Plato

When is the Symposium written

-385BC

-After the Pelopanisian war (431-405)

When is the symposium set

-416 BC

-During the pelopanisian war (431-405)

-Sicilian expedition occurred in 415BC

>Alcibides led by desire and ambition to reckless military action in order to make Athens great, leading to a humiliating defeat

Sicilian expidition

-Sicilian expedition occurred in 415BC

>Alcibides led by desire and ambition to reckless military action in order to make Athens great, leading to a humiliating defeat

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Who speaks in the symposium

-Eryximachus (scientist, lover to Phaedrus)

-Phaedrus (aristocratic eromenos to Eryx)

-Pausanias (legal expert, lover to Agathon)

(Eryx talks)

-Aristophanes (comic writer)

-Agathon (tragic playwright, eromenos to Paus)

-Socrates (Philosopher)

-Alcibiades (statesman/general, ridiculously good looking, in love with Socrates, son of Pericles)

Eryximachus

-scientist, lover to Phaedrus

>3rd speaker

-Proposes that the group discuss Love

-Eros can be defined by it many positive effects to create reconcilliation among opposites.

-These effects are found throughout nature and society

>like in the body there is healthy desire (to be encouraged) and unhealthy/diseased desire (to be discouraged)

-A force of nature that motivates behavior and activity toward harmony even among plants and animals

>in this way we should aspire to the harmonious love

>meden again- excessive love is destructive

>love is universal

>love like medicine is capable of curing and regulating (com humours)

Phaedrus

-aristocratic eromenos to Eryx

-Refers to Eros as a God (brings blessings)

-The pederastic relationship is the best example of Eros (praises the dom system)

>the value of the relationship relies on virtues (eg courage)

>eg sacred band of Thebes and Achilles = courage

-Love installs bravery as the lover wishes not to humiliate himself in front of his beloved

>would make the ideal state or army

OVERALL

-Unsophisticated, idealistic, naive speech

>love makes us virtuous

Pausanias

-legal expert, lover to Agathon

-Two forms of Eros; common and Heavenly.

-Pandemian is lower, physical, and associated with women

>it is an attraction which one will do anything to statisgy, it is the love of reproduction and thus typically heterosexual

>lack sophrosune

-Uranian is higher, spiritual and includes knowledge, contemplation, and practicing the virtues.

>men should aspire to this form

>it is the desire for mental enrichment

>shared by men

>it is a love between souls, not a product of beauty, but noble characteristics

-Discourages the love of young boys not out of sympathy but because they’re future morality is unclear

>the body is ephemeral and changes but the soul is immortal

>not necessarily erotic or not

-Elaborates on the rules of courtship. Cant be bought and play hard to get.

-It is dishonourable to be overcome by greed (love of money or power

-Pederastic relationships can indulge sexually if it is based on virtue

>or else its a lack of enkreteia (not a trustworthy citizen, may sell secrets, akin to prostitution)

OVERALL

-sense that he desires sexual gratification and this is influencing his theory

Aristophanes

-comic writer

-Eros is a emotion that a person feels towards one another.

-Story tells of whole humans that where divided by the god

>aetilological story for the origin of sex, love and the diversity to sexuality

>cartwheeling human too powerful, separated, starved themselves, genitals moved so union can be achieved

-Humans desire completeness because we were divided, incomplete or partial

>idea of returning to og form

>once androgynous beings are now heterosexuals (who he described as adulterers as marriage wasn’t meant to be based on love/desire)

-All humans feel love, but eraster/eromenos relationship is its paradigmatic example.

>mlm are best statemen as they have max masc

OVERALL

-May be comic relief or a philosophical tale

>comic that uniting is made literal

-Has some resemblance to his theory of forms

-Builds our anticipation for Socrates

Agathon

-tragic playwright, eromenos to Paus

-Eros promotes virtues such as justice, moderation, bravery, and wisdom.

-Eros has intrinsic value rather than extrinsic values.

-Eros is the youngest, happiest, and most beautiful of the gods

>beauty is love’s object

-As a god Eros stays young forever.

-Eros powers animate the souls of both gods and men, encouraging the cultivation of moral character.

