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Reflections on the Symposium: Socrates (Diotima)

Dan — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:54:00 +0000

Now comes the final oration on the topic of Love. Socrates does not espouse his own view of Love, but affirms a theory of Love taught to him by a certain Mantinean woman named Diotima. He recounts their dialogue which amounts to something like:

1. Love is always a Love of something.

2. Love of something implies that the one doing the loving lacks that something.

3. Therefore, Love of beauty or good implies a lack of beauty or good.

This conclusion directly challenges all the previous orations on how Love is full of beauty and good. However, here’s a very intriguing insight:

1. Lack of beauty or good does not necessitate ugliness or badness.

2. Therefore, Love is neither beautiful & good nor ugly & bad.

This insight makes one wonder what is the exact nature of Love (if it is neither good nor bad). Diotima concludes that Love can’t be a god because the gods possess the good and the beautiful, but neither is Love, by definition, a mortal. She believes Love is an entity that exists between the two planes of existence (the heavens and the earth). She claims that these mediary entities “form the medium of the prophetic arts, of the priestly rites of sacrifice, initiation, and incantation, of divination and of sorcery….”

When applied to human beings, we are always longing for what we have not, and when we obtain what we have not, we still long to keep it continually. But since human beings are mortal, they cannot keep what they have obtained forever. Therefore, in order to reach immortality, they must either live on through their progenitors through procreation or through creation of art; through the former, one lives on through ones physical seed, while through the latter, one lives on through art (e.g., music, art, literature, mathematical formulas, etc.). This, she subsumed under a general theme: The longing for immortality or glory. She particularly commends a certain manifestation or creation brought forth from our longing for immortality/glory – the society.

In sum, Love is the High Priest, the mediator who binds mortality and immortality, the Force behind procreation and creation, the elevator that carries all human arts & sciences towards the top floor of Beauty.

Reflections on the Symposium: Agathon

Dan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:48:16 +0000

Agathon, a talented orator, speaks of Love with powerful rhetoric. He first begins with a brief history on the origins of Love. He affirms the cosmology of the previous poets before him – namely Hesiod and Parmenides. He believes that before Love, the god Necessity regulated the world as we know it. The world was marked by violence and discord.

However, Love soon followed Necessity and brought about peace and harmony. This “younger” god Love is marked by daintiness, softness, flexibility, tenderness, and suppleness. The principle Love uses to “make the world go round” is through mutuality and goodwill, never by force. He describes Love using four principles: righteousness, temperance, valor, and genius.

By righteousness, he is talking about moral excellence, which, as mentioned earlier, is governed by mutuality and goodwill. By temperance, he is talking about achieving balance between uncontrolled passions and cold apathy; it is a place where our longing for passion and pleasure are tempered, so that the world is marked by serenity and peace. By valor, he is talking about the kind of courage that imbued the god of war Ares; it is the kind of power that drives men to do the most courageous and valiant things. And most importantly, or so it seems to Agathon, by genius, he is talking about creativity. Love promotes creativity in us to produce such beautiful things as the arts, the sciences, and the virtues (e.g., friendship, kindness, wisdom, worship, etc.).

Reflections on the Symposium: Aristophanes

Dan — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:09:57 +0000

Aristophanes takes a different approach from Pausianas and Eryximachus. Rather than describing what it is, he seeks to explain the origin of its power. More specificially its power to create a certain type of longing in our hearts. He first talks about how there used to be three species of humans, the male, the female, and the she-male (or hermaphrodite). Of the three, the she-male was the most glorious, having both genitalias, four arms, four legs, and two heads. These three races grew in power and splendor and sought to reach the heavens. The gods, being alarmed, specifically Zeus, decided to stop such progress. Zeus, in his wisdom, sought to stop them without eradicating them, for their offerings and devotions to the gods were still deemed beneficial. So he cut them all in half.

The males hopped on one leg searching for their missing male counterpart (gay), the females also hopped on one leg searching for their missing female counterpart (lesbians), and the she-males walked on two, each searching for their male or female counterparts (heterosexuals). Thus, Zeus was able to keep them busy for the rest of their lives searching for their “missing half.” Thus was the source of their longing for union or “power of Love.”

Reflections on the Symposium: Eryximachus

Dan — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:41:04 +0000

Eryximachus sees Love as a unifying or balancing agent. Just as medicine seeks to create balance within the body (e.g., hot and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, etc.), Love creates balance within this world. Another example he uses is that of a musical instrument. Although each note is composed of opposites such as the base and the treble, Love binds them together so that they can form a beautiful chord. In this case, Love is more of an instrument that brings harmony from dissonance – much like an Eastern Yin-Yang sign.

So according to this theory, anything that brings about union or harmony could be rightfully identified as Love. Harmony within the body, harmony within the soul, harmony within our society, and harmony within all aspects of human knowledge are all products of Love. And by default, all discord in our bodies, in our souls, in our societies, and in our knowledge are from lack of Love.

Do you think human disease, obesity, deformity could be healed or better yet eradicated through realizing Love? Could our souls be at peace and be fulfilled through realizing Love? Could we have a perfectly harmonious society through realizing Love? Could we have perfectly true and reliable knowledge of this world through realizing Love? Is Love really the solution to every problem and by negation, is the lack of Love really at the bottom of every problem in this world? According to Eryximachus, it seems to be so.

Reflections on the Symposium: Pausanias

Dan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:29:30 +0000

Pausanias talks about two types of Love: heavenly and earthly. They parallel the two goddesses of Love – the heavenly Aphrodite (Uranian) and the earthly Aphrodite (Pandemus). Earthly Love is primarily fueled by an indiscriminate search for bodily pleasures. Heavenly Love is fueled by mutual understanding and respect. Heavenly Love is further broken down into: 1) “Love of a boy” which is fueled by the joining of two intelligent minds for the sake of friendship, and 2) “Love of wisdom” which is fueled by mutual submission for the sake of attaining virtue or wisdom. These must always be free of political and financial considerations.

However, I would have to disagree with the statement that “heavenly Love” can only be achieved between two males. That is obviously a thought embedded in a male-dominated culture. However, the principle is still valid; unity of mind, mutual respect, admiration, friendship, etc., are all necessary foundations for a long-lasting and healthy relationship.

Reflections on the Symposium: Phaedrus

Dan — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:48:46 +0000

The Symposium begins with Phaedrus talking about the pre-existence of Love before all worlds. For Phaedrus, the reality of Love is simply assumed. Love, just like the gods, permeated the world of the ancients, and were an intimate part of their lives. Phaedrus believes that this kind of eternal Love is what gives birth to people of noble character, people who are full of valor, loyalty, self-sacrifice, courage, and honor.

Reflections on the Symposium

Dan — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:28:43 +0000

Today, as I was waiting to see a movie called “Fireproof,” my friend introduced to me a writing by Plato called “the Symposium.” I was told that it had something to do with love, and so marks the beginning of my dialogue with this foreign piece of literature.