i

The Rites of Love:

A Discussion of Platonic Eros

with particular reference to the Scala Amoris passage

of the Symposium

Anthony Hooper

Master of Philosophy

The University of Sydney

Department of Philosophy

February 2010

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Abstract

Plato’s theory of eros has been of perennial interest to philosophers, but of the many

monographs and articles on this subject few contain a rigorous analysis of eros itself.

Of those who offer an opinion on the nature of erotic desire, most simply assume that

eros is a rational desire, or a force that operates unproblematically in accordance with

the lover’s understanding of what is good. In the first part of this paper I suggest a

different reading. By drawing together various claims Plato makes throughout the

dialogues, I conclude that eros is an appetitive desire that responds immediately to

any and all beautiful objects that lovers come across by motivating them to pursue

whatever goods these objects reflect. I then go on to show that a desire such as this,

although essential for continually motivating lovers towards self-transcendence, is

highly problematic unless these lovers can both direct their eros towards certain ends

in accordance with their understanding of what is good, and work to develop their

knowledge to ensure that they are directing eros aright.

With this analysis in place, I then turn to give a reading of the Scala Amoris

passage, the philosophical and dramatic zenith of Plato’s Symposium. Here I address a

number of issues, the interpretation of which has been highly contentious in the

literature. In this discussion I a) establish the exact role eros and reason have in the

lover’s activities on each rung of the Ladder; b) show how, through the generation of

logoi, the lover is able to develop their understanding of what is good; c) determine

the relationship that the lover has to the objects of their desire as they move from one

rung to the next; and d) suggest a possible role for the Other in the lover’s ascent. I

then conclude this discussion by considering the lover’s life at the top of the Ladder,

and question whether the lover’s journey on the Ladder really ‘ends’ with them

finding a home in the presence of true beauty.

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Dedicated to William Arthur Westbrook Hoyle

o9 e0mo\v fi/lov o3v ei0v to\n ou0rano\n a0nabe/bhken

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I would like to acknowledge:

My parents, Adrian and Barbara, whose continual care and support ensured

that I had the confidence to begin such a project.

My supervisor, Associate Professor Eugenio Benitez, whose infectious

enthusiasm kept me focused on my task for my whole degree.

Latoya, whose support I will appreciate eternally, as without your continual

kind and calming words I never could have completed my thesis.

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Table of Contents

Abbreviations and Translations vi

Introduction 1

PART I: THE ROLE OF EROS IN ASCENT CHAPTER 1: Plato’s ‘Two-Worlds view’ and the Hazards of Becoming 10 The Two-Worlds view and Eros 10 The Rough Path to the Sunlight 14 A Two-Worlds Theory or a Two-Worlds View? 15 Becoming and Possession 20 CHAPTER 2: Eros as Desire and the Rule of Reason 25 A Preliminary Discussion of Desire with some Reference to Eros 25 Eros and the Beautiful 29 Eros and the Good 31 Eros and the Nature of Appetitive Desires 36 Some Problems Regarding Eros 43 Eros and the Rule of Reason 49 CHAPTER 3: The Stillness of Ignorance 62 Ignorance of What is Good 63 The Malignancy of Self-Ignorance 69 The ‘Divine’ Agathon 73 Aristophanes and the Absurdity of Ascent 77 Alcibiades and the Statue of Silenus 82 ‘I know that I know not’ – A Discussion of Socratic Ignorance 88 A Brief Coda to Part I of this Thesis 103

PART II: THE ASCENT TO DIVINITY CHAPTER 4: Catching a Glimpse of Divine Beauty 105 Some Issues Regarding Eros in the Ascent Passage 106 On the Ladder: Pursuing the Good 117 On the Ladder: Moving from One Rung to the Next 122 A Brief Discussion on the Role of the Other in a Lover’s Ascent 137 An Expanding Understanding of the Beautiful 150 Possessing the Divine Life 166 The End of the Ascent 168 Conclusion 175 Bibliography 184

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Abbreviations and Translations In what follows I will list the abbreviations that I have used for texts throughout this

thesis, as well as the translation used if quoted:

Plato:

Alc Alcibiades I D. S. Hutchinson (in Cooper, 1997) Alc II Alcibiades II Anthony Kenny (in Cooper, 1997)

Apo Apology G. M. A. Grube (in Cooper, 1997) Crat Cratylus C. D. C. Reeve (in Cooper, 1997)

Euth Euthydemus Rosamond Sprague (in Cooper, 1997) G Gorgias Donald Zeyl (in Cooper, 1997)

Ly Lysis David Bolotin (1989) M Meno Robert Bartlett (2004)

Phd Phaedo David Gallop (1999) Phdr Phaedrus Reginald Hackforth (2001)

Phlb Philebus Dorothea Frede (in Cooper, 1997) Prot Protagoras Robert Bartlett (2004)

Rep Republic G. M. A. Grube (in Cooper, 1997) Sph Sophist Nicholas White (in Cooper, 1997)

Smp Symposium Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (in Cooper, 1997)

Tht Theaetetus M. J. Levett (in Cooper, 1997) Tim Timaeus Donald Zeyl (in Cooper, 1997)

Laws Laws Trevor Saunders (in Cooper, 1997)

Aristotle: Meta Metaphysics W. D. Ross (in Barnes, 1995)

N.E. Nicomachean Ethics Terrence Irwin (1999)

Others: DK Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker: Hermann Diels and Walther Krans Griechisch und Deutsch (1934-7)

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Introduction

At the beginning of Plato’s Symposium, Apollodorus, the dialogue’s narrator, recounts

Socrates’ preparations for a drinking party, hosted by the prize-winning tragedian,

Agathon. After bathing, and attending to his appearance with uncharacteristic

eagerness, Socrates enlists Aristodemus, an uninvited guest, to accompany him to the

celebration. These events have a unique significance for me, as, like Aristodemus, I

too was an unwitting spectator of the events of Agathon’s feast, as this thesis began

neither as a discussion of the Symposium, nor of any element of Plato’s theory of eros,

but as a study of the role of love in Hegel’s early writings. After researching this topic

for some time, I, being ignorant of the history of the philosophy of love, thought it

prudent to read the major texts in this area, and there was no more natural place to

begin than with the Symposium – a dialogue with which I was then entirely

unfamiliar. Originally, I intended to dedicate no more than three weeks to researching

Plato’s account of eros, but for the next three months I found myself compulsively re-

reading the Symposium, unable to move on to my next intended port of call,

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Like so many philosophers before me, including

Hegel, I was entranced by this dialogue, and not simply for the complexity of the

doctrines found in the speeches, but also for the creativity with which they were

presented. As love is often fickle, my interest in Hegel quickly faded, and I became so

engrossed in the Symposium that I abandoned my previous topic, and committed to

writing a thesis in which I explore the Scala Amoris passage, the philosophical and

dramatic zenith of Socrates’ own encomium of eros (210a-212b).

Never having engaged with Plato, or any other ancient philosopher, in any but

the most superficial way, I turned to the commentaries of Plato’s doctrine of eros in

general, and Socrates’ speech in particular, in order to gain some initial purchase on

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the most significant ideas advanced in the Scala Amoris passage. Immediately striking

was the incredible variety of readings offered here. As one would expect,

interpretations of this passage vary greatly between ancient, Renaissance, and modern

writers, but most surprising were the differences between the readings of modern

philosophers, even within the past few decades. It is often hard to believe that

commentators such as Gregory Vlastos (1981), Stanley Rosen (1987), and C. D. C.

Reeve (2009) are all talking about the same passage, given that the conclusions they

draw vary so dramatically. But equally fascinating were the variety of styles with

which people approach this passage, and the different elements that these

commentaries bring to the fore. For example, where J. M. E. Moravcsik’s (1972)

simple and systematic approach to the Scala Amoris passage illuminates the

intricacies of the lover’s ascent, Martha Nussbaum’s (2007) more literary and

historically infused discussion captures the eroticism of Plato’s doctrine, and his

writing.

But conspicuously absent from the overwhelming majority of monographs and

articles that I read was a close analysis of the nature of erotic desire itself. Often it

seems that many commentators simply assume that eros acts one way or another, and

this, I believe, is the cause of the variety of different accounts of the lover’s ascent in

the Scala Amoris passage. One noticeable exception to this trend is Frisbee Sheffield

(2006), who looks to the myth of Eros’ lineage at the start of Socrates’ speech in order

to determine the nature of erotic desire to begin her reading of his encomium. But

although she offers a fascinating analysis, I believe that it suffers from being too

restricted in scope. Even with his many comments regarding eros in the Symposium,

Socrates’ description of this desire remains quite vague here, and particularly so in his

mythical portrait. In order to get a clear picture of erotic desire I think it necessary not

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just to look to Socrates’ claims in a single dialogue, but to draw together his many

descriptions of eros from all of Plato’s Middle Period dialogues. Only then can one

construct a rigorous account of erotic desire, and so establish an adequate framework

to read the Scala Amoris passage.

The Structure of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into two parts. In the first, ‘The Role of Eros in Ascent’, my

task is twofold: i) to give an account of the nature of erotic desire; and ii) to determine

the role that this desire plays in a lover’s quest for self-transcendence. Through

careful examination of the claims Socrates makes about eros, particularly in the

Symposium, the Phaedrus, and Book IX of the Republic, I argue that eros is an

appetitive desire that responds immediately to any and every beautiful object that

lovers encounter by motivating them to pursue whatever goods these objects reflect.

This account departs significantly from the idea presented in the overwhelming

majority of commentaries that eros is either a rational desire, or one that operates

unproblematically in accordance with a lover’s understanding of what is good.1 Far

from being an entirely beneficial force, here I show that eros is an essential, though

highly problematic tool in a lover’s ascent. Although eros alone has the strength to

raise lovers out of deficiency, and to ensure that they are able to hold onto their gains,

it portions out its force blindly, pulling lovers this way and that depending entirely on

the kind of environment in which they find themselves. With this account in place I

then go on to argue that the only way that lovers can safely utilise eros’ force, while

avoiding the problems that plague it, is by ensuring that their erotic desires are

1 The main accounts of the nature of erotic desire given in the literature will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4.

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properly directed by their rational souls towards those ends that they have identified

as essential to the good life. But here lovers are confronted with a new difficulty, as

they must ensure that they have an adequately developed understanding of what is

good so that reason is able to direct eros aright. At the end of the first part of this

thesis I show that, if a lover is ignorant of what is good, then they will only be able to

attain a deficient image of the good life, and that if a lover wishes to direct eros

towards the production of true virtue they must ensure that they are free from

ignorance.

In ‘The Ascent to Divinity’, the second part of this thesis, I use the theoretical

framework that has been established in Part I in order to give a reading of the Scala

Amoris passage. Here I do not attempt to offer a rigorous analysis of this passage, but

undertake the far more modest task of working through some of the more contentious

points of interpretation in the literature. My initial goal is to demonstrate that the

lover’s ascent involves two main activities: first, the direction of eros by reason

towards particular kinds of beautiful objects; and second, the development of the

lover’s understanding of what is good. With these points in place I then explore ideas

presented in the Scala Amoris passage that are more overarching in Plato’s dialogues,

including ethical issues, such as the role of the Other in philosophical development,

the epistemological matter of how one’s understanding of the world is transformed as

one’s knowledge of what is good develops to near-divine levels, and the ontological

question of whether the lover at the top of the Ladder transcends their mortal nature.

* * *

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Chapter Overview

I begin my discussion of erotic desire in Chapter 1 by exploring some important

concepts that will frame the rest of the first part of my thesis. First, I briefly examine

Plato’s ‘Two-Worlds view’, and focus particularly on the image of ‘ascent’, which is

a central motif in Plato’s two most extensive treatments of eros: the Symposium and

the Phaedrus. Ascent, I argue, is used as an image for education, and from this I

conclude that eros is significant for Plato as a tool in a lover’s attempts to possess the

good. I also say a few words about the metaphysical commitments that follow from

holding a Two-Worlds view by considering two opposing readings of this element of

Plato’s philosophy, first by Gregory Vlastos (1965, cf. 1967), and second by Eugenio

Benitez (2007). Here I agree with Benitez, who suggests that moving from the ‘world

of becoming’ to the ‘world of Being’ entails, not a shift of consideration from one

kind of object to another, but a shift of perspective towards the same set of objects.

This discussion will be of particular importance towards the end of my analysis of the

Scala Amoris passage when I discuss the lover’s vision of divine Beauty. In the

second half of this chapter I turn to consider the nature of mortal existence, and

introduce the idea that, as creatures of becoming, mortals can only possess something

in any meaningful sense through production and reproduction – an idea that will gain

increasing significance, and will be expanded on continually over the course of this

thesis. Throughout this chapter I also highlight the incredible difficulty of ascent, and

the amount of effort that is required for a lover to come to resemble the divine.