-Eros is the most powerful god because of these qualities

>was able to conquer Ares

OVERALL

-Idealistic

Socrates

-Philosopher

-love is the desire for that which is lacked

>love can not be intrinsically good/beautiful because it desires goodness/beauty

-Diotimia taught him that men desire immortality

>seen in desire for fame or reproduction, so our virtues can live on

>can be used to find immortal ideas through philosophical enquiry and ascend the ladder of enrichment

-Women whose bodies are pregnant will preserve themselves through the offspring, but men whose souls are pregnant will be continued through eternal ideas

>those who are trained to look for this in youth will seek out beauty

-Acting on desire is discouraged as it should be a vehicle for philosophy and virtue

Diotimia’s ladder

-Eros is a "force of attraction" found in all things.

> the offspring of having and needing.

-The ladder of love, love of beautiful thing lowest rung

>Can ascend to higher rung by contemplating what Beauty means > realise what is beautiful > understand the abstract concept

-Contemplating what things mean give us knowledge, and that is the highest aspiration of humans and is animated by the force of Eros.

Ella CC scholarly view

‘Chemicals in your brain’

Alcibiades’ speech

-statesman/general, ridiculously good looking, in love with Socrates, son of Pericles

-infamous for pursuing Socrates and betraying Athens to Sparta.

-Claims to love Socrates but criticizes him for rebuffing him in the past

>calls him ugly and stupid

>when they shared a bed it was as though he slept with a relative

-Socrates counters that he is not virtuous because he is immodest and narcissistic, thus does not have the proper character for erastes/eromenos relationship.

>in A’s account, despite planning a trad pederastic dynamic, he shifted into the position of lover, pursuing him

-is not worthy of philosophical contemplation and cultivation of virtue, so Socrates does not waste his time on him.

-This conversation is set in 416BC, the year before the Sicilian expedition

OVERALL

-Absolves Socrates of the accusations of corrupting the youth

What does Plato say about love in the Symposium?

-Phaedrus says love is the path to virtue

- Diotima says love is the "desire to possess the good forever"

- Diotima encourages following philosophy in the relationship to achieve "bliss"

What did Plato think about the role of women?

- they should be controlled

- they are useful for procreation

- In Republic he imagines a society where women are equally educated as men and can do the same things as men such as ruling - they do not have to look after children

- However in Republic he also says they shouldn't be in political roles because of their emotions and intellectual limitations

‘Men and women, just like the long-haired and the short-haired, are by nature the same for the assignment of education and jobs’: Plato’s Republic

>BUT in Laws he reinstates social stratification according to gender 

Aristotle: disagrees with Plato on gender roles: ‘the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying’ ‘misbegotten man’

Wender: Plato shows a kind of feminism by opening up the best education and highest jobs to women in the Republic 

Vlastos: Plato is ‘unambiguously feminist’ in saying women have the same souls as men, should have same socio-political and economic status as men in the Republic. 

Annas: ‘In the Laws… radical proposals about women lapse… they are left in the position of 4th century Greek women… no part in political process, unable to own or inherit property,... perpetual legal minors always under the authority of male relatives or guardians.’ 

Annas: ‘Athenian women in Plato’s day led suppressed and powerless lives. They were not legal persons.’ 

What are Plato's views on marriage?

- Aristophanes in the Symposium talks about marriages between two "halves" - very positive

- In the Republic, Plato proposes the abolition of the oikos and selective mating at festivcals of only the fittest/most attractive people to create good children

-about Laws (Annas) ‘women are married off by their fathers, and an heiress passes with the property to the nearest male, as was the normal Greek practice of the time.’ 

CRITICS

‘wives and children should be held in common’: Plato’s Republic

>BUT in Laws private marriage is retained, organised by men, for public benefit/ eugenic breeding. 

Brown: (about Republic) ‘Plato believed the abolition of the family would improve the cohesion of society as a whole’ 

Aristotle: thinks Plato is wrong that natural love for our nuclear family can be transferred to all fellow-citizens equally 

Demosthenes (Athenian statesman, so not a secondary source): “We keep hetaerae for the sake of pleasure, female slaves for our daily care, and wives to give us legitimate children

What does Plato say about love in Phaedrus?

