some of the speeches especially Socrates’, suggests that

sexual desire is an expression of certain deeper and more universal types of

desire or motivation. The speeches also link eros with the kind of affectionate

concern that forms part of close relationships between family-members or

friends. The normal Greek term for this concern is philia, often translated a

‘friendship’. So taken as a whole, eros is in the Symposium has the same broad

range of meanings as of ‘love’.4

“The Symposium begins with a frame-conversation which stresses two main

points: the eagerness of several people to find out about the speeches on love at a

famous symposium and the enthusiasm with which certain people (including

Aristomedus and Apollodorus) follow Socrates in adopting philosophy as a way of life.

Both are the ‘erotic’ power of the search for truth.”5

The Speech of Phaedrus

3
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml
4
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), x – xi.
5
Ibid,. xx-xxi.
 “Symposium shows us the different opinions of the speakers about praises for the

god of love. Different sentiments of love came out some says in a mythical way but other

say it in a practical way. In the dialogue, Phaedrus speaks first, according to Gill

“Phaedrus’ speech is the shortest and in many ways least adequate, although his wish to

have Love Eulogized is the starting point for the whole series. His speech focused on two

of the standard themes of the eulogy: genealogy and achievement or benefits of Love. He

presents Love as among the oldest, or the oldest, of god; and also as the god that

provides most benefit to human beings. This benefit takes from the form of promoting

virtues in human being, especially courage, as expressed in dying for the one you love.

Phaedrus’ key point is that ‘it’s only lovers (erontes) who are willing to die for someone

else’.”6 He added also that “the overall impression is that the speech is characterized by

rhetorical effects and ‘lateral thinking’ rather than strict logic.”7

The Speech of Pausanias

“Pausanias speaks next; distinguishing the base of desires involved in Common

Love from the purity of Heavenly love, which only ever exists between a man and a boy.

In exchange for sexual gratification from the boy, the man acts as a mentor teaching him

wisdom and virtue.”8 “Pausanias’ speech is more strongly argued, though it is

questionable in one salient respect. This speech has the special interest that, more than

perhaps any other single ancient source, it presents what most scholar see as a prevalent

pattern of male – male sex relations in classical Athens, especially the erotic-educational

6
Ibid,. xx-xxi.
7
Ibid,. xxi.
8
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml
version of this pattern.”9 He also highlights a ‘double standard’ applying to male – male

relations in Athens. 10 Pausanias, however, explains it by reference to a distinction

between better and worst types of Love, which he calls Heavenly and Common love. The

apparently ambiguous attitude of Athenians towards male – male sexual relations is

presented as allowing time to determine whether the love involved is Heavenly and

Common and therefore to be encourage or prevented.”11

The Speech of Eryximachus

“The third speaker was Eryximachus. Eryximachus, the third speaker, argues that

Love promotes order and moderation, not only in people but also in all things. Thus,

love can exist in such fields as music and medicine.12 Eryximachus opens his speech by

giving empathic assent to the distinction between a good and a bad Eros, but protests

against looking for the effects of these contrasted forces exclusively in the souls of

men.13Like Pausanias, distinguished good and bad kinds of love; but, unlike Pausanias,

he broadens the scope of love to include all human and natural process. This feature of

his speech is probably the most significant and suggestive. It anticipates the ‘cosmic’

conception of love (embracing human and animal desire) of Diotima, though, like

Diotima’s theory, it raises the question whether love is still the topic of discussion.”14

9
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), xxi.
10
Ibid,. xxi.
11
Ibid,. xxi – xxii.
12
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml
13
A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and his Work (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Company. 1964), 217.
14
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), xxii.
The Speech of Aristophanes

“Aristophanes is the next to peak, and he presented his concept of love in the

form of a myth. Humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and so on, he says.

Some were male, with two sets of male sexual organs; some were females; and some

were hermaphrodites, with one set of male and female sexual organs. We were twice the

people we are now, and the gods were jealous, afraid we would overthrow them. Zeus

decided to cut us in half to reduce our power, and ever since we have been running all

over the earth trying to rejoin with our other half. When we do, we cling to that other

half with all our might, and we call this love.15 This myth explains ‘the innate desire of

human beings for each other.’ Sexual preference from one or other gender (which

Aristophanes presents, perhaps surprisingly, as exclusive and lifelong) is explain by the

type of combination from which we were split. The myth also explains the intensity of

feeling aroused by sexual love: our essential desire, Aristophanes claims, is to

reconstruct our original human compound by finding our own ‘other half’ and by

rebuilding that compound, as far as possible, through physical love.”16

The Speech of Agathon

“Agathon speaks next, giving an elaborate and flowery speech about love, which

he describes as young, sensitive, beautiful, and wise. All virtues are gifts that we receive

from this god. Socrates questions Agathon doubting his speech and suggesting that

