The Symposium
Philosophy 190: Plato
Fall, 2014
Prof. Peter Hadreas
Course website:
http://www.sjsu.edu/people/peter.hadreas/courses/Plato
copy of portrait bust of Plato by Silanion
Plato’s Academy: Mosaic Siminius Sephanus Pompeii
The Complex Framing of the Symposium
1. The dialogue begins with a ‘companion’ asking Apollodorus to tell
him about the speeches that Socrates and others made at a dinner
party a decade or so before. The companion remarks: “So it was
really a long time ago,” (p. 459, 173B)
2. Apollodorus says that’s odd he was asked the same thing a few days
before by Glaucon.
3. Apollodorus says he was not there, but he heard the speeches from “a
fellow called Aristodemos . . . a real runt of a man who always went
barefoot. He went to the party because, I think, he was obsessed
with Socrates – one of the worst cases at that time. Naturally, I
checked part of his story with Socrates, and Socrates agreed with
his account,” Apollodorus says. (p. 459; 173B).
4. Apollodorus proceeds to recount the party to the ‘companion’
allegedly as he heard it from Aristodemos.
The Readers of Plato’s Time Would Know the World had Greatly
Changed From the Time of the Famous Dinner Party to When
the Party was Recounted:
1. The dinner party took place a few months before the sailing of
the great armada to Sicily in 415 B.C. E. The conquest of
Sicily was (wrongly) confidently anticipated. It was imagined
Sicily would be a stepping stone to further Athenian
expansion.
2. Alcibiades’ notorious career had yet to unfold.
3. Aristophanes was at the height of his comedy-writing powers.
4. It was the first victory of a new poet, Agathon. Agathon in the
interim would befriend a despotic tyrant and emigrate.
5. In the interim, Phaedrus and Eryximachus would be exiled.
A. E. Taylor remarks:
“Not only is the occasion itself, the first public victory of the
new poet, a festive one, but the year is one in which the
temper of the Imperial city itself was exceptional joyous
and high. The date is only a few months before the sailing
of the great Armada which was confidently expected to
make the conquest of Sicily a mere stepping stone to
unlimited expansion, possible to the conquest of Carthage;
the extraordinary tone of hubris characteristic of
Alcibiades in the dialogue becomes much more explicable
when we remember that at the moment of speaking he was
commander-designate of such an enterprise and drunk
with the ambitions Thucydides ascribes to him quite as
much as wine.”
Taylor, A. S., Plato: The Man and His Work, (London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1926/1978), p. 210.
Mikhail Bakhtin in 1920,
(1895-1975)
Russian philosopher of language, semiotician, and literary critic
Bakhtin on Socratic Dialogues
“We possess a remarkable document that
reflects that simultaneous birth of scientific
thinking and of a new artistic prose-model for
the novel. These are the Socratic dialogues. For
our purposes everything in this remarkable
genre, which was born just as classical antiquity
was drawing to a close, is significant.
Characteristically it arises as apomnemoneumata
[recollections], that is, as a genre of the memoir
type, as transcripts based on personal
conversations among contemporaries . . .”1
1. M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, Holquist ed.,
Emerson and Holquist trans. (Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press,
1981), p. 24,
Cooksey applies Bakhtin’s theories to the
Symposium
(continued)
“Whether it be the mad obsessiveness of Apollodorus’
narrative, the limits of Aristodemus’ memory, or the
disagreements, ironies, and humor among the various
speakers at Agathon’s party, the Symposium challenges
Plato’s readers to engage actively and passionately with
the text, not just to accept it as ‘the same thing forever.’
In this way, Plato breaks out of the hermeneutic bind. The
markings on the page may be fixed, but not their
subsequent readings. In the end, the text of the Symposium
itself becomes daimōnic, neither divine nor human, but the
messenger between them.”
Cooksey, Thomas L., Plato’s Symposium: A Reader’s Guide, (London:
Continuum International Publishing Group. London, 2010), p. 130.
Cooksey applies Bakhtin’s theories to the Symposium
[continued]
“Bakhtin’s conception of the novel, inspired by the Platonic
dialogue, offers us in retrospect, insight into the working of
the Symposium, If in the Phaedrus, Socrates complains that
“written words go on telling you just the same thing forever”
(275E), then the Symposium gives the answer. The deliberate
ambiguities that Plato inserts into his work by means of the
successive narrative frames and the foregrounding of textual
transmission raise the issue of authority in the minds of the
attentive reader. Made conscious of the limits of the text, the
reader is invited to rethink and reinterpret what he or she
has read.”