- True love will overcome physical desire in exchange for philosophy

- If you fall in love with someone good you will find they have a talent for philosophy; this will make you want to become better at philosophy and you both will become better people: "pursue the good"

What does Plato say about love in Laws?

Love can start with friendship, then it can either develop into desire, OR the soul lusts for the other soul which is more chaste and better.

What does Plato say about desire in the Symposium?

- Desire must be controlled / resisted otherwise it makes people behave badly

- Physical desire should only be the starting point of the relationship and is inferior to desire of the mind

- Phaedrus and Pausanias say that desire is good as long as it means the erastes is making the eromenos virtuous in exchange for sexual gratification

- Socrates can resist desire (Alcibiades) because he is virtuous

What are Plato's views on homoerotic relationships in Symposium?

- Pausanias says you must choose your partner wisely- they must be virtuous

- Pausanias says sexual gratification is morally right in return for teaching the eromenos to be virtuous

- Aristophanes says homoerotic relationships are natural; they make you more manly and courageous - suggests an army of homoerotic lovers

- Diotima says homoerotic relationships are better because they produce ideas, immortality and virtue

What does Plato say about sex?

- Symposium - we should move past sex and focus on philosophy

- Republic - sex should only happen between chosen people at festivals only to continue society

- Laws - only sex for procreation is allowed

What does Plato say about desire in Laws?

- Heterosexual desire is good because it is for procreation

- Desire for reasons other than procreation is bad

- People's irrational desires need to be controlled by enforcing cultural taboos etc

- Desire can be resisted with exercise

- If you can resist desire you will be happy

What does Plato say about desire in Phaedrus?

- Uncontrolled desire leads to bad behaviour e.g. disrespect of family, loss of wealth and no shame

- Uncontrolled desire makes you just the same as a savage animal

- Tripartite soul - black horse is driven by passion and desire, white horse is controlled and philosophical, charioteer is our soul/rational self, trying to keep control

What are the rungs of Diotima's ladder?

1) Love for one beautiful body

2) Love for all beautiful bodies

3) Love for minds and ideas

4) Seeking the beauty of truth and philosophy

Plato’s Phaedrus on love

-natural desire of pleasure and acquired opinions are the two guiding principles

>sometimes in harmony

-desire led by reason=sophrosune

Desire without reason=excess

-irrational desire is called love

>it leads us from reason and towards beauty

Plato’s Phaedrus on the dangers of love

Perverted pederasty

-The Erastes wishes to make the eromenos agreeable and thus inferior to him

>he implants ignorance, cowardice, poor rhetoric etc

>likes him to be wifeless, childless, homeless

>he is jealous of the eromenos and thus limits him- he is not self sufficient

-The Erastes is old, jealous, ugly and detestable

>he forces himself on the eromenos (hubris, no self control)

>he is driven by a desire for satisfaction and thus clings to the eromenos (he’s too old for that)

>morally corrupt

-When his desire fades and he is ruled by temperance he will stop giving the eromenos favours

>the eromenos will feel abandoned, cheated, and unfulfilled (their relationship was based on sexual desire as opposed to virtue)

-The lovers bad horse pushes him to want pleasure in return for the pain of his desire

Plato’s Phaedrus on the soul

Winged soul

-When in the presence of great beauty (expression of ideal og from) his soul grows wings

>causes him to heat up, sweat, shudder

BUT when she is parted from her beloved the wings dry and close

-Desire nails down our soul

-Souls who have indulged in their physical desire will pass out of the body unhinged, and unable to fulfill their desire to soar

Charioteer

-There is a good/spirited horse (loves honour, modesty, and temperance) and a bad horse (Loves insolence, pride, carnal desire) and the charioteer who governs them (wisdom)

>when the charioteer sees something worthy of beauty he moderates himself instead of yielding to the base horse

-The lovers bad horse pushes him to want pleasure in return for the pain of his desire

Plato’s Phaedo

-Socrates does not fear death because our body distracts our soul from philosophical enquiry and the truth

>when we die the soul is no longer saturated by the body and we can access knowledge

>why fear death when you hope to be with those you love (for philosophers especially, rejoin with pure things only)

Definitions of love

Symposium

-              Concerned with the nature of love

-              Phaedrus love is the path to virtue, considering Love the oldest of the gods, speaking of love in homoerotic dynamics where each is driven to do well for the state to impress their lover (links to his pederastic dynamic with Pausanias.)