15
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml
16
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), xxiv.
Agathon has described the object of love, not love itself.17 Agathon’s speech like that of

Phaedrus. He presents first the origin of Love (arguing, against Phaedrus, that he is the

youngest of the gods); then his good qualities other than virtue, especially his beauty;

then his virtue, and finally his benefits to humanity.”18

The Speech of Socrates

“The speech of Socrates is the philosophical climax of the dialogue. Despite

Socrates’ negative comments about the previous speeches (198d – e), his own speech

alludes to, modifies or corrects those speeches, and in this way he suggests that they

have provided some access to the truth about love. Socrates’ contribution breaks down

to the three main parts: his dialectic contradiction of Agathon, his report of Diotima’s

theory and the ‘final mysteries’ of her theory.19

(1) Socrates’ argues (contradicting Agathon) that love or desire is

expressed lack or deficiency; love is not beautiful but is desire of beauty

(199c – 201c)

(2) Diotima introduces the category of intermediate or mediating entities.

These include love, seen as a ‘spirit’ mediating between mortal and

immortal, combining need and resource (201e – 201e).

The specific way in which love satisfies this fundamental desires is by

giving by giving birth in beauty and thus gaining self-immortalization.

17
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml
18
Christopher Gill, Plato: The symposium (London, England: Penguin Books. 1999), xxiv.
19
Ibid., xxvii.
 Diotima analyse love as expressing a more fundamental desire: that for

perpetual possession of the good or happiness (204d – 206a).

(3) In her ‘final mysteries’, Diotima advocates the ascent of desire from

physical to mental types of beauty, culminating in knowledge of the

form of Beauty. Giving birth to the type of beauty is presented as the

most effective way of immortalizing yourself and thus achieving the

highest possible human happiness (210a – 212b).”20

“After philosophical profundity of Socrates’ speech, Alcibiades’ arrival

comes as a rude shock. Entering drunk, supported by a courtesan, he disrupts the

agreed conventions of their symposium; his speech reintroduces the ways of

thinking about love that Diotima’s theory had excluded or transform. Alcibiades

sometimes presents himself as praising and sometimes blaming (or getting his

own back on) Socrates; but his speech is mainly praise. Indeed, his speech partly

matches the guidelines for a eulogy.’21

20
Ibid., xxvii.
21
Ibid., xxvii – xxxvi.
Analysis

“In the Symposium, Plato presents the love of wisdom as the highest form of love

and philosophy as a refinement of our sexual urges that leads us to desire wisdom over

sex. That is, we do not seek wisdom by first suppressing22 sexual desire and other

distractions but rather by refining that desire and training it on a higher purpose. Plato

sets his dialogue at a symposium, which was one of the highlights of Athenian social life,

and amidst a discussion about Love to show us that philosophy is not removed from the

business of everyday life. On the contrary, philosophy is the highest expression of the

loves and desires that motivate us in everyday activities. If we could see things clearly,

Plato suggests, we would see that our attraction to beautiful people or good music or

exciting movies is really an attraction to Beauty itself and that philosophy is the most

direct route to getting at what we most desire.

While the Symposium contains a great deal of explicit homoerotic content, it

would be a distortion to label characters in the dialogue as homosexual or bisexual.

These sorts of categories are modern inventions that do not just denote a person’s sexual

preference but also define a person according to his or her sexual preference. Greek

society, for the most part, didn’t consider sexual preference as a defining personality

trait, so labeling Greeks as homosexual or heterosexual would be as odd to them as

defining modern students as “white sock wearers” or “colored sock wearers.” Almost all

Greek men married women and had children (Plato is a rare exception), while many

Greek men also pursued less permanent sexual relations with other men. The activities

22
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4/page/2/
thought most to display virtue and glory, such as athletics, warfare, and politics, were

exclusively the realm of men, so two men could share in this virtue and glory in a way

that a man and a woman could not. Consequently, male–male relationships were often

romanticized, whereas male–female relationships were viewed as purely practical

affairs, which united families and produced children. These two different kinds of

relationships existed alongside one another, and both were considered healthy and

natural.”23

23
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4/page/2/
Bibliographies:

Gill, Christopher. Plato: The Symposium. London, England: Penguins book,

1999.

Taylor, A. E, Plato: The man and his work. Cleaveland, Ohio: World publishing
Company, 1964.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4.rhtml

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/section4/page/2/