Cooksey, Thomas L., Plato’s Symposium: A Reader’s Guide, (London: Continuum
International Publishing Group. London, 2010), p. 130.
Leo Strauss (1899 –1973) a political philosopher who specialized in classical
political philosophy. He spent most of his career at the University of Chicago.
Strauss returned to the notion that contemporary society suffered from types of
nihilism. He supported a renewed reflection on classical political philosophy as a
starting point for judging political action.
Strauss’s overview of the six speeches.
“I would like to remind you of two things. The first is that there
are three speeches in which eros is viewed from a point of view
outside of it – those of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, who
view eros with regard to gain, moral virtue and art [technē].
Eros is sovereign in Aristophanes, Agathon and Socrates.”
Strauss, Leo, On Plato’s Symposium, edited and with a Forward by Seth Benardete, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001)], p. 116.
Speech of Phaedrus
(This is the same Phaedrus as in Plato’s dialogue by that name.)
Love engenders courage
Phaedrus says that Eros is the oldest of the gods so he has no ‘parents’.
He inspires the admiration of the beloved since nothing shames persons
more than to be seen by their beloved committing an inglorious act (178d179b). And so love can inspire bravery of a lover on the battlefield. He
mentions Aristogeiton and Harmodius, the ‘tyrranicides.’ Phaedrus also
cites women who sacrificed themselves out of love: Alcestis died for her
husband Admetus.
Phaedrus refers to the erastes/eroumenous or lover/beloved relation.
Achilles fought bravely at the death of his lover Patroclus though although
he was, because younger, beloved. According to Phaedrus, the tragedian
Aeschylus erroneously made Achilles the ‘lover’ (erastes) (180a), claiming
instead that Achilles was the beautiful, still-beardless, younger ‘beloved’ of
Patroclus and citing Homer in his support. (Iliad 23.102)
Interlude: Aristophanes gets the hiccups: (185C-E; p. 469)
“Perhaps Plato intends to ridicule Aristophanes, whose
caricature of Socrates in his comedy Clouds may have offended
him. Alternately the comedy may be directed at Eryximachus,
as the famous physician is reduced to giving medical advice of a
rather trivial sort. A third possibility is that the satire is directed
at Pausanias. The latter view takes the suggestion that
Aristophanes’ hiccups may have been “from overeating or
something else” (185C) as involving a hint that the “something
else” was being fed up with bad speeches.”
The Symposium and the Phaedrus, Plato’s Erotic Dialogues, trans. and commentary by William
S. Cobb, (Albany, NY: 1993), p. 66.
Interlude: Aristophanes gets the hiccups: (185C-E; p.
469)
“At any rate, the reader should visualize what is going on
during Eryximachus’ speech that follows. Aristophanes holds
his breath until he explodes and starts hiccupping again. Then
he gargles, no doubt loudly, but still continues to hiccup. Finally,
he makes himself sneeze several times.
The Symposium and the Phaedrus, Plato’s Erotic Dialogues, trans. and commentary by William
S. Cobb, (Albany, NY: 1993), p. 66.
Video on the Myth in
Aristophanes’ Speech
by Pascal Szidon
You can see it at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4paSMqKYXtY
Aristophanes, comic poet
c. 446 BC – c. 386 BC
“Now here is why there were three kinds, and why they were
as I described them: The male kind was originally an
offspring of the sun, the female of the earth, and the one that
combined both genders an offspring of the moon, because the
moon shares in both. They were spherical, and so was their
motion, because there were like their parents in the sky.” p.
473, 190B.
“They [Zeus and the other gods] couldn’t wipe out the human race with
thunderbolts and kill them off as they did the giants, because that would
wipe out the worship they receive, along with the sacrifices we humans
give them. On the other hand, they couldn’t let them run riot. At last,
after great effort, Zeus had an idea.” p. 473, 190C-D
VI. Speech of Agathon (194E-197E; pp. 477-80)
Love is a god.
According to Agathon, the god Eros
1)is youngest of all
2)is soft
3)is pliant
4)is comely
5) has all the virtues
A fresco taken from the north wall of the Tomb of the Diver
(from Paestum, Italy, c. 475 BCE): a symposium scene
Strauss on Agathon’s Speech (194E-197E; pp. 477-80)
Love is a god.
According to Strauss: “Eidos, shape, which is the word for the
Platonic idea, occurs here only in the sense of visible shape. The
eidos, the essence, of Eros himself does not become the theme of
Agathon.” ….