With these preliminary matters in place, in Chapter 2 I turn to give my account

of the nature of erotic desire, and also determine the role such a desire plays in a

lover’s attempts to possess the good. I begin by i) teasing out the distinctions between

the ‘object’ and ‘end’ of erotic desire, and ii) considering how eros relates to its object

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and end, in contrast with other kinds of desires. For this second task I look to Plato’s

comments regarding the tripartition of the soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus, and

consider various ways in which one could understand the division between the

rational and the appetitive parts of the soul. Drawing together the threads of this

analysis I conclude that eros is an appetitive desire that immediately pulls lovers

towards beautiful objects in order to possess the goods they reflect. I also show that

eros is the strongest of all desires, and that it alone has the force to ensure that a lover

is always focused on the production and reproduction of the good. I then go on to

demonstrate that eros is a potentially dangerous desire, which, because it is unable to

direct itself, has the ability to lead a lover both towards the truly good life, as well as

abject depravity. In the final section of this chapter I show that, in contrast to eros, the

actions of the rational soul are mediated by an understanding of what is good, and that

reason can direct eros in accordance with this understanding through the use of the

‘whip’ and the ‘blinders’, i.e., by suppressing erotic desires when they pull lovers

towards ends that fall outside their understanding of what is good, and by seeking out

those kinds of beautiful objects that reflect the virtues reason has identified as

essential to the good life. At the end of this discussion I conclude that eros can find a

place in a lover’s ascent only when guided by reason, and that it’s role here is purely a

motivational one; i.e., eros provides the force to pursue ends that are set by reason.

In Chapter 3 I consider the problems that specifically concern the rational soul

in its directive function, and my focus here is on two kinds of ignorance: first,

ignorance of what is good, and second, ignorance of mortal nature, or ‘self-

ignorance’. I begin by showing that lovers’ ignorance of what is good serves as a limit

to their ascent, but I also argue that this limit is not insurmountable provided that

lovers continually strive to develop their knowledge of what is good. In order to find

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the motivation to do so lovers must become aware of the deficiency of their

knowledge, and I suggest that the most expedient means by which they can do this is

through submitting their account of what is good to dialectical examination. In

dialectic lovers can efficiently illuminate the limits of their understanding, which

leads to aporia, from which point the lover will feel a desire to develop their

knowledge. The second half of this chapter is dedicated to the discussion of the far

more problematic form of ignorance: self-ignorance. Through examining the speeches

of three figures in the Symposium – Agathon, Aristophanes, and Alcibiades – I show

how this kind of ignorance ensures that aporia leads to a moment of ‘impasse’, which

prevents lovers from either feeling a desire to develop their knowledge of what is

good, or from acting on this desire. The result is that lovers will be unable to

overcome their ignorance of what is good, which ensures that the limits that this

ignorance poses on their ascent become permanent. In the final part of this chapter I

then examine Socratic Ignorance, and seek to determine the philosophical basis for

Socrates’ ability to claim ‘I know that I know not’. Here I argue that Socrates can

confidently deny knowledge because he appreciates that he is an intermediary being,

and understands the implications of this for his possession of knowledge. In the final

section of this chapter I suggest that self-knowledge is essential for guaranteeing that

aporia always leads to a desire for wisdom, and so ensures that lovers are always in a

position to overcome their ignorance of what is good. Only then can lovers be sure

that their reason is directing them towards the production of the good life, rather than

a deficient image of it.

Chapter 4 constitutes my reading of the Scala Amoris passage, and here I use

what was learnt in Part I about the nature of erotic desire, and the roles of both eros

and reason in a lover’s attempts to possess the good, in order to work my way through

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some of the most contentious points of interpretation in this passage. After comparing

and contrasting my own account of erotic desire to the opinions advanced in the

literature, I begin my reading by arguing that, at every rung of the Ladder, the lover

stands in both an erotic and a rational relationship with the objects of his concern.

Through close examination of the Greek text I show that it is reason that leads the

lover to seek out particular kinds of beauty in order to trigger an erotic desire to

produce the goods that these objects reflect. Next I turn to the problem of how the

lover moves from one rung of the Ladder to the next, and here I argue that he does so

through developing his understanding of what is good. My focus here is on the lover’s

generation of logoi on each rung of the Ladder, and I suggest that the lover produces

logoi about what is good in order to put his understanding up for dialectical probing,

in which he can illuminate the deficiencies of his knowledge, and so trigger a desire

to develop his account. I then go on to consider the reason why the lover generates

logoi so consistently throughout his ascent, and conclude that it can only be because

he has self-knowledge, and so appreciates that his knowledge of what is good always

shares in deficiency.

At this point I digress from my reading of the Scala Amoris passage briefly in

order to say a few words about the role of the Other in the lover’s ascent. In contrast

to Gregory Vlastos (1981), who posits the idea that the Other has only a passive role

in the lover’s movement up the Ladder, I suggest that the lover finds the best

companion in his ascent in another active lover. I advance the idea that it is two

lovers, working together, who can make most speedy progress up the Ladder, as they

both help the other to develop their understanding of what is good by constantly

encouraging each other to test their knowledge in dialectic. After this I return to my

reading and consider the relationship the lover has to the previous objects of his

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affection as he moves up the Ladder. This discussion takes place in two parts. In the

first I examine some passages that seem to support an ‘exclusive reading’ of the

lover’s ascent, but through careful examination of the original text I show that a more

likely reading is that the lover incorporates an ever-increasing number of objects into

his sphere of concern as he moves from one rung to the next. In the second part of this

discussion I consider the lover’s final step on the Scala Amoris, when he catches a

glimpse of divine Beauty itself. Here I argue that we should understand this step, not

as one in which the lover turns his attention a new kind of object, but as a step of

‘generalization’, in which he appreciates that all of the various kinds of beautiful

objects that have been the focus of his attention throughout his ascent are related, as

they all reflect different elements of a single principle: the good life. I then conclude

my reading by describing the lover’s life at the top of the Ladder, and question

whether his ascent ‘ends’ with him finding a permanent home in the presence of the

divine. Here I argue that, because he is an intermediary being, he will not long be able

to retain his vision of the divine, and that the lover’s journey on the Ladder is not one

of continual ascent, but one in which he oscillates up and down the Ladder, as he

gains and forgets knowledge in turn.

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PART I: THE ROLE OF EROS IN ASCENT

Chapter 1: Plato’s ‘Two-Worlds view’ and the Hazards of Becoming

The Two-Worlds view and Eros

It is important to note that what has come to be called Plato’s ‘Two-Worlds view’1 is

central to both the Symposium and the Phaedrus, his two most extensive discussions

of eros. Both of these texts detail the ‘ascent’ of philosophical lovers from a state of

deficient mortality to a life approximating divinity. In the Scala Amoris passage of the

Symposium Plato describes the journey from the time at which we can appreciate only

particular, deficient instances of beauty to the point where we can view a whole sea of

beautiful objects, and finally divine Beauty itself.2 Socrates’ palinode in the Phaedrus

casts this ascent mythologically, telling a story about the journey of the soul from

earth to the heavens, as its wings are nourished by truth and beauty. Such passages are

indicative of a Two-Worlds view because the language seems to suggest that there are

two physically separated realms, each representing certain levels of understanding.

Over the course of this chapter I wish to make some general claims about what Plato

is trying to communicate through the Two-Worlds view, as it is through this image

that he casts his discussion of eros. Let us turn first to the ‘Myth of the True Earth’ in

1 I am using the term ‘Two-Worlds view’ to encompass both readings of this element of Plato’s thought (which shall be discussed below): Gregory Vlastos’ ‘Two-Worlds Theory’ and Eugenio Benitez’ ‘Two-Worlds View’. Though Benitez did not capitalize the term, I am using ‘View’ here in a specific sense to relate to the concept of ‘perspective’, whereas the term ‘view’ is intended to be synonymous with ‘understanding’. 2 Indeed, it is the presence of Two-Worlds language that marks off Socrates’ speech from the other encomia in the Symposium, and which shows Socrates’ account as properly Platonic. Alcibiades’ speech does have elements of the Two-Worlds view, though his understanding of the relationship between the two worlds is corrupted by his ignorance (as we shall see in Chapter 3), and so his speech utilizes this view only confusedly.

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the Phaedo (108c-114e), and the ‘Cave Myth’ at Republic VII (514a-517c), as

nowhere are the distinctions between the two worlds more clearly described.

In the Phaedo (108c-114e), Socrates tells us that, though we all believe that

we live on the surface of the earth, with a clear and unsullied view of the heavens, we

actually live submerged in slime and mud, in one of the world’s many hollows.

Above us is the ‘true earth’, a world composed of gold and jewels, which is free from

the corrupting effects of the ocean. From here alone do people have a clear view of

the celestial sphere. A similar story is given in the Republic, but this time we are told

that our ignorance is comparable to being chained in a cave, watching the shadows of

puppets dancing in front of us. Were we to break our bonds and step out of the cave,

we would be able to see things illuminated in the light of the sun; not simply images,

as the puppets were, but the things themselves.

Obviously these stories are not intended to be taken literally,3 but these myths

are still useful because they capture, not just the distinction between ignorance and

wisdom, but a whole raft of dualisms that Plato raises in the dialogues:

epistemologically, between sense and intellect, ontologically, in the division of

sensuous objects and forms; veridically, between obscurity and truth;4 and even

theologically, through the opposition of mortality and divinity. For Plato, all of these

3 There was, however, a discussion between philosophers, who offer what Benitez calls a ‘physicalist’ interpretation of this passage (2007: 241f.), in the belief that it represents Plato’s actual understanding of the shape of the world. For this discussion see William Calder (1958), Thomas Rosenmeyer (1959) and J. S. Morrison (1959). 4 I have chosen to contrast the term ‘truth’ with ‘obscurity’ rather than ‘falsehood’ as the latter term seems to commit Plato to a propositional view of truth, as posited by Gail Fine (1999). I wish to avoid this conception because, as Eugenio Benitez (1996: 533-8) and Julia Annas (2000: 3) argue, it is doubtful that the Ancients held such a view of language or reality.

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distinctions are related, so it is useful to assign all of the former qualities to one

world,5 and all of the latter qualities to another.6

Moving between worlds is the central theme of all of these stories, and rightly

so because it is an image of education – one of the most important ideas in Plato’s

philosophy. However, just as the Good is said to illuminate all other things in the

Republic (6.508b-6.509a), so it is that the search for the good life is the rubric through

which we must understand these images. Put another way, education is essential to us

because it puts us in the best position to possess the good. But are the above dualisms

the only ones that the Two-Worlds view captures? If they are, then it would be

understandable to believe that education, for Plato, was a predominantly theoretical

exercise, and that our desire to possess the good can be satisfied through a life of

contemplation, in which learning is the primary means to our ends. However, Socrates

explicitly states in the Republic (7.518b-e) that education cannot be thought of as

cramming knowledge into our minds, ‘like putting sight into blind eyes’; instead, it is

better thought of as a process whereby we turn our vision towards the truth. The

myths in the Phaedo and the Republic foreground the epistemological, ontological

and veridical aspects of education, but we must be careful not to mistake these issues

as the only ones that are important in coming to possess the good life. The Two-

Worlds view is a rich idea that captures a whole raft of additional dualisms, and the

ascent from one world to the next is indicative of many developments, both

theoretical and practical. In the following two chapters I hope to show that we cannot 5 It is important to note that the ‘upper’ or ‘higher’ world (the world to which we ‘ascend’) will always be the better world in Plato’s imagery. It is significant that, in the Phaedo, Plato describes the world of reason as ‘golden’, as in the Cratylus (398a) he makes the claim that when describing something in this way we often mean to posit it as something fine and good. 6 The unity of these predicates is shown in the Gorgias, Protagoras, Phaedo and Republic V-VII. For a more complete list of dualisms, and their inter-relationship, see David Gallop (1999: ix).

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reach the next world until we have: 1) engaged our erotic desires towards the

possession of the good; 2) utilized reason to guide our erotic feelings; and 3)

developed our knowledge so we will know how to direct our eros aright.

Ascent is indicative of a variety of inter-related processes, some of which are

theoretical, others of which are practical. Though practical development in education

is not the focus of the myths in the Republic and in the Phaedo, they can easily be

incorporated into these passages. These stories ought to be considered as (somewhat)

idealized accounts of our ascent, and so they focus on showing the reader that we

ascend, and what shape our understanding takes on each level in our ascent. Because

of this neither story goes into great detail about how ascent takes place (for example,

how do we break our chains and clamber into the open air?). These questions are

ultimately answered by considering the practical activities we need to undertake to

ascend.