-              Pausanias defines Love through the dichotomy of Pandemian (sexual common love for women and boys) and Uranian eros (nobler love which blossoms in friendships based on shared virtue and knowledge, the desire for mental enrichment.)

-              Eryximachus provides a more scientific account, explaining it as the manifestation of universal phenomenon (can be seen in heaven and throughout nature) producing harmony.

-              Aristophanes provides an accessible story on the origins of love, where love is the desire for our original wholeness, united with our other halves, and explaining attraction to different genders as depending on whether in your original form you were female, male, or androgenous.

-              Agathon (ends opening speeches) praises the virtues of Love in a poetic style (love is young, soft, sweet, moderate, wise) love is desired because it is beautiful.

-              Socrates claims Diotimia has taught him about love- it is neither ugly nor beautiful, mortal nor divine but occupies a middle ground. Thus seekers of love can move past physical desire and strive for what is beautiful. Love is necessary for immortality though procreation or aquisition of true goodness. Love is the pursuit of truth and thus philosophy.

Phaedrus

-              Deals with love, persuasion and philosophical enquiry

Republic + Laws

-              Considers the place of love and relationships in a perfect society

Physical symptoms of desire

Phaedrus

-              Plato speaks through Socrates expressing his idea of sexual desire urging the soul to grow wings and take flight.

-              When describing the whole experience of sexual desire, he says the body grows warm, moist, and swell.

o   When reaching orgasm, the body begins to shudder.

-              The parts of the soul that were hard and prevented the feathers’ growth become soft, allowing feathers to grow. The whole soul throbs and palpitates

 

Charmides

-              Socrates described that he gets ’hot and bothered’ when he glances under Charmides’ cloak (a young beautiful boy)

o   Plato rephrases this poetically as ‘being on fire’

Symposium

-              Socrates restrains his feelings of desire towards Alcibiades, to which Alcibiades compares this feeling to being bitten by a snake

 

The differences between love and desire

Symposium

-              Phaedrus says that feeling a sense of shame is a benefit of love, encouraging lovers to be virtuous

o   There is no mention of sexual desire, as Phaedrus’ desire is more focused on self-improvement.

-              Pausanias focuses on the brutality and ugliness of sexual desire, but the purpose of the act should define whether it is beautiful or ugly.

o   He is in a pederastic relationship with him as the erastes, and has entered the relationship partly for sexual desire.

o   He holds that sexual desire is the start of a loving relationship. Believes it is morally right for an erastes to expect gratification of his sexual desire in return for developing the eromenos’ sense of virtue.

-              Aristophanes speaks about people finding a loving, fulfilling relationship more than sexual desire. It reflects the human longing for completion.

o   Love is a better explanation for people forming lifelong partnerships than sexual desire. Sexual desire is also helpful to relax people, rather than just procreation.

o   In the Laws, there is discussion over the difficulties of distinguishing friendship and love.

§  Explains that friendship is affection for someone that we have something in common with.

Desire is specifically sexual and physical.

Why desire should be controlled

How and why desire should be controlled

-              It is in everybody’s interest for society to be moderate and well controlled

-              Immoderate love is compared to the behaviour of an extreme tyrant

-              In Phaedo, Socrates is described as rising above his desires and using reason to inform his actions

-              Desires are compared to nails hammered into the soul

-              Eryximachus compares desire with disease frequently in his speech of the Symposium

-              Socrates refers to examples of incorrect desire, particularly incest, when refuting Agathon’s comments about the glories of Love

-              In Republic, Plato makes comments about the dangers of incest

•How and why desire can be resisted

-              Socrates resists Alcibiades very forward advances and it is because he has been taught by Diotima about the importance of resisting physical desire

-              Socrates and probably Plato thought that desire should be aimed only at what was good