“Now let us summarize what Agathon says about the beauty of
Eros; Beauty here is the beauty of the body of Eros. He is
young, delicate, of pliant shape, and of beautiful color. If we
look at Greek concepts of beauty in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, we find
that there are also two other elements of bodily beauty which
Agathon omits: strength and size. . . . One could say that Eros,
as described by Agathon, has the beauty of a serpent or a
butterfly rather than the beauty of human shape.”
Strauss, Leo, On Plato’s Symposium, edited and with a Forward by Seth Benardete, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001)], p. 160.
Socrates criticism of Agathon’s speech:
“In my foolishness, I thought you should tell the truth
about whatever your praise, that this should be your
basis, and that from this a speaker should select the
most beautiful truths and arrange them most suitably. . .
But now it appears that this is not what it is praise
anything whatever; rather, it is to apply to the object the
grandest and the most beautiful qualities, whether he
actually has them or not. And if they are false, that is no
objection; for the proposal, apparently, was that
everyone here make the rest of us think he is praising
Love – and not that he actually praises him.” p. 481,
198Dff. [my emphasis]
Socrates refutes two main theses of Agathon.
“Love is most beautiful and the best.” Agathon had said (480, 1978C).
Principle I: Love is in need: . “. . . Ask yourself whether it is necessary
that this be so: a thing that desires something of which it is in need;
otherwise if it were not in need, it would not desire it.” 200B, p. 482.
Principle II: When something desires something it does not have what it
desires.
Socrates quotes Agathon: “for there is no love of ugly ones.” (p. 483,
201A)
”So! If something needs beauty and has got no beauty at all would you
still say that it is beautiful?”
Certainly not.”
“Then do you still agree that Love is beautiful, if those things are so?
Then Agathon said, “It turns out, Socrates, I didn’t know what I was
talking about in that speech.” p. 484, 201B
Diotima of Mantinea
Jadwiga Łuszczewska, who used the pen name Diotima, posing as
the ancient seer in a painting by Józef Simmler, 1855.
Two Principles Applied and the Character of Love
1. Love is somewhere between the beautiful and the ugly.
202B. Following Diotima, Socrates compares Love to
correct belief, that is, it is between ignorance and
knowledge. 202B
2. Love is a daemon. (Daemons were the way that gods
entered into people in Homer.) 202E
3. “He [Love] is between mortal and immortal.” (p. 485,
202D)
Myth of Birth of Love
He was a son born on Aphrodite’s birthday of the
parents: Resource, [Poros], and Need, [Penia]. Love is
described as hard, parched and barefoot, not soft and
delicate.
QUESTIONS
1. Love is described as hard, parched and barefoot. Who
fits these qualities in the Symposium?
2. How is Socrates’ characterization of love
incompatible with Agathon’s?
3. What might be point of Plato’s saying that Love was
born on Aphrodite’s birthday, but is not her son?
What is the point of loving beautiful things? 204D-E, p. 487
Diotima’s asks: “What will this man have, when the beautiful
things he wants have become his own?”
“I [Socrates] said there was no way I could give a ready answer
to that question;
Then she said, “Suppose someone changes the question, putting
‘good’ in place of ‘beautiful,’ and asks you this: “Tell me,
Socrates, a lover of good things has a desire, what does he
desire?”
“That they become his own,” I said.
“And what will he have, when the good things he wants have
become his own?”
“This time it’s easier to come up with the answer,” I said. “He’ll
have happiness.”
‘Love’ and ‘in love and ‘lovers’ are a special case of loving
the good.
Diotima: “The main point is this: every desire for good things or for
happiness is ‘the supreme and treacherous love’ in everyone. But those
who pursue this along any of its many ways—through making money, or
through the love of sports, or through philosophy – we don’t say these
people are in love, and we don’t call them lovers. It’s only when people
are devoted exclusively to one special kind of love that we use the words
that really belong to the whole of it: ‘lover’ and ‘in love’ and ‘lovers.’”
205D, p. 488.
Rejection of Aristophanes myth: “Now there is a certain story, “ she said,:
“according to which lovers are those people who seek their other halves.”
But people will cut off their their own arms or legs if they are diseased.
These extreme actions are determined because ‘belonging to me’ means
‘good.’ pp. 488-9, 205E.
Love wants the 1) good + 2) it is be theirs + 3) that they possess it
forever = love is wanting to possess the good forever.