It is also important to note that Plato’s Two-Worlds view is not simply

expressed in extended myths; it is also captured in what Eugenio Benitez calls

‘topographical’ and ‘choristic’ language (2007: 231-2). References to ‘ascent’ and

‘descent’, or ‘above’ and ‘below’, as well as terms such as ‘the really real’ and ‘the

truly good’, also capture all of the above points in a single phrase – what I will call

‘Two-Worlds language’. In fact, Plato’s works (particularly from his Middle Period

onwards) are replete with such references to a Two-Worlds view.7 Throughout this

thesis I will be referring to passages that make use of this imagery, and I will read

them through the lens of our discussion here. Thus I will understand terms like

‘divinity’ to be connected to the concepts of truth, reason, immortality and wisdom,

7 For an expanded list of references indicative of a Two-World view throughout Plato’s corpus, see Benitez (2007: 241f).

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and ideas like ‘motion’ and ‘stillness’ will be read to relate to the movement between

two worlds.

The Rough Path to the Sunlight

One of the central themes of all of the Two-Worlds myths is the difficulty of the

movement between worlds. In the Myth of the True Earth, even when people are

aware of the better world that awaits them, Plato still expresses great doubt about

whether anyone could reach this point, at least while they are alive (Phd, 109e).8 This

pessimism is also present in the Symposium, where Diotima wonders whether even

Socrates could attain the highest mysteries of eros (210a). The story in the Republic is

somewhat more optimistic, because it follows the journeys of people who do make it

from one world to the next. But in the Cave Myth we are told that those who reached

the outside world need to be ‘dragged’ up the ‘rough and steep path’ into the sunlight

(7.515e), and that even after travelling all the way there they will be so dazzled by the

brightness of the light that they may not be able to make sense of what they see.

For sight-lovers the idea that there is an unchanging world would be

laughable, as their experience has always taught them that everything is in a state of

flux. For someone who has never attempted to understand the world through reason

true knowledge would appear as ridiculous as the suggestion that the world is entirely

made of gold. Habituation into relying on the senses (which is the primary mode of

understanding throughout our childhood, and beyond) leads people, not only to

8 We must be careful, however, not to place too much emphasis on the idea that this journey can only be undertaken by the dead. As Socrates says, this is merely a myth, and so describes only the way the world is like, not how it is. Radcliffe Edmonds, for example, argues that the journey into the afterlife is indicative of the philosopher’s search for unseen realities (2004: 160).

15

possess a deficient account of reality, but also to a position in which truth will seem

unacceptable. The body bombards our soul with its multitudinous desires, many of

which are at odds with the good life, and all of which draw our attention back to the

world of becoming. In the Phaedo, we are told that they nail the soul tighter to the

body, weighing it down and preventing its ascent (83d).9 Education, then, is not a

simple matter, and if this were not bad enough, there is an even further complication

to our movement between the two worlds, which is also raised in the Phaedo, the

Republic and the Phaedrus, and which is central to the account in the Symposium. I

will discuss this problem in the last section of this chapter.

A Two-Worlds Theory or a Two-Worlds View?

If, as I will later show, eros is an acquisitive tool (a tool that helps us to possess the

good), and Plato casts his discussion of eros in terms of a Two-Worlds view, it will be

important to explore what the implications of holding such a position are. Though

many commentators throughout the modern era have happily framed their discussions

of Plato’s philosophy with Two-Worlds language, very few have actually questioned

(in any great detail) what conclusions such a view commits us to. This is particularly

troubling because Plato never clearly states what he intends by advancing this thesis,

and this problem is exacerbated by the fact that the clearest picture that we get of the

9 In the dialogues, two accounts are given as to why children prioritise the senses over reason. In a more mythological passage Plato argues that the soul enters the body filled with knowledge, but that this is lost in the tumult of the soul being bound to its body (Tim, 43e). In the Laws (2.653a) we are given a different account, as here Plato suggests that pleasure and pain are the first ways children interact with the world, and because pleasure and pain direct the mind towards the world of the senses we are all trained from a young age to prioritise perception over reason.

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Two-Worlds view mainly comes through his myths, like the ones we saw above.10 I

now want to explore briefly two opposing interpretations of Plato’s Two-Worlds

view, first as given by Gregory Vlastos, and second by Eugenio Benitez.

I have been using the term ‘Two-Worlds view’ throughout this thesis, but no

single term has been systematically used to refer to this element of Plato’s

philosophy. Gail Fine (1978) was the first to use the term ‘Two-Worlds Theory’,

applying it to Vlastos’ reading of Plato, referring particularly to his arguments in the

articles ‘A Metaphysical Paradox’ (1965), and ‘Degrees of Reality in Plato’ (1967).

Vlastos’ reading of Plato is framed by the distinction between ‘reality’ and

‘existence’, which is well shown in Vlastos’ own example. When we claim that

‘unicorns are not real’ we are saying something very different from when we claim

that ‘these flowers are not real’ (1965: 10). Whereas in the first case we are asserting

that horses with horns simply do not exist (i.e., that there are no instance of unicorns

in the world), in the second we are indeed admitting the flowers’ existence, but we are

categorizing them as ‘fake’. That is, they do exist, but they are not ‘real’ flowers.11

Vlastos believes that Plato was very aware of this distinction, and that this grounds his

division between ‘forms’ and their instances. Both of them, of course, exist, but only

the former are real.

Reality, for Vlastos, is a question of cognitive reliability. Using Vlastos’ own

example of ‘beauty’, an object can only be considered really beautiful if it is: a)

beautiful in every respect; b) beautiful at all times; c) beautiful in relation to all

things; and d) beautiful from every perspective (1967: 10). Because any knowledge

10 For Plato, myths and stories, though sometimes useful in education, are not created to be able to stand up to rigorous argumentation, nor are they intended to provide a complete account of their subject matter. For a fuller account of the role of myth see Janet Smith (1986) and Kathryn Morgan (2000). 11 Vlastos is using a non-existential definition of the term ‘real’ here.

17

based on our experience of particular beauties would lead us to a fallible

understanding of beauty, we can have knowledge only of the form of Beauty, as it

alone satisfies all of the above conditions. Though we can have knowledge only of

forms, we can at least have true beliefs about particulars.12 In a famous passage, Plato

compares the sense-lover to a dreamer (Rep, 5.476c-d). While they think that they are

looking at a real tree, what they see is only an image of a tree. That is not to say that

the dream tree is entirely devoid of truth – it may well have green leaves, a trunk, and

be rooted in the ground – but any truth that it does have is derived from the fact that it

is an image of a real tree.13

As Benitez argues, on Vlastos’ reading, Plato should rightly be said to have a

Two-Worlds Theory,14 because he believes that Plato is committed to a systematic

logical separation between forms and their instances (2007: 233). On this view,

Plato’s recommendation that we flee from the world of sense equates to the cessation

of investigation into one kind of object, the objects of sense, because they are not

cognitively reliable. Instead, we must shift our attention solely to the examination of

12 Gail Fine rejects the Two-Worlds thesis because she believes that it necessarily leads to Vlastos’ conclusion that we can only have knowledge of forms, and beliefs only of particulars, which, she argues, is itself flatly contradicted by Plato (1999: 216). Fine is notable because she is one of the few philosophers who rejects the Two-Worlds view in every respect. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to rebut Fine, but Benitez responds to Fine’s claims regarding the Two-Worlds view at length (1996: 530-538). 13 Vlastos’ arguments regarding the nature of reality brings him closely in line to R. J. Collingwood’s reading of the Republic (1925). For Collingwood, also, there are degrees of reality (though he lists three: forms, particulars, and images), and these levels of reality represent three different degrees of cognitive reliability (though Collingwood uses the phrase ‘degrees of error’). 14 I believe that it is questionable whether it was correct for Fine to say that Vlastos is forwarding an argument that Plato had a Two-Worlds view (whether it be a Theory or otherwise) in any rigorous understanding of this term. What we could at most claim is that Vlastos offers a particular interpretation of a distinction that is captured in the Two-Worlds view. The Two-Worlds view itself is far broader, and encapsulates dualisms that are much more various than the ontological distinctions that Vlastos focuses on.

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the forms. On this view the movement from one world to the next, though not a

physical journey, is understood as a shift from the consideration of one world to

another. These worlds are separated through the completely opposing nature of the

objects that occupy each, and the means by which we have to access them (by the

senses, on the one hand, or by the intellect on the other). I now wish to turn to

Benitez’ article, ‘Philosophy, Myth and Plato’s Two-Worlds View’ (2007), to

examine an alternative reading of the Two-Worlds view.

Like Vlastos, Benitez places great weight on Plato’s idea that the sight-lover is

akin to a dreamer, who mistakes mere images for reality, but his reading of the Two-

Worlds view differs from Vlastos’ interpretation based on his understanding of the

relationship between the senses and sense-objects. For Vlastos, it seems that our

senses are reasonably effective at illuminating the nature of at least some things, i.e.,

sense-objects, though there are some obvious exceptions. The colour blind, for

example, will mistake the nature of certain things, as will we all if an object is

travelling close to the speed of light. But even when our senses are operating properly

they are still inefficient tools for accessing the truth, because their objects are not

‘really real’.15 Benitez rejects this reading because he reads Plato’s claims that only

our minds can access reality to mean that the senses always provide a distorted view

of the world: “all perception, strictly speaking, is mistaken; alternatively, we could

say that there is no longer any way of mis-taking perception, because there is no right-

taking” (2007: 228). By making this claim Benitez shifts the focus of the discussion

away from the need to distinguish between two kinds of objects, and recasts the

debate in terms of differences in perspectives on a single world.

15 Though Vlastos never explicitly argued in this way, it is implicit in his view, and it is not precluded by his other assertions.

19

For Plato, it would seem that all people initially have the basic assumption that

they are able to access reality through their senses, and only gradually become aware

that they can also understand the world through reason. But the world of the intellect

will appear dramatically different to the world as an object of the senses. On this

reading we can rightly say that Plato has a ‘Two-Worlds View’ because the two ways

through which we view the world will yield accounts of reality that will be as opposed

in nature as a world of slime is from a world of gold.16 Plato uses this distinction to

show us that our conventional way of understanding reality will yield only deficient

images of the truth, and through myths such as those above, we are shown that we can

only access reality via our intellect (2007: 232-3).17 As such, the movement between

the two worlds ought to represent, not a shift of consideration from one kind of object

to another (as it does for Vlastos), but as a shift in perspective towards a single

world.18

In at least one reading of the Two-Worlds view, we need not think that Plato is

committed to a strict logical divide between sense-objects and forms.19 Though it is

16 Benitez reads the Two-Worlds view as capturing far more than an ontological distinction, as Vlastos does. On Benitez’ reading, ‘raising the world to being an object of mind’ is indicative of far more than a theoretical exercise, and can easily incorporate the idea that ascent from one world to another involves development of our practices also. 17 This argument rests on the distinction Plato makes in the Sophist (235d-236c) between what Benitez refers to as ‘fantastic’ and ‘eikastic’ image-making. Whereas the former necessarily leads us away from the truth, the latter has the potential to lead us closer to it, provided that the image put forward better reflects reality than the one that its audience previously held. 18 There are interesting parallels between Vlastos’ and Benitez’ interpretations of Plato’s theory of forms and the discussion between P. F. Strawson (1966) and Henry Allison (2004) on how to understand Kant’s distinction between representations and things-in-themselves. Like Vlastos, Strawson argues that there is an opposition between two kinds of objects, and like Benitez, Allison argues that the distinction ought to be understood as a way of capturing two different perspectives on the same objects. 19 I will use the term ‘forms’ only sparingly in this thesis, as it is a confusing term that is rarely used systematically even within single monographs on Plato. Here the term

20

beyond the scope of this thesis to argue rigorously for one view or the other, in

showing the necessity of practical development in our ascent I believe that it is

inevitable to operate on a view closer to Benitez’.

Becoming and Possession

The assumption that has been made, and which initially may seem trivial, is the idea

that souls are mutable. The significance of this point is that development is only

possible if we are able to transcend our present condition. For the rest of this chapter I

wish to discuss the relationship Plato sees between the related concepts of becoming

and possession to frame the discussion in the next two chapters.