-              In Laws and Republic, Plato talks about sexual desire being rechannelled into more worthwhile aims for the good of the state

-              Diotima refers to desire as a creative search for immortality, either through procreation or ‘mental pregnancy’ which can result in laws, ideas or works of art

-              Concept of the tripartite soul in Phaedrus

CRITICS

Waterfield: ‘Alcibiades was the best catch in Athens at the time… and yet Socrates refused to have sex with him… tries to rechannel his love away from bodily lust towards philosophy… Socrates is meant to be our ideal and we disapprove of Alcibiades being so stubbornly erotic.’ 

Dodds: ‘Plato expresses… that sexual gratification distracts from the focus… but Socrates does not wholly condemn couples who occasionally give in to their sexual urges.’ 

Aristotle's 'Nichomachean Ethics': book 7 discusses restraint and the lack of it, echoing Plato in arguing that desire should be resisted by those who wish to live morally 

Homoerotic relationships

-      In the Symposium, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Phaedrus and Alcibiades all suggest that same sex, pederastic relationships could be useful to the state

-      These relationships were a way for the older male generation to pass down their knowledge and virtue

-      Pausanias and Eryximachus attempt to justify the sexual gratification which an erastes would receive from the eromenos

-      Diotima suggests to Socrates that homoerotic relationships produce ideas and virtue and that this bond is stronger than the bond that produces children

-      Aristophanes’ ‘story of the spheres’ produces a natural explanation of homoerotic relationships

In Phaedrus, it is suggested that friendship should come before a sexual relationship

CRITICS

 ‘when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure’ Plato’s Laws 

Freeman: ‘throughout most of the Greek and Roman world, there was less tolerance for same-sex relations between women’ 

Waterfield: ‘Socrates seems to have exercised self-restraint,and to have disapproved of the sexual side of homoerotic love.’ 

Murray: ‘to describe what ‘Greek love’ is – the desire of men for men, its institutions and practices – allows us to explore the more contentious issue of what ‘Greek love’ means for us today.

Ideas regarding the nature of good and bad conduct

-              Homoerotic relationships can encourage each partner to behave in an admirable way in front of each other, leading to honourable and daring behaviour, which is useful to the state

-              In Symposium, Diotima suggests that philosophers can develop their thinking about love until they are able to identify what is truly beautiful in life, which is also what is good

-              This required moderating sexual desire, which Socrates achieved and made him a better soldier

Diotima celebrates reproduction as the creation of immortality – the creation of the next generation was important to an ordered state

How Plato’s contemporary context influenced him

-              The events in symposium take place in 416 BCE, but the dialogue was first read between 384-379 BCE

-              In 416, Athens was in the Peloponnesian war, but were hopeful as Alcibiades was leading the Sicilian expedition

-              By 404, the expedition had failed, and the Athenians were suffering the consequences

-              Alcibiades had been prosecuted, gone to the Spartans, ended up in the Persian court and by 404 was dead

-              Socrates was executed in 399 for ‘corrupting the youth’ of Athens, after which Plato left Athens and travelled around the Mediterranean

-              In Symposium, Plato shows Socrates attempting to moderate Alcibiades impulsive behaviour

-              Both Symposium and Republic were written in a time of political turmoil

-              Sophists were teaching young rich Athenians, but many considered these responsible for undermining the state

Plato was hostile to these Sophists, and set up the Academy in 387, perhaps as a response, or to rehabilitate the reputation of Socrates

How Plato’s ideas may have been received

-              Pederasty, homoerotic relationships, and prostitution were likely topics that interested his contemporary audience

-              He drew conflicting conclusions about each topic, so his readers could read what they wanted to

-              Greeks would have learnt some of their moral outlook from Homer, in which the gods display desire without consequence, Odysseus and Penelope are the archetypal couple, and Helen and Paris’ destructive affair is frequently mentioned

-              Plato audience would have had this background when approaching his dialogues

-              Athens had lost the Peloponnesian war against Sparta, as well as their empire and prestige

When Plato was active, the Athenians lived through political turmoil – authoritarian oligarchy had been followed by a reborn democracy