Diotima: “That is because what everyone loves is really nothing
other than the good? Do you disagree?”
Zeus! Not I, I said.
Now then, she said, Can we simply say that people love the good?
Yes, I said
But shouldn’t we add that in loving it, they want the good to be
theirs?”
We should.
And not only that,” she said, “they want the good to be their
forever, don’t they?
We should add that too.”
In a word then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.”
That’s very true I said. 206A, p. 489
How do lovers – as ordinarily called -- pursue wanting
the good to be theirs forever? They give ‘birth in
beauty.’
Diotima: “We’d rightly say that when they are are in love they do
something with eagerness and zeal. But what is it precisely that they
do? Can you say?”
“If I could,” I said, “ I wouldn’t be your student, filled with
admiration for your wisdom, and trying to learn these very things.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” she said, “It’s giving birth in beauty, whether
in body or soul.” (p.489) 206B.
The Lesser Mystery
The sublimation of giving birth in beauty. (206C-210A; 489-92).
1. The pattern is found in animals. “First they are sick for intercourse with
each other, then for nurturing their young.”
2. Learning has the same pattern: “For what we call studying exists because
knowledge is leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of knowledge,
while studying puts back a fresh memory in place of what went away, thereby
preserving a piece of knowledge, so that it seems to be the same,’ 208A; pp.
490-1.
3. Seeking honor has the same pattern: “to lay up glory immortal forever.” p.
491; 208D:
4. Poetic creation has the same pattern: Homer and Hesiod authored eternal
creations in poetic beauty p. 492; 209D
5. Same pattern in the creation of good political regimes, e. g. Solon and
Lycurgus. Compare legacies of Lincoln or Martin Luther King, p. 492, 209E.
‘Giving Birth in Beauty’
The Beauty of Women and Fertility1
“ . . . the most attractive female faces are displaying physical features
indicative of higher levels of pubertal estrogens (full lips) and lower levels of
androgen exposure (short narrow lower jaw and large eyes) than average
females. This combination of hormones also appears to be responsible for the
low 0.7 waist to hip ratio that has been found to be a universally attractive
feature of female bodies, and associated with physical health and high
fertility2,3. In the absence of contraception, female fertility reaches its
maximum in the mid-twenties, declines by about 20% in the mid-thirties,
and then falls precipitously by a further 60% during the forties.4 The
thinning of a female’s lips parallels these steep declines in fertility and it is
not uncommon for females to use lipstick or collagen injections for
maintaining or enhancing their facial attractiveness. Taken together, these
observations suggest that female beauty depends upon specific highly visible
hormonal markers that are indicative of higher than average fertility.”
1. The text is quoted from “Beauty, Bacteria, and the Faustian Bargain,” Victor S. Johnston, Professor Emeritus, NMSU.
2. Singh, D. (1993) Body shape and woman’s attractiveness: The critical role of waist-to-hip ratio. Hum. Nature 4, 297-321.
3. Zaastra, B. M. et al. (1993) Fat and female fecundity: Prospective study of effect of body fat distribution and conception rates.
Brit Med J, 306, 484-487.
4. Henry, L. (1961) Some data on natural fertility. Eugen Quart, 8, 81-91.
‘Giving Birth in Beauty’
The Beauty of Women and Fertility1
(continued)
“To study the emotional value of facial features, ERPs [event related
potentials] have been recorded from males exposed to a random sequence of
male and female facial images designed to systematically manipulate the size
and shape of facial features.2 The results reveal that for female faces, but not
male faces, the P3 [positive wave] amplitude is highly correlated with males’
beauty ratings, and the largest P3 [positive wave] response is evoked by
female faces displaying full lips and a short narrow chin, the feature
combination postulated to be an index of high fertility. It appears that male
brains are exquisitely sensitive to these hormonal markers and respond to
such cues within 500 milliseconds: the latency of the P3 [positive wave]
component. In the real world, this implies that a man could probably assess
the beauty of a woman’s face in a single glance across a crowded room!”
1. The text is quoted from “Beauty, Bacteria, and the Faustian Bargain,” Victor S. Johnston, Professor Emeritus, NMSU.
2. Johnston, V. S., and Oliver-Rodriguez, J. C. (1996) Facial Beauty and the Late Positive Component of Event-related
Potentials. J Sex Res. 34, 188-198.