Plato was heavily influenced by the philosophy of Heraclitus (see Aristotle,

Meta, 12.1078b), and, because of this, flux and change play a large part in his

philosophy. Most obviously, the visible world is described as transient, and

everything in it constantly shifts from one form to another. The human body does not

escape this process, as it grows from two cells into an adult form, only to decay into

dust. But unlike Heraclitus, Plato often seems to argue that becoming is not the mode

of being of all things, as it does not extend to the ‘really real’.20 The objects of

reason,21 we are told in the Timaeus (and elsewhere), are invisible and changeless – a

‘form’ will be used to describe the unchanging, eternal ‘objects’ of reason. Whether these ‘objects’ are abstract objects or simply hypothetical goals of discourse is not the focus of this thesis, and I hope that either definition can be used interchangeably throughout this work. 20 It is important to note, however, that in his later writings, particularly in the Sophist, Plato seems to believe that forms come into being, and so may undergo some change. 21 I use the term ‘object’ here, and throughout this thesis, in light of the discussion in the last section.

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state Plato refers to as ‘Being’ (Tim, 35a).22 But the question is whether souls are

objects of becoming or Being. In the Phaedo we are told that our bodies exist in the

visible world, and so are objects of flux, but the soul is invisible, and therefore has a

home in the unchanging, divine realm (80c-81a). But it is important to note that here

we are told (in rich Two-Worlds language) that the soul “goes to another place of that

kind, noble, pure, and invisible” (Phd, 80d), and not that it simply exists in such a

state already.

It is along these lines that Plato draws a distinction between gods and

mortals.23 We are told that gods are unchanging in their eternal possession of justice,

goodness, beauty, etc. It is clear that the gods exist in a state of Being, insofar as it is

in their nature to be divine,24 that they never had to strive to attain this state, and that

they will never cease to be in this state. The gods, as Plato tells us in the Laws, are

beyond corruption (10.900e). Possession is a simple – or rather, a moot – issue for the

gods. They eternally possess all they have, and qua the supreme quality of their

possessions, they have all they need. The gods are immortal and self-sufficient.

Humans, by contrast, are deficient creatures. In comparison to the gods we are

ignorant and unruly, and devoid of all those things which make the gods great:

immortality, beauty and goodness. But this does not mean that we ought to abandon

22 The difference between becoming and Being is another important dualism captured by the Two-Worlds view, and so Being is related to all of the terms that predicated the ‘upper world’, as we saw above. 23 Heroes and children of the gods (Apo, 27d) however, seem to occupy a ‘grey area’ between these two extremes, but the opposition does hold for the most part. 24 In his article “Socrates contra Socrates in Plato” (1991), Vlastos makes the claim that being in contact with the ‘forms’ is what grants the gods their divinity. Though the real significance of this point will be addressed in Chapter 4, it is a useful example to see the inter-connectivity of certain predicates. The gods are divine qua being in contact with the eternal, and they are able to view the eternal because they are perfectly rational (see Phdr, 246a-b, cf. Laws, 10.898a).

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ourselves to this fate. So what, we must ask, is the nature of human existence? The

Symposium describes it as quite different from that of the gods:

Even while each living thing is said to be alive and to be the same – as a

person is said to be the same from childhood till he turns into an old man –

even then he never consists of the same things, though he is called the same,

but he is always being renewed and in other respects passing away, in his hair

and flesh and bones and blood and his entire body. And it’s not just in his

body, but in his soul, too, for none of his manners, customs, opinions, desires,

pleasures, pains, or fears ever remains the same, but some are coming to be in

him while others are passing away (Smp, 207d-e).

The allusions to Heraclitus here are obvious,25 particularly to his famous claim that:

“As they step into the same rivers, other and still other waters flow upon them”

(Kahn, 2001: Frag. LI, cf. DK B12).26 Of course, there is only one river, but its

composition is constantly changing as water flows away and is replaced by yet more.

Mortals, unlike gods, exist in a state of becoming, and everything about us is

changing, both in body and, most importantly, in our souls. But existing in a state of

becoming is both our tragedy and our hope. As the best life is one of eternal and

unchanging Being, it is to the advantage of the deficient that they are creatures of

becoming, because only such beings have the potential to turn into that which they are

not. Education is Plato’s remedy for the ills of mortality, as it is the process by which

we come to possess what we do not have: a good, beautiful, and rational life. The

tragedy is that everything that we come to possess will ultimately pass away. Any

development, therefore, that we make towards the world of gold will ultimately be

25 See R. E. Allen (1991: 75). 26 Plato clearly was aware of this passage, given that he quotes it in the Cratylus (401d).

23

lost. The task of generating an even-better life for ourselves is difficult enough, as we

saw above, but here we learn that we even have to strive to maintain our present

deficient state. In this way, mortals share a similar nature to Eros himself: “He is by

nature neither immortal nor mortal. But now he springs to life when he gets his way;

now he dies – all in the very same day. Because he is his father’s son, however, he

keeps coming back to life, but then anything he finds his way to always slips away,

and for this reason Love is never completely without resource, nor is he ever rich”

(Smp, 203e).

Given these ideas, we must ask how Plato understands the mortal mode of

possession in opposition to that of the gods. It is important to note that he is not

discussing ‘possession’ in the context of bartering or trading; instead, Plato’s analysis

of possession is heavily metaphysical. It asks how creatures who come to lose

everything that they gain can be said to truly possess anything. This question applies

to those things, like coats and cars, that we come to possess through trade, but also

other things, such as wisdom and the good. Though I will return to this issue in

greater detail in Chapters 2 and 3, it is important to note that, regardless of what we

wish to possess, we can only truly be said to possess something insofar as we

reproduce it for ourselves. If we wish to maintain our identity, or incorporate those

things into our being which we count as important, we must constantly replace them

with similar items when the originals pass away.

In these passages we are clearly shown that movement between the two

worlds is a dynamic process through which we constantly ascend and descend. The

Scala Amoris passage follows the education of the lover into the nature of the divine,

though we can see, in light of the quotes we have discussed above, that our journey

will be composed of a series of upward and downward advances. In the Phaedrus,

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also, it would seem that the best that we can ever hope for is the control of the

appetitive element of our soul, and never its destruction, so that even when we

reattain our place in the heavens there is always the possibility that we will repeat the

fall to earth detailed in the beginning of the passage. Similarly, at the conclusion of

the Cave Myth, Socrates raises the suggestion that it is inevitable that we return to the

cave, only to be ridiculed (or possibly murdered!) by those who still dwell there. And

though it is not explicitly mentioned in the myth in the Phaedo, other passages in this

dialogue also indicate that the journey of the soul is not unidirectional.27 In the

Phaedo we are told that the cycle of reincarnation is never-ending (71d-e), so that

even when we have freed our soul from the influences of our bodies, incarnation, and

the retying of the soul to the body, is always inevitable.

In the previous discussion I have brought to the fore many important issues

that, though seemingly trivial, will be central to our analysis of eros. In the following

chapters I hope to expand on each of these issues and show how all of them need to

be taken into consideration if one is to properly understand Plato’s theory of eros.

27 These four texts can be split into two groups based on how they posit the dynamism of human development, though for each group one of the two dialogues is more extreme than the other. For example, the Phaedo suggests that descent occurs suddenly and totally upon reincarnation, which takes place only after we have reached that point at which our soul is freed from our body. Similarly, though the Republic does not say that our descent is total, it does seem to indicate that we only return to the cave once we have both viewed the good and understood things in its light, connecting it closely to the Phaedo. The Symposium belongs to the other group, as it suggests that small ascents and descents are possible (and inevitable) on the journey from one terminus (the world of poverty) to the other (the world of plenty). Smaller and subtler movements between the two worlds are always possible. Though the account in the Phaedrus is, prima facie, closer to the Republic, it does share some subtle similarities with the Symposium that locate it closer to the latter text than the former. Though I did not mention it within the body of the text, certain passages in the Phaedrus also point towards the possibility of subtle descents, even within the greater context of our ascent to the Good. The passage from 253c-254c seems to indicate that, at times, it is entirely possible for good lovers (who, it must be noted, are between two worlds) to give in to their desires at some points, and then regain their self-control.

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Chapter 2: Eros as Desire and the Rule of Reason

Now that we have clarified the context in which Plato discusses eros our task will be

two-fold. To begin, we must consider the nature of eros itself, and from there

determine the exact role it plays in a lover’s ascent to the divine. Here I will raise a

few points about desire in general, and then consider eros in relation to both the

beautiful and the good respectively. By doing so I hope to clarify some confusion in

the literature about the object and goal of eros, and conclude that eros is an essential

moment in a lover’s ascent to the divine because it is nothing more than a furious

desire which aims for the possession of the good. From here I will turn to consider

eros as an appetitive desire for the good, and then raise three problems that eros can

cause for a lover in their ascent. In the final section of this chapter I will argue that

only through the rational control of eros can these problems be overcome, and so

conclude that it is rational lovers alone who will be able to possess the good in any

meaningful sense.

A Preliminary Discussion of Desire with some Reference to Eros

Although the bulk of the discussion regarding eros as a desire will occur later, some

preliminary points will need to be said about the nature of desire in general before we

can begin our discussion. Two basic, but important claims about desire are repeated

throughout the dialogues, and are given their clearest formulation in the Philebus

(from which I will take my mark): first, desire is always ‘of something’ (35b), which

is to say that, if we have a desire, then this feeling will be for a determinate thing,

whether it be a particular object or a certain state; and second, if we do desire, then it

is for an opposing state to the one that we are presently in, i.e., we desire what we

26

lack. But Plato is not advancing the idea that, for example, wise people would desire

to be their opposite, i.e., ignorant. Socrates states that “whoever among us is emptied,

it seems, desires the opposite of what he suffers” (35a), indicating that we only feel

the pull of desire if our present state is one of deficiency or suffering.

Plato spells out these seemingly trivial points to clarify the nature of the

human condition.1 Mortals are deficient creatures, and the fact that we have desires is

an immediate demonstration of this. Desire is indicative of our need for self-

overcoming, by which I mean that all desires push us towards becoming what we

presently are not. Of course, what we desire can be relatively value-neutral, as even

something as simple as the desire for drink is expressive of the need for self-

overcoming. Thirst is a desire common to all in which we feel the urge to overcome

our present (deficient) state by quenching our thirst; where once we were empty, now

we are full. The same is true for all desires, even when they are of the things that we

already ‘possess’ (Smp, 200b-d). As we learnt above, everything that we come to gain

is passing away, so in desiring those things that we already have we really desire to

transcend the way in which we possess them. Mortal possession is deficient, so we

desire that these things will remain with us forever.

To fully appreciate this point it is important to note that there is nothing that

constitutes who we are that is free from change, as both our bodies and our souls are

in a constant state of flux. For Plato, people do not have a unified, unchanging

essence upon which they patch certain accidental qualities, so as we neglect certain

features and strive to attain others we are changing our own composition in quite a

1 Both of these claims are also advanced in the Republic, the former at 4.439a, and the latter at 9.585a-e. They are also raised in the elenchus between Socrates and Agathon that immediately precedes the former’s encomium (Smp, 199c-200d), though here specifically in relation to eros.

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strong sense; we are not just altering things that are merely incidental to who we are.

Given this, it would be nonsensical to assert that ‘I want to be the same person I am

now, though with the ability to read Attic Greek’, as when we change ourselves, even

in a trivial way, we have altered who we are. If these changes are significant enough,

or occur consistently, often with the gift of hindsight we come to just this conclusion.

It would not be unusual to claim that ‘I was a different person twenty years ago’, as,

despite the fact that your current self has a unique relationship with your past self,

your appearance, behaviours, mannerisms, and even desires may be dramatically

different. For Plato, that which we desire is as important for determining who we are

as what we already possess, as, being creatures of becoming, we will very soon be the

people that we strive to be, leaving our current selves behind.2

The gods do not feel desires because they are wholly self-sufficient: they

possess everything they need, and they possess these things eternally. Because

mortals are in poverty, however, we must overcome ourselves to become the people

we want to be. In making these claims Socrates is reminding us that desire a) is a

feeling of our own deficiency, and b) is indicative of the need for self-overcoming.