Aristotle on women

Aristotle: disagrees with Plato on gender roles: ‘the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying’ ‘misbegotten man’

Wender on women in the republic

Wender: Plato shows a kind of feminism by opening up the best education and highest jobs to women in the Republic 

Brown on marriage in the republic

Brown: (about Republic) ‘Plato believed the abolition of the family would improve the cohesion of society as a whole’ 

Demosthenes on marriage

(Athenian statesman, so not a secondary source)

“We keep hetaerae for the sake of pleasure, female slaves for our daily care, and wives to give us legitimate children

Critics quotes on marriage

‘wives and children should be held in common’: Plato’s Republic

>BUT in Laws private marriage is retained, organised by men, for public benefit/ eugenic breeding. 

Annas: (about Laws) ‘women are married off by their fathers, and an heiress passes with the property to the nearest male, as was the normal Greek practice of the time.’ 

Brown: (about Republic) ‘Plato believed the abolition of the family would improve the cohesion of society as a whole’ 

Aristotle: thinks Plato is wrong that natural love for our nuclear family can be transferred to all fellow-citizens equally 

Demosthenes (Athenian statesman, so not a secondary source): “We keep hetaerae for the sake of pleasure, female slaves for our daily care, and wives to give us legitimate children

Waterfield on Socrates’ desire (and conduct)

SIMTBOIAWDOABSSE

‘Socrates is meant to be our ideal and we disapprove of Alcibiades being so stubbornly erotic.’ 

>Alcibiades was the best catch in Athens at the time… and yet Socrates refused to have sex with him… tries to rechannel his love away from bodily lust towards philosophy…

Dodds on desire

SGDFTF…NWC

Dodds: ‘Plato expresses… that sexual gratification distracts from the focus… but Socrates does not wholly condemn couples who occasionally give in to their sexual urges.’ 

Keime on Diotimia

it's possible to interpret Diotima's ideas as 'what the philosophers, Socrates and Plato, really think deep down about matters of love' 

Critics quotes on desire

Waterfield: ‘Alcibiades was the best catch in Athens at the time… and yet Socrates refused to have sex with him… tries to rechannel his love away from bodily lust towards philosophy… Socrates is meant to be our ideal and we disapprove of Alcibiades being so stubbornly erotic.’ 

Dodds: ‘Plato expresses… that sexual gratification distracts from the focus… but Socrates does not wholly condemn couples who occasionally give in to their sexual urges.’ 

Keime: it's possible to interpret Diotima's ideas as 'what the philosophers, Socrates and Plato, really think deep down about matters of love' 

Aristotle's 'Nichomachean Ethics': book 7 discusses restraint and the lack of it, echoing Plato in arguing that desire should be resisted by those who wish to live morally 

Reeve: 'the erotic world of Plato's dialogues is in part, of course, just that of his society' 

Freeman on homosexuality

‘throughout most of the Greek and Roman world, there was less tolerance for same-sex relations between women’ 

Critics on homosexuality

 ‘when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure’ Plato’s Laws 

Freeman: ‘throughout most of the Greek and Roman world, there was less tolerance for same-sex relations between women’ 

Waterfield: ‘Socrates seems to have exercised self-restraint,and to have disapproved of the sexual side of homoerotic love.’ 

Murray: ‘to describe what ‘Greek love’ is – the desire of men for men, its institutions and practices – allows us to explore the more contentious issue of what ‘Greek love’ means for us today.’ 

Critics quotes on women

Aristotle: disagrees with Plato on gender roles: ‘the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying’ ‘misbegotten man’

Wender: Plato shows a kind of feminism by opening up the best education and highest jobs to women in the Republic 

Vlastos: Plato is ‘unambiguously feminist’ in saying women have the same souls as men, should have same socio-political and economic status as men in the Republic. 

Annas: ‘In the Laws… radical proposals about women lapse… they are left in the position of 4th century Greek women… no part in political process, unable to own or inherit property,... perpetual legal minors always under the authority of male relatives or guardians.’ 

Annas: ‘Athenian women in Plato’s day led suppressed and powerless lives. They were not legal persons.’