Downloaded 10/4/14 from website: “The Perfect Human
Face,”
http://theperfecthumanface.blogspot.com/2013/09/theworlds-most-beautiful-asian-faces.html
The World’s Scientifically Most
Beautiful Woman?
according toi Design Taxi, Apr
30, 2012 9:16AM UTC:
“Florence [Colgate] has all the
classic signs of beauty,”
Carmen Lefèvre, of The
Perception Lab at the
University of St Andrews’
School of Psychology, told The
Daily Mail. “She has large eyes,
high cheekbones, full lips and a
fair complexion. Symmetry
appears to be a very important
cue to attractiveness.”
Downloaded 10/4/14 from website: “The Perfect Human
Face,” http://theperfecthumanface.blogspot.com/
The Attractiveness of Males and Signs of Increased Capacity for
Reproduction.1
“Image processing software has allowed experimenters to systematically
manipulate the degree of testosterone markers on the facial images of human
males.2 These studies have revealed that females prefer male faces that are
more masculine than the average male and this preference becomes more
extreme at ovulation or when selecting the face of a short-term mate,
compared to a long-term mate; occasions when there is either a higher
probability of conception or little expectation of resources other than “good
genes”.3,4 The relationship between masculine secondary sexual traits and
“good genes” is supported by studies of fluctuating asymmetry (FA). FA is
the measured deviation from perfect bilateral symmetry of those physical
traits for which signed differences between the left and right sides have a
mean of zero over the population.”5
1.The text is quoted from “Beauty, Bacteria, and the Faustian Bargain,” Victor S. Johnston, Professor Emeritus, NMSU.
2.Johnston, V. S. et al. (2001) Male facial attractiveness: Evidence for hormone mediated adaptive design. Evol Hum Behav. 22,
251- 267.
3. Penton-Voak, I. S., et al. (1999) Menstrual cycle alters face preference. Nature, 399, 741-742.
4. Scarbrough, P. and Johnston, V. S. (2005) Individual differences in women's facial preferences as a function of digit ratio and
mental rotation ability. Evol Hum Behav, 26 (6) 509-526.
5. Van Valen, L. (1962) A study of fluctuating asymmetry. Evolution, 16, 125-142.
The Attractiveness of Males and Signs of Increased Capacity for
Reproduction.1
“Across many species2 including humans3,4 males with low FAs enjoy better
health and more mating success than asymmetrical males. Such asymmetries
can be caused by pathogenic parasites or other insults encountered during
the course of development, so low FA is believed to be a valid index of a
competent immune system.5 Since there is a significant positive correlation
between low FA and facial masculinity in human males, facial testosterone
markers can serve as a visible proxy for good genes.6”
1. The text is quoted from “Beauty, Bacteria, and the Faustian Bargain,” Victor S. Johnston, Professor
Emeritus, NMSU.
2. Møller, A.P. and Thornhill, R. (1997) Bilateral symmetry and sexual selection: A meta-analysis. Am. Nat.
151, 174-192.
3. Thornhill, R. and Gangestad, S. W. (1994) Human fluctuating asymmetry and sexual behavior. Psychol Sci.
5, 297-302
4. Waynforth, D. (1998) Fluctuating asymmetry and human male life-history trait in rural Belize. P R Soc
Lond. B. 265, 1497-1501.
5. Gangestad, S. et al. (1994) Facial attractiveness, developmental stability and fluctuating asymmetry. Ethol
Sociobiol, 15, 73-85.
6. Gangestad, S.W. and Thornhill, R. (2003) Facial masculinity and fluctuating asymmetry. Evol Hum Behav,
24, 231-241.
The Greater Mysteries 210A-212C, p. 492-4.
1. The final initiation takes the forms of an elaborate metaphor of an
ascending staircase. (210A: “suing them like rising stairs” (p. 493, 211C)
“Diotima describes a series of ascending forms of love, using the metaphor
of a staircase (210Eff.). From an appreciation of physical beauty, one
ascends first to an appreciation of the beauty of practical endeavors and
social practices and then to an appreciation of the beauty of knowledge
and understanding in general. In the final step of the ascent, Diotima says,
“after turning toward the great sea of beauty, [the initiate] studies it and
gives birth to many splendidly beautiful conversations and thoughts in a
magnanimous philosophy, until, as he becomes more capable and
flourishes in this situation, he comes to see a knowledge of a singular sort
that is of this kind of beauty” 210D. Here, the initiate “come[s] finally to
that understanding which is none other than the understanding of that
beauty itself, so in the end he knows what beauty itself is (211C).”1
1. Cobb, William S., The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues,
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993,) pp. 77.
The Greater Mysteries 210A-212C, p. 492-4.