Before we move on to our discussion of eros in regards to the beautiful and the

good, let us first consider Plato’s discussion of desire in the Cratylus (419e-420b),

where he attempts to capture an important distinction between different kinds of

desires. For Plato, there are two different types of desires: those that occur because

something is absent, and those that are felt only when an object is present.3 Plato

2 This point serves as the basis for Plato’s division of different kinds of people in both Republic VIII-IX and the Phaedrus (248d-e). 3 I have carefully avoided using the phrase ‘having an external object present’ as I do not believe that it is always necessarily the physical proximity of an object that is required to stir these feelings. For example, thinking of a beautiful body, and

28

describes the former as a ‘flowing from inside to outside’, the most obvious examples

of which are thirst and hunger, as we feel them because the necessary fuel to run our

bodies is absent. We feel such deficiencies naturally, and we seek out objects in the

world to regain fullness. By contrast, those desires that fall into the second group

require external stimuli before they are felt. The most obvious examples are the

competitive desires, typified in jealousy. We are caught under the sway of these

feelings when we are in the presence of an object that makes us aware of our

deficiency by comparison. For example, most of us do not live our lives with a

constant feeling of emptiness for not owning a Jaguar 1967 Series 1 E-Class, but we

often come to have this feeling in the presence of such a car, or a person who owns

that car.

Eros, for Plato, is the quintessential example of this latter kind of desire, as it

too is felt only in the presence of certain stimuli – the beautiful (as we shall see

below). But eros is immediately differentiated from other desires (regardless of their

type) through its intensity. Eros is frequently described as a ‘furious’ desire, or even a

‘madness’, regardless of whether it is cast in a negative light (Rep IX, Phdr, 238c,

Tim, 91b) or a positive one (Smp, 212b, Phdr, 244a). Indeed, eros is obviously

considered to be the strongest of all of our desires, as Plato believes: a) that it can

impel us towards the greatest extremes of the human condition, having the potential to

either make us truly virtuous or completely depraved; and b) it turns our attention

away from all other considerations. But I shall expand on these points more below.

* * *

therefore bringing an object into our presence – or ‘to mind’ – is often sufficient to stimulate sexual desire.

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Eros and the Beautiful

Beauty plays an important part in Plato’s understanding of eros, but there is no

consensus in the literature about its exact role. Though the idea has found less support

in more recent discussions, there are some influential commentators who have argued

that the possession of the beautiful is the goal of eros.4 At this point it is important to

distinguish between the ‘object’ of a desire and its ‘goal’ or ‘end’, and I will take the

example of thirst from the Philebus (34c) to demonstrate this. When we are thirsty we

could be attracted to water, wine, or soft drink, all of which fall under the category

‘drink’. But regardless of which we happen to choose from our goal is the same:

quenching our thirst. There is, then, a large distinction between the object and the goal

of a desire. Our desire is directed towards certain objects, but only for the sake of the

goal we pursue. I agree with those commentators who argue that the object and the

goal of eros are quite separate,5 as Plato explicitly states in the Symposium that,

whereas the object of erotic concern is the beautiful, the goal of eros is the possession

of the good (206e). There are some philosophers who have attempted to argue that

‘beauty’ and ‘good’ are interchangeable terms,6 as there are several times throughout

Plato’s works that he has said that good things are beautiful (Ly, 216d, Tim, 87c-d),

and even that the Good itself is the most supremely beautiful thing (Rep, 6.508e). But

I will hold back from the stronger claim that Plato uses ‘beauty’ and ‘good’

synonymously, though it is important to note that they are closely linked (and in an

important way for philosophers), as both of them are said to be ‘divine’, and are

4 For works in which it is argued that beauty is the goal of erotic striving see R. G. Bury (1909: xliv), G. M. A. Grube (1935: 105), and R. E. Allen (1991: 45). Of these three commentators Allen is unique in that he believes that ‘beauty’ and ‘good’ are synonymous terms, so he argues that both beauty and good are the goals of erotic striving. 5 See especially F. C. White (1989) and Frisbee Sheffield (2006). 6 See especially R. E. Allen (1991: 45) and A. W. Price (1991: 16).

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essential attributes of the gods (Smp, 202d). The important difference for us here is

that Plato says that beauty is the visible form of divinity: “Now beauty, as we said,

shone bright amongst these visions,7 and in the world below we apprehend it through

the clearest of our senses, clear and resplendent” (Phdr, 250d). It is possible, then,

that even sight-lovers, with a dreadfully under-developed sense of reason will have

some access to the divine, though theirs will probably be a very confused image. The

level at which we engage our understanding, as we shall see later in the thesis, will

affect the clarity of our vision of beauty. The wiser we become, the more clearly we

will see beauty shining through all things. Most people, initially, find beauty only in a

particular body because of the obscuring effects of their senses and appetites, so

sexual desire, the most basic form of eros, is common to almost all.

For Plato, beautiful objects are a conduit through which we are able to access

reality (Phdr, 254b), though only the wise will be aware of this. Others, though they

too are gazing at the truth, will believe that the beautiful object itself is divine, rather

than understanding that the beautiful thing is merely an image of the divine. As the

object of eros, the role of beauty is threefold: first, it provides us with a feeling of

kenosis (emptiness). Through beautiful things we are able to glimpse the divine, and

through this vision we can compare ourselves with the gods, and our own lives with

the good life. In this comparison we can see just how deficient we are, and how much

we need to do to become good. The beautiful object wakes us from our dogmatic

slumber, in which we considered ourselves to be both beautiful and good (Smp, 204a),

and provides us with the immediate feeling of our own deficiency, and the necessity

of striving for a better life. Using the language of the Symposium, beauty makes us

aware of our own ‘pregnancy’, that is, both the potential and the necessity of 7 These visions are of the realities that, according to the myth in the palinode, were witnessed by the soul before its incarnation (Phdr, 247c-e).

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transcending our present state, and the possibility of producing the good for ourselves.

However, kenosis can be an unhelpful and (often) dangerous feeling if we do not have

a goal to strive towards. A feeling of emptiness coupled with one of hopelessness may

well result in depression, and serve to stifle, rather than kick-start, our ascent. As

Plato says in the Philebus, the soul needs to have some view of what it is striving

towards, and in the absence of the thing itself, it at least needs an image of its goal

(35b-d). The second role of beauty, as we have seen, is to give us an image of the

divine as something to strive towards.8 In the presence of a bust of Themis, for

example, we may very well be struck by the general injustice of the actions we

perform. We feel this deficiency because the statue: a) reminds us of this good; b)

serves as an image of what it would be like to possess this good; and c) shows us that

we ought to strive towards possession of it. Through these three features the beautiful

provides us with an environment in which we are able to ‘give birth’ to the good.

With these points in place, let us now turn to the discussion of the relationship

between eros and the good to see how we can produce the good for ourselves.

Eros and the Good

Like Eros himself, people occupy an intermediary position between mortality

(poverty) and divinity (plenty), and because of this we do not possess the nature of

one exclusively, but both simultaneously (Allen, 1991: 49). As such, there are some

things that make up who we are and what we do that are good, but there are also

elements that are deficiently good, and yet others that are so bad that, through their 8 In the Phaedo Plato argues that we often need an image of divinity to stimulate our striving, though it is important to note that this image may be deficient (74a), and may only give us a vague trajectory for self-transcendence. The more we develop our faculty of reason the more clearly we can perceive divinity shining through objects, and so we will more precisely understand the path to divinity.

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presence, they may lead the finer parts into corruption. In the audience of beauty we

are made aware of the true nature of our deficiencies, as we feel the need to overcome

them. Using the imagery of the Phaedrus, though we are all stuck on earth, beauty

nourishes our wings, and gives us both the desire and the ability to raise ourselves

closer to the divine. Eros simply is the desire to incorporate the good that beautiful

objects reflect into ourselves (Smp, 204e, 206a). Let us consider the following

example. At a recitation of the Iliad, a person is struck by Nestor’s calming words to

Agamemnon, and, caught by the beauty of this image, may ask herself: ‘why cannot I

be as wise as he?’ In this moment the person feels her own ignorance, and the need to

possess wisdom. But how do we come to possess the good, particularly if we

conceive the good as something as abstract as wisdom, or honour?

First, there are those who attempt to utilize the beautiful merely as a means to

pleasure, rather than to the production of the good.9 Plato lists such people as those

who seek the good through money, sports, and philosophy (Smp, 205d). Although

these people feel the pull of eros, they ought not be called ‘lovers’, for Plato, because

they are non-productive; i.e., they do not attempt to incorporate this good into

themselves. The reason why they respond to the beautiful in this way is because they

mistake the object of their concern, the beautiful, with that which lies beyond the

object. Taking the example of philosophy – which may initially seem confusing given

that in the Republic and the Phaedo particularly, Plato argues that only through

philosophy can we come to possess the good – we can see why their response to the

beauty of philosophy is confused.10 Rather than seeing divinity (wisdom), which

9 It would be odd to say that we ‘produce’ pleasure in ourselves; it would be more accurate to say that, at some points, we ‘feel’ pleasure. 10 It is most likely here that Plato is referring to those who pursue philosophy as conventionally understood by the broader Athenian public at the time. On such an account philosophers are those who have raised themselves beyond mortal concerns,

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philosophy leads us towards, as the end of their striving, these people believe that

philosophy itself is divine. As such, they prefer to listen to philosophers, or quote

philosophical sayings, rather than trying to incorporate the wisdom to which

philosophy leads them to into themselves. The most obvious example, of all of the

characters in Plato’s dialogues, of an ‘erotic non-lover’ is Phaedrus. Phaedrus enjoys

rhetoric, and he will go to great lengths to be in the presence of fine orators, or to read

the speeches of others. For him, there is nothing more beautiful than a well-

constructed phrase, however Phaedrus is stubbornly resistant to making speeches

himself, as is shown throughout the Phaedrus, where he states that he would prefer to

listen to the speeches of others, and when he does present an encomium at Agathon’s

symposium the result is brief, uninteresting, and superficial. Phaedrus values rhetoric

itself as the good, rather than the goods of which rhetoric is indicative: the theoretical

good of having wisdom, and the practical good of educating others.

Second, we cannot become good merely by draping ourselves in beauty, or by

being in close proximity to the beautiful, as this will only make us seem good. Like

the politician who dresses up in military regalia to give the appearance of being

honourable, it will be merely that: an appearance. Nor is the process as basic as

quenching our thirst, where we simply take drink into ourselves, and have our bodies

extract nutrition from it. Plato argues that we come to possess the good through

“giving birth in beauty” (Smp, 206d), an idea that is central to Platonic eros, but

which is never explained in any great depth. The best people are those who respond to

the beautiful by attempting to model themselves after the god that the object and have given their lives over completely to the contemplation of abstract objects. In the Theaetetus (174a-175b) Plato describes how philosophers are seen on this understanding, using Thales as his example. The cause of this misunderstanding, as we shall see below, is that people have misunderstood that people engage in philosophy as a means to a greater good, not because it is good in-itself. See the distinction between kinds of good at Republic II (2.357b-358a).

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represents. In a mythological passage at the heart of the palinode in the Phaedrus

(253a), Plato associates particular goods with different gods. Wisdom is associated

with Zeus, and those who love wisdom were said to have followed in Zeus’ train in

their journey through the heavens. Ares is associated with lovers of honour in a

similar way, and Hera is associated, most likely, with those who find the good in laws

and governance.

To clarify (and de-mythologise) what Plato is getting at here I wish to consider

two examples. Let us begin with the politician. She obviously believes that honour is

valuable, or else she would not be so eager to appear honourable. But she is not

honourable herself for the obvious reason that one must perform (or ‘give birth to’)

honourable deeds to be truly honourable.11 Second, let us consider the example of

someone who values bodily goods, to show how ‘giving birth’ can be more concrete.

When inspired by a beautiful painting of Adonis, for example, we may come to

appreciate that having a healthy body is good, but to possess this good truly we

cannot simply wear a body suit; instead, we have to commit ourselves to a routine of

training, eating a health diet, and avoiding vices which may undermine our fitness.

Obviously, then, attaining the good, even when this is as concrete as a healthy body,

is a time-consuming and difficult commitment, that may take years, or even decades,

to accomplish.

In the presence of the beautiful we appreciate that we are not wholly good,

and, as Plato argues, just as we are willing to cut off our own limbs if they threaten

the health of our body as a whole (Smp, 205e), so we must strive to overcome those

11 All people feel the need to be happy, and this desire is referred to in the literature as ‘generic eros’, which is contrasted with that further need to reproduce the good for ourselves. This latter feeling is often referred to as ‘specific eros’, and it will be the focus of the discussion below, and throughout this thesis.

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parts of ourselves that are contrary to the good, and replace them with things that are

better. We come to possess the good through recognizing which elements of ourselves

are contrary to it, and by replacing them with things that better reflect that good. Eros,

then, is not simply a desire to become what we are not; eros is essentially a desire for

self-transcendence, by which we hope to become something better than we presently

are. The goal of our erotic striving, then, in this respect, is our own selves, not in just

any form, but as we are ideally; i.e., we wish to shape ourselves in the image of the

good, and we do this through producing the good for ourselves. And for such an

immensely long and demanding process it is essential that we have a strong

motivation to achieve this good. Lovers, of all varieties, find this in eros, which is

nothing more than the insatiable and forceful desire to possess the good.

Qua creatures of becoming everything that we have will ultimately pass away,

and this includes those things that we produce for ourselves. Because of this, the

body-lover whom we considered above, for example, cannot claim to truly ‘possess’

physical beauty if, after producing a fit body, he neglects it through giving in to those

desires that lead him away from health. If he does this then the good that he struggled

for so long to attain will quickly fade. True possession comes, not merely from

‘production’, but also ‘re-production’, in which we continually replace that which

passes away with something equally good: “For among animals the principle is the

same with us, and mortal nature seeks so far as possible to live forever and be

immortal. And this is possible in one way only: by reproduction, because it always

leaves behind a young one in place of the old” (Smp, 207d). Though, as we have seen,

it is difficult enough to attain the good, now we also see the further necessity of

reproducing this good. It is a monumental task to pursue those things we do not have,

but we also have to mind that those things we strived so hard to produce do not

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simply pass away. Thankfully, eros is not simply the desire to overcome deficiency, it

is also the desire to maintain and preserve those parts of ourselves that are good.

“Everything”, Plato tells us, “values its own offspring” (Smp, 208b, cf. Rep, 1.330c);

we care for the things that we produce, and so we will not quickly let them simply

fade into nothing.

Eros and the Nature of Appetitive Desires

We have now established how erotic desires are triggered, as well as the goal of erotic

striving, but to fully understand eros we must determine what kind of desire it is. To

do this I will discuss the tripartition of the soul, which, though given its most

extensive treatment in the Republic, is a motif that permeates much of Plato’s Middle

Period metaphysics. Importantly, it plays a role in each of Plato’s three most

extensive discussions of eros: in Republic IX, the Phaedrus, and the Symposium.12

In the Phaedrus there are two passages that describe a lover’s reactions in the

presence of the beautiful, one more literally, and the other mythologically. In the first

passage (251a-d), Plato argues that lovers react instantly with awe, reverence and fear

to the object of their desire, before a “flood of passion” (251c, cf. 255c) drives them

immediately towards their beloved. Later (253c-254e) Plato describes this process

again, but this time through the image of the chariot – a mythological device that

12 Plato’s use of the tripartition of the soul is immediately evident in the first two of these dialogues, and although it is not a central theme in the Symposium, there are still some passages that point towards it there. Take, for example, Plato’s discussion of erotic non-lovers, whom Plato argues are those who pursue the good through making money, following sports, or through philosophy. Plato’s choice of examples here is significant, as these three objects are associated, respectively, with the appetitive, spirited, and rational parts of the soul in the Republic. Loving wealth is typical of appetitive people; engaging in sports is an expedient to fame and honour, which is the end of the spirited part of the soul; and finally, philosophy is the enterprise of the rational part of the soul.

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utilizes Plato’s tripartition of the soul as its central theme. We are told that, in the

presence of the beautiful, the appetitive part of the soul rushes unthinkingly towards

it, dragging the good horse (spirit) and the charioteer (reason) along with it, in a

desperate bid to possess this object. These actions are certainly not indicative of the

workings of a rational desire, in which the agent attempts to calculate an object’s

ability to satisfy an end that reason has set for itself upon recognition of its value.

These passages seem to indicate that eros is an appetitive desire.13 Rational desires

have a far more complex relationship with both the objects and the ends of their

desires (as we shall see in the final section of this chapter). Eros, however, seems to

react to its object immediately, like all appetitive desires.

At this point it is important to say a few words about what is to be understood

by the claim that eros is an ‘appetitive’ desire, and to do this it is necessary to

distinguish between two ways of understanding the tripartition of the soul. First, we

can take the distinction literally, and read Plato as arguing that the soul really is

composed of three separate and individual homunculi, each with an ability to desire,

and possibly even to reason.14 On this view the soul really is composed of three

13 The majority of commentators do not attempt to locate eros in any particular part of the soul, with two notable exceptions. First, C. D. C. Reeve (2006a: 209) makes passing reference to the fact that, in the Republic, sexual desire is located in the appetitive part of the soul, but does not expand on this point in any detail. Terrence Irwin (1995: 304) is the only person who goes to any length to origins of eros, and he is also notable for being the only one who believes that there is both an appetitive and a rational eros. If this were correct then Plato’s view would be much closer to that of Pausanias, who, as we shall see below, argues that there is both a ‘high’ and a ‘low’ eros. Given Plato’s description of eros in Book IX of the Republic it seems certain that at least one form of eros is appetitive. Here I have chosen to use the examples of a rational lovers’ eros from the Symposium, as Irwin points to the eros in Socrates’ palinode to justify his claim that there is a rational eros. Though it is beyond the scope of this thesis to disprove Irwin’s theory conclusively, hopefully the examples used above indicate that even the eros that leads us to the highest mysteries of eros is appetitive. 14 Both Terrence Irwin (1995) and Charles Kahn (1967: 86) argue that we ought to take Plato’s claim literally, though the latter goes further than the former by

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different agents, and because this distinction is primitive, we can only come to

understand the nature of a particular desire through the part of the soul in which it

originates. Alternatively, we can take Plato’s claim metaphorically, or rather

mythologically,15 and argue that the tripartition of the soul is not primitive, but is

instead merely an image used to capture a more basic distinction: that between

different kinds of desires. On this reading the division of the soul is merely a way to

capture how various kinds of desires relate to their objects and ends. For example, the

desires for wealth and food are aimed towards very different objects, but Plato argues

in the Republic that they are both defined by their immediacy, and differ, say, from a

rational desire for nourishment, which is mediated by our knowledge of the good. It is

merely convenient, then, to imagine that they ‘originate’ in different ‘parts’ of the

soul, as stating that a desire is ‘appetitive’ will immediately give us an idea of how

this desire relates to its object and to its ends, the desires which it shares this nature

with, and which it is opposed to. It is far beyond the scope of this thesis to show the

strengths and weaknesses of each point, but a particularly illuminating passage is

found in Socrates’ palinode in the Phaedrus (246a), in which he claims that the inner-

workings of the soul are beyond human understanding, so we can only talk of what

advancing the idea that each part of the soul is at least minimally rational in the Humean sense, and therefore has a basic ability to calculate its actions. 15 George Klosko (1988) asserts that we ought not to interpret Plato so literally here, and he particularly objects to the idea that we should assign calculation to appetite and spirit given that Plato goes to great lengths to show that these are unique features of reason. Against Klosko, Christopher Bobonich (2004: 221) argues that we have no reason to think that Plato’s assigning each part of the soul agent-like status should be understood any way but literally. There are two points that we should consider here, however. First, as we have seen in the previous chapter, much of the Republic is infused with mythology. Myth is not simply present in the Cave passage and the Myth of Er, but is infused in all references to a Two-Worlds view. Just because Plato does not here explicitly state that his picture of the soul is mythological, this does not mean that he is not using the image in this way. Second, though in the Republic we may be uncertain of how we should understand the tripartition of the soul, in the Phaedrus Plato clarifies the issue, as we shall see below.

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the soul is like, rather than how it really is. Because of this I will hold back from the

stronger claim that each part of the soul ought to be considered as a separate agent –

and so avoid the metaphysical baggage that comes with such a claim –, and instead

assert simply that each part of the soul can be considered to be agent-like.

One of Plato’s primary concerns in both the Republic and the Phaedrus is to

establish how different desires interact, and his particular focus is to communicate

how we ought to conceptualise having two opposing desires, one pushing us towards

a certain action, and another holding us back from it. Plato argues that it cannot be the

same force that does both, so it is convenient to think that these two drives originate

in different parts of the soul (Rep, 4.439b), which we can consider to interact like

separate agents. Just as two people can both work towards a common goal, or strive

towards opposing ends, so too can separate desires motivate one towards the same

object, or conflict in the course of action to which they drive us. Also, there are

different ways that these situations can be resolved: one desire can overpower

another, or it can even confuse another into pursuing the same ends (Phd, 81b-c).

Therefore, in claiming that eros is an ‘appetitive’ rather than a ‘rational’ desire, I am

merely attempting to tease out a distinction between how eros operates as opposed to

more cognitively mediated desires. This distinction will become important for

determining the problems that plague eros, as well as how reason can raise eros above

these problems. So that we may truly understand the nature of eros, let us discuss the

nature of appetitive desire.

* * *

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The Nature of Appetitive Desires

The appetitive part of the soul instinctively and unreflectively motivates us towards

certain ends. Our appetitive desires can be basic, like the desire for someone to turn

loud music down, or it can be more complex and abstract, like the desire to enjoy the

music itself. What is common to all appetitive desires, however, is the immediate

relation that they have to their object and their end. The appetitive part of the soul is

defined by its immediacy, and this is borne out in three ways. First, desiring people do

not have to cognise their appetite, such as in the following process:

I desire pleasure. It pains me to be deficient.

Thirst is a deficiency. I am thirsty.

If I drink, then I would not be thirsty. Therefore I will drink.

They do not have to justify the desire to themselves; they simply have the desire

because they feel a particular deficiency. Such desires are immediate in that we have

no control over having these desires. If we are thirsty, then we will, by necessity, feel

a compulsion to satisfy this desire. Though, as we shall see below, we can use reason

to prevent the satisfaction of a desire, or train our bodies to stop feeling a particular

deficiency (such as overcoming an addiction), the fact is that if we do feel a

deficiency, then we will necessarily have a corresponding desire for self-overcoming.

Second, appetite has an immediate relationship with its object, and this is

borne out in two ways. 1) One does not need to think about which object will satisfy a

desire, as one is immediately drawn towards certain things. For each appetitive desire,

Plato tells us, there is a ‘natural object’ to which it is attracted (Rep, 4.437e), and the

particularity of the objects in this class are beyond the concern of appetite. If we are

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thirsty we are attracted indifferently to anything within the category ‘drink’, and the

question of whether the drink is hot or cold, or fermented or not, is a separate concern

from thirst. The desire for a hot drink, for example, is a desire for drink (qua thirst)

and heat (qua cold), and so is an amalgam of at least two desires. 2) Appetite is non-

evaluative in that: i) though it is attracted to certain objects, because desire makes no

attempt to understand its object it is doubtful whether it even appreciates that a certain

object will satisfy the desire;16 ii) appetite makes no judgment about the proficiency

of its object to satisfy the desire, as is shown by the fact that a starving man,

overcome by his hunger, will eat grass and bread indifferently; and iii) appetite is

unable to determine whether anything is good or bad. Returning to the example of

thirst, in which we have already seen that the desire for drink is indifferent to whether

its objects is hot or cold, Plato also argues that it is indifferent to whether the drink is

good or bad (Rep, 4.439a). However, if we abstain from drinking, for example from a

poisoned pond, it is not appetite that holds us back, but reason: “If something draws it

[appetite] back when it is thirsty, wouldn’t that be different in it from whatever thirsts

and drives it like a beast to drink? It can’t be, we say, that the same thing, with the

same part of itself, in relation to the same thing, at the same time, does opposite

things” (Rep, 4.439b).17

Finally, as we shall see below, reason is the only part of the soul that is

calculative (Rep, 4.439d, cf. 10.602d-e), and so appetite is unable to determine what

16 Alternatively, this could be formulated as follows: It is doubtful whether people, insofar as they are appetitive, will appreciate the value of their object. 17 Paul Hoffman (2003) expresses concern that people take this passage to indicate that appetite does not desire the good. Charles Kahn (1967: 80), for example, uses this passage to support his claim that the rational part of the soul is the only source of desire for the good (moreover, he argues that the rational part of the soul simply is desire for the good). I am using this example, not to show that appetite isn’t directed towards the good, but to show that appetite is incapable of understanding its end as good.

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the outcome of satisfying a desire will be, either for itself, for the rest of the soul, or

for others. This is also borne out in the example of poisoned water: appetite attracts us

to it because we are thirsty, but because it has no foresight it cannot appreciate the

troubling consequences that would come from the temporary and immediate

satisfaction of this desire.

Eros as an Appetitive Desire

Just as Eros is daimonic because he travels between the world of mortals and the

divine realm, so too are lovers, as they are driven by their eros towards the possession

of the good. Eros is simply a desire to possess the good, and it is this feeling that

gives us our nature as intermediary beings, pushing us steadily towards the divine.