210E3- 211B6: Original
210E3-211B6: (almost) literal
translation
ὃς γὰρ ἂν μέχρι ἐνταῦθα πρὸς τὰ
ἐρωτικὰ παιδαγωγηθῇ, θεώμενος
ἐφεξῆς τε καὶ ὀρθῶς τὰ καλά, πρὸς
τέλος ἤδη ἰὼν τῶν ἐρωτικῶν
ἐξαίφνης κατόψεταί τι θαυμαστὸν τὴν φύσιν καλόν, τοῦτο
ἐκεῖνο, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὗ δὴ (5)
ἕνεκεν καὶ οἱ ἔμπροσθεν πάντες
πόνοι ἦσαν, πρῶτον μὲν
211.
(a.) ἀεὶ ὂν καὶ οὔτε γιγνόμενον οὔτε
ἀπολλύμενον, οὔτε αὐξανόμενον οὔτε φθίνον, ἔπειτα οὐ τῇ μὲν
καλόν, τῇ δ’ αἰσχρόν,
οὐδὲ τοτὲ μέν, τοτὲ δὲ οὔ,
When someone has been this far led in
the lore of love, passing correctly from
viewing beautiful/good things,
proceeding to the end toward the
objects of love, suddenly a wondrous
vision will be revealed, the
beautiful/good in its nature. This is that,
Socrates, for the sake of which were all
the previous toils. First it always is and
is neither generated nor destroyed,
neither becoming greater nor lesser, nor
yet beautiful/good in part, nor
ugly/base in part, nor yet at such a time
nor yet not at such a time,
The Greater Mysteries 210A-212C, p. 492-4
210E3- 211B6: Original
210E3-211B6: (almost) literal
translation
οὐδὲ πρὸς μὲν τὸ καλόν, πρὸς
δὲ τὸ αἰσχρόν, οὐδ’ ἔνθα μὲν καλόν,
ἔνθα δὲ αἰσχρόν, ὡς
τισὶ μὲν ὂν καλόν, τισὶ δὲ αἰσχρόν· οὐδ’
αὖ φαντασθήσεται (5)
αὐτῷ τὸ καλὸν οἷον πρόσωπόν τι οὐδὲ
χεῖρες οὐδὲ ἄλλο
οὐδὲν ὧν σῶμα μετέχει, οὐδέ τις λόγος
οὐδέ τις ἐπιστήμη,
οὐδέ που ὂν ἐν ἑτέρῳ τινι, οἷον ἐν ζώῳ
ἢ ἐν γῇ ἢ ἐν οὐρανῷ
(b.) ἢ ἔν τῳ ἄλλῳ, ἀλλ’ αὐτὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ
μεθ’ αὑτοῦ μονοειδὲς ἀεὶ
ὄν, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πάντα καλὰ ἐκείνου
μετέχοντα τρόπον τινὰ
τοιοῦτον, οἷον γιγνομένων τε τῶν
ἄλλων καὶ ἀπολλυμένων
μηδὲν ἐκεῖνο μήτε τι πλέον μήτε ἔλαττον
γίγνεσθαι μηδὲ πάσχειν μηδέν.
neither in relation to the
beautiful/good, nor in relation to the
ugly/base, neither only at its core the
beautiful/good, nor at its core the
ugly/base, and not for some people
beautiful/good nor for others
ugly/base; nor yet will it appear to him
beautiful/good such as in a face, nor
hands, nor anything else belonging to
the body, nor yet some word, nor some
knowledge, nor as being in some other
thing, such as in an animal, or on the
earth, or in the heavens, but itself,
according to itself, with itself, always
being of one kind, and the other
beautiful/good things partake of it in
such a manner, that although they come
to be and perish, never does it become
more nor less, nor yet is ever changed.
Heidegger on Identity1
“While we are circumscribing in this fashion what is identical. We are
reminded of an old word by which Plato makes the identical perceptible, a
word that points back to still an older word. In the dialogue The Sophist,
254D, Plato speaks of στάσις and κίνησις, rest and motion. Plato has the
stranger say at this point: οὐκοῦν αὐτῶν ἔκαστον τοῖν μέν δυοῖν ἑτερόν ἐστιν,
αὐτὸ δ᾽ἑαυτῷ ταὑτόν.
“Each one of them is different from the (other) two, but itself the same for
itself.” Plato doesn’t say say: ἔκαστον αὐτὸ ταὑτόν. “each itself the same,”
but says ἔκαστον ἑαυτῷ ταὑτόν “each the same for itself.”
The dative ἑαυτῷ means: each thing itself is returned to itself, each itself the
same for itself with itself.
....
A more fitting formulation of the principle of identity “A = A” would
accordingly mean not only that every A is itself the same: but rather that
every A is itself the same with itself. Sameness implies the relation of ‘with,’
that is, a mediation, a connection, a synthesis: the unification into a unity.”
1. Heidegger, Martin, Identity and Difference, Stambaugh trans., (New
York/Evaston/London: Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 24-5.
Plotinus on the Ladder of Ascent to Beautiful In
Itself1
“And what does this inner sight see? When it is just awakened
it is not at all able to look at the brilliance before it. So that the
soul must be trained, first of all to look at beautiful ways of life:
Plotinus then at beautiful works, not those which the arts produce, but
(205 -270 CE) from the works of men who have a name for goodness: then
look at the souls of the people who produce the beautiful works.
How then can you see the sort of beauty a good soul has? Go back into
yourself and look; and if you do not yet see yourself beautiful, then, just as
someone making a statue which has to be beautiful cuts away here and
polishes there and makes one part smooth and clears another till he has
given his statue a beautiful face, so you too must cut away excess and
straighten the crooked and clear the dark and make it bright, and never
stop “working on your statue” till the divine glory of virtue shines out on
you, till you see “self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.”
1. Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.9 “On Beauty,” trans. A.H. Armstrong, 259-61.
Plotinus on the Ladder of Ascent to Beautiful In
Itself1
[continued]
“If you have become like this, and see it, and are at home with
yourself in purity, with nothing hindering you from becoming in
this way one, with no inward mixture of anything else, but
wholly yourself, nothing but true light, not measured by
dimensions, or bounded by shape into littleness, or expanded to
size by boundedness, but everywhere unmeasured, because
greater than all measures and superior to all quantity; when you
see that you have become this, then you have become sight; you
can trust yourself then; you have already ascended and need no
one to show you; concentrate your gaze and see. This alone is the
eye that sees the great beauty.”
1. Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.9 “On Beauty,” trans. A.H. Armstrong,
259-61
Augustine of Hippo’s Appropriation of the
Ascent to the Beautiful in Itself1
Augustine of Hippo
(354 –430 CE)
in his study
by Sandro Botticelli
“The Light by which the soul is illuminated in order
that it may see and truly understand everything . . . .
is God Himself . . . When it tries to behold the Light,
it trembles in its weakness and finds itself unable to
do so. . . . When it is carried off and after being
withdrawn from the senses of the body is made
present to this vision in a more perfect manner, it also
sees above itself that Light, in whose illumination it is
enabled to see all the objects that it sees and
understands in itself.”
1. Augustine of Hippo, De Genesi ad litteram,
12.31.59, trans. John Hammond Taylor, in The Literal
Meaning of Genesis, vol. 2 (New York: Paulist Press,
1982).
Abu-al-Mawahib al-Shadhili
North-African Islamic scholar founder of the
Shadhili Sufi order
(1196-1258 CE)1
"The manifestation of beauty in objects varies with
the gift of the observer. Thus the common folk do
not see other than the appearance of physical
beauty while the chosen have unveiled before them
the picture of abstract beauty in which is
manifested the splendor of His name, the Exalted,
that is resplendent in all creation through various
phenomena."
1.al-Shadhili, Princeton oriental texts, Volume IV, Illumination in
IslamicMysticism, downloaded 10/5/2014, from
https://archive.org/stream/illuminationinis032146mbp/illuminationin
is032146mbp_djvu.txt
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: Second Series [1844]
The Poet
“But the highest minds of the world have never ceased to
explore the double meaning, or, shall I say, the quadruple, or
the centuple, or much more manifold meaning, of every
sensuous fact: Orpheus, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Plato,
Plutarch, Dante, Swedenborg, and the masters of sculpture,
picture, and poetry. For we are not pans and barrows, nor even
Ralph Waldo porters of the fire and torch-bearers, but children of the fire,
Emerson
made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted, and at two
1803-1882
or three removes, when we know least about it. And this hidden
truth, that the fountains whence all this river of Time, and its
creatures, floweth, are intrinsically ideal and beautiful, draws
us to the consideration of the nature and functions of the Poet,
or the man of Beauty, to the means and materials he uses, and
to the general aspect of the art in the present time.”
The Greater Mysteries 210A-212C, p. 492-4.