But it is important to note that eros is an appetitive, and therefore an immediate desire

for the good, which entails that: i) when eros drives us towards beautiful things, it

does not recognize either that this object is beautiful, nor why the object is beautiful,

i.e., it does not appreciate that this objects reflects a good that lies beyond it; and ii) in

our infatuation, we will attempt to reshape ourselves to reflect the good that the object

of our erotic desire reflects, regardless of whether we have come to understand this

end as good or not, or whether we have given this end a low or high priority.

Eros is an essential motivational force on the long and difficult path that we

must take towards the good, but in what follows I will show how, through its nature

as an immediate desire, eros is a dangerous tool for lovers, that can lead lovers both

into depravity, as well as towards divinity.

* * *

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Some Problems Regarding Eros

The Instability of Eros

Eros is a desire that requires external stimuli to activate, and though lovers may feel

its pull for a while after they have left the presence of the beautiful, the strength of

this feeling will ultimately fade away: “But when he [the lover] has been parted from

him [the object of erotic desire] and become parched, the openings of those outlets at

which the wings are sprouting dry up likewise and are closed, so that the wing’s germ

is barred off” (Phdr, 251d). The trouble is that, without the beautiful to direct their

striving, and awaken their feelings of inadequacy, eros will have little motivational

value; indeed, they will not feel it at all. Lovers must ensure that they stay within the

presence of the beautiful, but as Martha Nussbaum points out, as with all objects,

sensuous beauties too will pass into their opposite (1984: 66). Just as our love for

other people is plagued by the possibility of betrayal and loss, the world itself seems

to betray out erotic feelings. So lovers, inspired to make themselves better in the

presence of a rose, may come to lose this feeling as it fades into a drab pile of brown

petals. So although lovers may struggle for some time to resemble the good, without

the constant stimulation to reproduce the good, they cannot truly say that they

‘possess’ it.

The Self-Less Life of Immediacy

Now that we have seen the difficulty in maintaining our erotic disposition I wish to

address the question of whether giving ourselves over to our erotic desires when we

feel them is a dangerous course of action. The various speakers in the Symposium give

different answers to this question. In his encomium, Phaedrus argues that eros

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necessarily leads lovers towards virtuous actions, so those who follow the pull of eros

cannot help but become good people. The lovers who makes the most speedy progress

on the path to divinity will be those who are sensitive to even the most subtle feelings

of deficiency, and who give themselves over to their erotic desires most freely. On

this account, reason plays no part in the good life, and its influence could only serve

to distract lovers from answering their desires, and so would halt their erotic

development. The goal of lovers here is to maximize their own freedom. They must

overcome any external or internal influences that seek to delay the satisfaction of their

erotic desires. This obviously naïve opinion is persuasively undermined in the

Phaedrus, through the speech of Lysias (ironically, it is read out by Phaedrus

himself), who cautions prospective beloveds against those who live an immediate

erotic life. Such people are often jealous and over-bearing, and will lie and cheat to

attain the object of their striving, with little care for the consequences of their actions,

for themselves or others. Lysias’ speech is so persuasive because it is largely based on

truth. Eros does seem perfectly capable of clouding the judgment of lovers, and

therefore has the possibility of being a destructive influence on all concerned. I will

take up this issue when I consider the next problem for eros.

Both Pausanias and Socrates incorporate these problems into their own

accounts of eros, but in quite different ways. Pausanias deals with these problems by

dividing eros into two distinct types: a Pandemonic (earthly) eros and a Uranian

(heavenly) eros, distinguishable from each other by the quality of the goods they

direct lovers towards (Smp, 180c-182a). The first, earthly eros encompasses sexual

and material desires, which Pausanias equates with the animalistic urges for sex, and

to possess worldly objects. Earthly eros, then, is aimed only at deficient goods, and

the satisfaction of these base desires can often lead lovers away from more important

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goods. Heavenly eros, by contrast, is the desire for more divine goods, and those

caught under its sway become infatuated with fine things, such as souls, laws and

knowledge. In comparison to Phaedrus’ account, Pausanias argues that lovers ought to

be cautious about satisfying our erotic desires. If they hope to be good they must heed

the call only of Uranian eros, and suppress their Pandemonic urges. However, this life

is still immediate, in that Pausanias believes that it is the role of external restraint,

specifically laws, to ensure that no one satisfies their baser urges (181e).

Finally we come to Socrates’ speech, in which he also argues that erotic desire

can lead lovers further away from the good, though Socrates reunifies eros into a

single feeling. Consequently, it is the exact same erotic urge that can potentially lead

lovers to divinity and ‘true virtue’, but also the greatest evils. It is important to

remember that none of the elements of the soul are necessarily evil, nor are their

objects necessarily bad, but someone can only be said to be a good person if each part

of their soul is allowed to pursue its goal adequately – Plato refers to this state as

‘moderation’ (Rep, 4.430e). People’s actions are bad when they are motivated by a

single part of the soul to the detriment of the other parts, and the exclusion of their

satisfaction. This is true particularly of appetite, and specifically eros. A soul given

over to eros will be concerned only with its own satisfaction, and so it will ultimately

bend the whole soul towards the pursuit of whatever object has taken its fancy.

The immoderation of erotic lovers is shown in the tyrant, who rules over the

city in the same way that eros rules over the soul (Rep, 9.571a-578a). The tyrant is a

unique figure because his reason ‘slumbers’, and takes no part in his life (9.571c), His

actions, therefore are immediate, as he acts on appetite alone. The soul under the sway

of eros is bent only towards eros’ ends, just like how the tyrant bends the entire state

towards the satisfaction of his own needs. Of course, appetite does not knowingly do

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this. Because it lacks evaluation and calculation it is unaware that there are any other

parts of the soul, or any other ends besides that towards which it is presently striving.

Most importantly, appetite has no ability to control itself, and because the tyrant lacks

reason he has no ability to suppress his desires.

Though the tyrant believes that freedom is found in resisting all constraint

(both internal and external), in living a life of pure immediacy he is condemning

himself to the most servile existence of all. To be controlled by eros alone is to be a

slave to the vicissitudes of the world of becoming. Eros is unable to set its own ends,

and it motivates lovers towards the good only in the presence of external stimuli, and,

regardless of the value they place on that end, it will pull them towards it

immediately. The world is fickle, and it has no interest in providing beauty for us,

though in it we are bombarded with many different beautiful objects. If one’s life is

spent satisfying only one’s strongest desires, it is doubtful that one would ever be able

to possess any good for any significant amount of time. The desires that we can

satisfy completely will be simple, such as the desire for bodily nourishment, wealth,

and sex, as other more complex desires require a greater degree of organization in

one’s actions. More often than not, the object of the tyrant’s affection will either pass

away, or, more likely, he will be caught under the sway of another urge, and his

attention will be dragged away from the previous object of his infatuation.

About the democratic man, Plato states: “And so he lives, always surrendering

rule over himself to whichever desire comes along, as if it were chosen by lot. And

when this is satisfied he surrenders the rule to another, not disdaining by satisfying

them all equally” (Rep, 8.561b). The situation for the tyrant is even worse that that of

the democrat. Whereas the latter at least pursues their (trivial) desires until they are

satisfied, the tyrant does not even organize his life in this simple way, and instead

47

gives himself over to lawlessness completely. The tyrant is pulled one way and then

another,18 stirred at one time by a pretty bauble, and in the next moment by an

innocent face; at one time desiring to be physically beautiful, a minute later to be

famous – and the tyrant will never be satisfied with any of these. His life melts into

the vicissitudes of the world as he becomes a cog that is turned this way and that by

forces beyond his control. He will have no say over who he is, nor any ability to direct

what we will become. Such ‘decisions’ will be left up to the world, as it passes

beautiful objects before him.

Eros and Infatuation

In a passage from the Phaedrus that we encountered in the previous section we learnt

that the appetitive soul, invigorated with the strength of eros, has the ability to drag

the rest of the soul towards its object, even, in many cases, when both reason and

spirit struggle against it. It is the nature of eros to become infatuated with beautiful

objects, and, in the strength of this feeling, eros can bamboozle the soul into thinking

that whatever object it is focused on can provide all of the good one could ever need.

Plato argues that, in the presence of the beautiful,

all the rules of conduct, all the graces of life, of which aforetime he [the lover]

was proud, he now disdains, welcoming a slave’s estate, and any couch where

he may have suffered to lie down close beside her darling; for besides his

reverence for the possessor of beauty he has found in him [the object of

desire] the only physician for her grievous suffering (Phdr, 252a).

18 In the Symposium (208e) Plato explicitly states that the objects and ends of our desires often change, as does their strength.

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In the moment of infatuation lovers lose their concern for all other goods – both the

ends that they have recognized as important for themselves, and those behaviours they

have deemed appropriate in the treatment of others – as their attention is focused

solely on possessing the object of beauty, and the good of which it is an image. When

lovers give themselves over to immediacy, more often than not, they will be jealous,

mean-spirited and callous, just as Lysias argued. Most things that we understand as

‘good’, as Plato argues in Republic V, are good in some ways and bad in others, but

eros’ enthusiasm blinds us to their deficiencies, and in that moment of awe eros may

confuse the rest of the soul into actually thinking that the good it pursues really is

complete (Phd, 81b-c). It is important to remember that, in Socrates’ palinode in the

Phaedrus (248a-b), it is the appetitive horse that leads to the fall of the soul as it

distracts the charioteer (reason) from his vision of reality. In doing so appetite pulls

the entire soul down towards the world of becoming. To develop our faculty of reason

takes a lifetime, and every time we give ourselves over to deficient pleasures we undo

much of the work we have done, and make it harder to nourish the rational part of the

soul in the future.

This is particularly problematic for the tyrant because, as his reason slumbers

in him, he is incapable of perceiving all but the most deficient (material) goods (Rep,

9.571c). But here he is caught in a dangerous cycle: the more he satisfies his base

desires the greater the chance that, if his reason were to awake, it too would have been

bewitched into mistaking material pleasures for the Good itself – much like the

democrat’s rational soul. This is not, however, only a problem for tyrannical souls. In

Book II of the Laws (cf. Rep, 4.439d, Smp, 206c) we are told that sexual desires are

common to all, and in the Republic (3.403a) Plato asserts that sexual pleasure is the

most intense of all pleasures. Yet in the Timaeus (86c-d) Plato argues that that the

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stronger the pleasure we feel, the more likely it will be to distract our reason from

what it knows to be good, and to tie its opinions closer to that of the irrational part of

the soul. As sexual beings we are all, in a sense, naturally programmed to become

tyrants, and we can now see why eros has a remarkable tendency to lead us into

depravity.

Eros and the Rule of Reason

The three problems that we encountered in the previous section are far from trivial,

and together they seem sufficient to recommend something more akin to a Stoic

approach to possessing the good, in which we ought to attempt to suppress all of our

appetitive desires, given that they have the proclivity to lead us into the most

depraved state of existence. But although eros is capable of leading the soul towards

tyranny, I hope to show that it still has an important role to play in our ascent to the

divine. To do this we must answer the question of why we ought not turn to reason

alone to motivate our ascent, given that it is the part of the soul that is free from

immediacy. It is important to remember that possessing the good is an incredibly

difficult task. It requires a lifetime’s commitment both to pursuing self-transcendence,

and to preserving those goods that we have already created for ourselves. Although

reason, when properly nurtured (and with the help of the spirited part of the soul) is

strong enough to curtail even the most rampant appetites, it simply does not have the

force continually to motivate us towards the good. Eros alone has the strength

constantly to push us towards self-transcendence, and so it is still an essential tool in

our ascent to the divine.

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In the last section we saw that giving ourselves over to immediacy cannot but

lead our soul into a state of tyranny. Therefore, only when properly controlled, i.e.,

when its fury is directed solely towards the highest goods, and when it is prevented

from lingering on objects not worthy of such attention, is eros of any use to those who

wish to possess the good. It is important to note, however, that: a) as an immediate

desire eros does not have the resources to direct itself; and b) we cannot simply

‘convert’ eros from being an immediate desire, as immediacy is its salient feature. In

our struggles, then, we cannot simply do away with immediacy altogether, but we can

raise eros out of pure immediacy by subjecting it to the guidance of reason. I will

begin this discussion by saying a few words about the nature of rational desires, but

before I do I wish to address Pausanias’ alternative to rational control of eros.

In his encomium Pausanias suggests that it is the role of external agency,

particularly laws, to control our eros, and it does so by preventing the satisfaction of

our base urges. On this view people ought to be free to pursue whatever desires they

choose, and it is wholly the role of the agents of the law to police our behaviour.