The ultimate vision is identified with a kind of knowledge:
“. . . but the lover is turned to the great sea of beauty, and,
gazing upon this, he gives birth to many glorious beautiful
ideas and theories, in unstinting love of wisdom, until, having
grown and been strengthened there, he catches sight of such
knowledge, and it is the knowledge of such beauty. . . ”1 210E,
p. 493
1. Nehamas and Woodruff in their translation of the Symposium in our
Complete Works edited by John M. Cooper, insert an ellipsis – a series of
dots -- after the last word in the quote as you find above. But, there is no
such ellipsis in the Greek text. Nehamas and Woodruff are taking a
questionable license with the text here.
Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880) painted this scene from Plato's Symposium in 1869.
It depicts the tragedian Agathon as he welcomes the drunken Alcibiades into his
house.
http://nibiryukov.narod.ru/nb_pinacoteca/nb_pinacoteca_painting/nb_pinacoteca_feuerbach_gastmahl_des
_plato_1869_karlsruhe.jpg
Entrance of Alcibiades 212Dff. The ‘Satyrization’ of Socrates.
1. Alcibiades compares Socrates often to a satyr. Especially to Marsyas, who
was a master flautist and flute music (aulos-music) was thought to inspire
passions.
2. Socrates says he is in love with Alcibiades. This is ironical. 213D
Alcibiades says accurately that Socrates does not care about good looks.
216E.
3. Alcibiades continues about his frustrated love for Socrates. He describes
in detail how he tried to seduce him. 217C They went to the gymnasium and
wrestled. Still no erotic response. 219B They slept together with Alcibiades
cloak around Socrates still no response.
4. Alcibiades, further satirizes, Socrates’ two mysteries regarding the
purposes and goal of love. He says, Socrates’ love amount to deception.
Socrates keeps on saying he loves Alcibiades but when Alcibiades tries to
seduce Socrates, Socrates will not reciprocate.
Entrance of Alcibiades 212Dff. The ‘Satyrization’ of Socrates.
5. Socrates is the essence of restraint and self-control. This is shown in battle
in Potidaea and Delium. Socrates was not moved by cold or hunger. And he
was always brave.
6. Alcibiades says that Socrates it utterly one of a kind. He’s not human. So
Alcibiades prefers to see him as a satyr. Satyrs, by the way, were neither
gods nor men, but like Socrates’ daimon Eros neither divine nor mortal.
7. “There is a parallel for everyone – everyone else that is. But this man here
is so bizarre, his ways and his ideas are so unusual, that, search as you might,
you’ll never find anyone else, alive or dead, who’s even remotely like him.
The best you can do is not to compare him to human, but liken him, as I do,
to Silenus and the satyrs, and the same goes for his ideas and his arguments.”
p. 503; 221D.
Coda: (p. 504-5, 222D-223D)
1. After Alcibiades speech: “A large drunken group, finding the gates open
because someone was just leaving, walked into the room and join the party.
The realization of total dionysianism arrives.
2. Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and presumably Pausanias, leave. Aristodemus
falls asleep and sleeps through the night. When Aristodemus awakes he finds
Agathon, Aristophanes and Socrates still in conversation. Socrates is talking
about how authors should be able to write both comedy and tragedy. As
Socrates goes on, Aristophanes falls asleep in the middle of discussion, and
Agathon drifts off.
3. Seeing that Aristophanes and Agathon are asleep: “Socrates got up and
left and Aristodemus followed him, as always.”
References for slides used in this powerpoint
Slide#6, framing of the Symposium: http://platosymposium.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/framingnarrative41.jpg
Slide 19, bust of Aristophanes,
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristophanes#mediaviewer/File:Aristofanes.jpg
Slide # 20, whole creatures in Aristophanes’s myth:
http://matthewkirshenblatt.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/full-beings-and-perfect-forms-aristophanesand-plato-in-miracleman/
Slide #21, half creatures in Aristophanes’s myth:
http://onegirlinlife.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/platos-symposium.gif
Slide #33, ‘scientifically most beautiful woman:’ http://editorial.designtaxi.com/newsmostbeautifulface3004/1.jpg
slide # 48, portrait of Augustine of Hippo,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo#mediaviewer/File:Saint_Augustine_Portrait.jpg
slide #49, picture of book “Illumination in Islamic Mysticism, Princeton University Press,
1938:http://www.thornbooks.com/shop/thorn/17801.html
slide # 50, photograph opf Emerson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson#mediaviewer/File:Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca18
57_retouched.jpg