Putting the practicalities of such an idea aside, there are troubling philosophical

concerns here also. Such a life is not much less immediate than that of the tyrant, as

here the soul still exists in a state of tyranny. The only thing that stops lovers from

behaving like tyrants is precisely placed impediments to their actions, rather than their

own self-control. From the perspective of the lovers, law prevents them from

committing bad actions in the same way that gravity prevents them from flying, i.e., it

would be seen as an external, necessary, and ‘natural’ impediment rather than a freely

chosen normative rule that is possible to ignore. Plato denounces the idea that we

ought to rely on external agency to direct us towards the good as both vulgar and

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shameful (Rep, 3.405a-b), and instead argues that we must rely only on our own

internal agency, i.e., reason, to guide our own behaviour.

The Nature of Rational Desires

In what follows I will briefly explore the three main features that distinguish reason

from the appetitive part of the soul, and in doing so I hope to show how rational

desires avoid the problems that plague eros. To begin, I wish to discuss the

relationship that the rational part of the soul has to the ultimate goal of its striving,

i.e., to the good life. The ends of appetite, let us remember, are determined for it

through the presence or absence of certain objects. For example, as appetitive beings,

we will only set nourishment as our end (or rather, nourishment will be set as our end)

insofar as we feel a lack of it. Similarly, in the case of desires that require external

stimuli, we will only pursue fame when we are watching celebrities being showered

with attention. The end of our appetitive striving, then, melts into the vicissitudes of

the world. Where at one moment we pour our whole being into satisfying our hunger,

in the next we are driven towards fame. The rational part of the soul, however, is

capable of coming to its own understanding of the good, and it has this ability because

it is evaluative; i.e., it is able to determine what is good and bad for itself. Our rational

desires originate in this understanding. Like eros, reason requires a certain object to

be present to stimulate our desires, but whereas eros’ object is external to itself,

reason’s is internal. Having the knowledge that something is good is sufficient for

having a rational desire for it; the knowledge itself is the ‘object’ that triggers our

rational desires.

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Mortals are deficient in their understanding of what is good, but as creatures

of becoming we are capable of transcending this state. Indeed, the rational part of the

soul is that in which learning takes place (Rep, 4.435e), and so it is capable both of

coming to see value in certain ends that it previously had not, and also of appreciating

that it may have mistaken an end for being good where now we have come to

understand that we were incorrect in believing this. For example, where once

someone thought that the good life was found in material pleasures, they may now

come to appreciate that it is found in virtue alone. Having said this, it is important to

note that developing our understanding of what is good does not necessarily entail

that we simply discard all those ends that we previously valued. Reason is capable of

recognizing a variety of ends as good at once, and, importantly, it is able to weigh the

worth of these ends against each other depending on how closely or distantly they

relate to our understanding of the good in general. Where appetite has material

pleasures as its end at one point, and then virtue at another, reason is able to

incorporate both of these elements into the good life, though it may prioritise one over

the other. Whereas eros is an ‘all-or-nothing’ feeling, reason is able to portion of its

motivational force towards various ends depending on how important they are.

In working towards a variety of ends in the pursuit of the good life it is likely

that some of our rational desires will require balancing. Let us take the example of

someone who has come to understand that pleasure, politeness, and health are all

essential to the good life, and let us imagine that this person is at a dinner party, being

offered a rich chocolate sundae. Though eating the sundae will satisfy his desire for

pleasure, and to be polite, it will lead him further away from health. Such a situation

does not pose a large problem for reason, however, because it is calculative (Rep,

4.441e). Among the many benefits this ability grants is the ability to plan our own

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lives; that is, reason is able to determine what would be good both in the short and the

long term. Whereas for the appetitive soul life is composed of a series of atomic

moments in which its desire is either satisfied or not, reason can view existence as a

continuum in which we need not satisfy every desire simultaneously to satisfy them

all. The person at the dinner party, insofar as he is rational, is able to calculate that, by

exercising the next day, he will be able to satisfy all of his desires eventually.

If we took another person who valued pleasure, politeness, and health we

could not guarantee that she would also eat the sundae. Though their values are the

same, this person may simply refuse to partake if she greatly prioritised health over

these other ends. This is indicative of the fact that reason has a far more complex

relationship to its objects than appetite. As we come to a different understanding of

what is good, the role that certain objects play within our lives may change. Even

slightly shifting the emphasis of the same goods may lead us to view a certain object

as peripheral, or even hostile, to the good, though we previously valued it as a useful

means to it. Reason has no ‘natural object’ that it is drawn towards, and the rational

part of the soul will desire a particular object only after it has calculated its

proficiency in leading us to the good. Calculation is important here for two reasons.

First, our life is short, but our journey towards the good is long and trying. Because of

this we must seek out those things that will satisfy our desires most expediently.

Having said this, we must also be wary to focus our attention on those objects that are

most compatible with satisfying our multitudinous ends. Though chocolate may be a

reliable means to pleasure, it will lead us much farther away from health than a fruit

salad, which, though it may not lead us as far towards pleasure as the former, will still

satisfy our pleasure to a reasonable extent, though with the added benefit of moving

us closer to health as well.

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We now have some idea about how reason relates to its end and to its object,

but, equally important for our purposes, is the scope of reason’s concern. Reason is

capable of directing both its vision and its concern towards the soul, but despite the

difference in its new object, its goal here will still be to pursue those goods that it has

come to recognise for itself. Because the rational part of the soul attempts to know the

nature of its object, reason is able to identify the different parts of the soul, and the

desires that are unique to each. But because reason’s sumuum bonum is flexible, the

rational part of the soul is able potentially to incorporate the ends of other parts into

its own understanding of what is good (Rep, 4.442c). Reason, however, will not

simply accept these ends dogmatically, pursuing them immediately like the other

parts of the soul do. Instead, reason will only follow these ends itself if it identifies

them as good. However, given that, for Plato, all desires are for the good in some

way, inquiry should lead reason to see that the ends of appetite and spirit are good in a

way. In this event, however, reason does not simply defer its desire for honour, for

example, to the spirited part of the soul. In understanding something as good the

rational part of the soul will desire it; reason and spirit, therefore, will now work

together in pursuit of this end, and both will lend their motivational force to this

desire.

Here we can see how reason avoids the problems that plague eros. First,

whereas eros wakes only in the presence of external stimuli, the rational part of the

soul always has its object ‘present’, in the form of our knowledge of what is good.

Nevertheless, as we shall see in the next chapter, it is through our own effort that our

knowledge remains constant; it too is as subject to the vicissitudes of the world as all

mortal possessions. Second, the rational part of the soul, because it is evaluative, is

able to determine its own ends for itself, rather than being led around by stimuli in the

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world. Unlike the appetitive part of the soul, the rational part orders its actions in

accordance with what it has come to determine as good, and through its capacity to

calculate it can plan what desires it ought to satisfy in any given circumstances. Thus

reason raises us beyond immediacy and allows us to choose a life that we have

determined as good for ourselves – although because of the nature of the world in

which we live, luck and chance will always have some role to play. Third, because

appetite is able to assign different value to various ends by how they relate to the

good life as a whole, and because reason is capable of understanding that we do not

need to strive to satisfy all desires in any given instant, the rational part of the soul is

free from having to lend all of its force towards a single end. Therefore, reason is able

to avoid over-valuing objects to a far greater degree than eros.

Rationally Controlled Eros or the ‘Agreement’ of Appetite with Reason

Though reason is free from the flaws that plague eros, the rational part of the soul

would be of little use to lovers if they were not able to use it to raise eros beyond pure

immediacy. Obviously we cannot simply convert eros into a rational desire, so reason

will have to work on guiding eros from without. When peoples’ souls are ruled by

reason, however, they avoid the labels of vulgarity and shamefulness as their actions

are being guided by a part of their own self. In the following discussion I will utilize

Plato’s image of the soul as a chariot to introduce the ways in which reason guides

our eros, and so raises lovers beyond immediacy. This description will be useful here

as in it reason and appetite are portrayed as two separate agents. We should remember

that Plato talks of the soul as if it were agent-like, and from this we are supposed to

understand their interactions as being similar to those of separate agents. Reason is

that which attempts to steer the entire soul towards the good, and it does so through

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both calculation and evaluation. Therefore, Plato personifies reason as the charioteer.

Eros, by contrast, is a mad force that immediately, and unthinkingly charges towards

whatever takes its fancy. It is apt, then, that Plato equates eros with a brutish and

uncontrollable animal: an unruly horse.

Reason has the ability to understand the shape of the good life for itself, and

by preventing eros from pursuing any objects or ends that bear no relation to such a

life, the rational part of the soul raises lovers beyond pure immediacy. Let us return to

the example of the person who values politeness, health, and pleasure, though let us

image that this person’s erotic concern is caught by the desire to drink wine. Eros

drives us to lavish our undivided attention on drinking, distracting us from all of our

other concerns. As eros is prone to over-valuing its object, given free reign, eros will

lead us to drink ourselves into a stupor, and go to any lengths, however base, to

achieve this goal. Such behaviour is obviously unacceptable to the rational part of the

soul, so in such situations reason must utilise the whip; that is, it must call upon its

own strength to prevent eros from pulling the soul towards this object altogether.

Such a procedure is dramatically portrayed in the Phaedrus (245a-e), in which we are

shown the case of eros being struck by the beauty of the beloved. In response to this

stimulus eros charges blindly towards the boy, pulling the rest of the soul along with

it. Given that this behaviour is unacceptable to reason, the rational part of the soul

matches its strength against that of eros, and the charioteer pulls the bad horse back

into line, preventing the chariot from moving towards this end. In such situations

reason frees the soul from the influences of eros entirely, completely suppressing the

erotic desire.

Many philosophers have seen the use of the whip as an important activity for

reason in Plato’s philosophy, though I wish to consider briefly Martha Nussbaum’s

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reaction to this point. Nussbaum reads Plato as arguing that reason’s only interaction

with the rest of the soul is through the whip, and given this she thinks that the rational

life will be completely free of erotic desire (2007: 195). Nussbaum is quite right to

argue that a life in which erotic desires are always suppressed is without passion, but

her understanding of the philosopher’s life neglects certain facts. Most importantly,

eros is necessary for providing the motivational force to push us towards the divine,

regardless of how developed our rational soul is. Given that eros is passionate by its

nature (Smp, 206b, Phdr, 245b), even the most rational and controlled people must

find a place of passion in their lives.

Every time that we satisfy our base desires the soul is dragged a bit further

down to the world of becoming. The rational part of the soul is nourished by staying

in close proximity to the beautiful and the good, and the further we descend the more

reason’s view of reality is obscured. As such, every time we give in to our desires for

material goods we weaken reason, and retard its ability to order the soul, thus opening

the door for the tyranny of eros. It is important that reason does prevent these desires

from being satisfied, so the whip is an essential tool in guiding eros. Therefore, reason

must maintain a constant vigil over eros. But even the strongest charioteer will tire

eventually if its only stratagem is to pull back a horse that continuously bucks against

the reigns. Reason cannot simply fight eros, but must find a way to channel it towards

the good so that it can harness, rather than simply negate, its strength.

Just as a chariot can travel at speeds and distances a human alone could not, so

the lover who “has conjoined his passion for a loved one with that seeking [after the

good]” (Phdr, 249a) is capable of actions unfathomable to others; namely, ascending

to the divine in the space of a human life. Though not well recognised by

commentators, reason also uses blinders to bring eros into agreement with its own

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ends. Before I detail how this is so, I wish to say a few words about how different

parts of the soul can ‘agree’ with each other. As mentioned above, there are those

commentators who take Plato literally when he describes the different parts of the

soul as separate agents, and many of them assert that each part is minimally rational.

They read ‘agreement’ through this understanding, and so argue that one part of the

soul, such as appetite, somehow consents to the same goals as reason, through either

manipulating, threatening, or convincing another part of the soul into following its

own course of action. But it is difficult to imagine how a part of the soul akin to a

wild, animalistic beast, even if it were rational in the Humean sense, would be able to

‘consent’ to anything, or how something without evaluation could ‘understand’

something as good. The mythological reading of the tripartition of the soul avoids

these problems, as it only goes so far as to say that each part of the soul is agent-like.

Here, let us remember, the distinction between the different parts of the soul is not

primitive; it is instead a way of conceptualizing the interactions between different

kinds of desires. On this reading the ‘agreement’ of different parts of the soul refers to

their coming to share a certain goal, and lending their combined force to motivate the

soul towards a common good.

There are innumerable distractions to catch eros’ attention, drawing it off

towards any number of foolish ends. If eros is to agree with reason then it must be

focused on pursuing only those ends that reason has understood as central to the good

life. We cannot, however, wait around until an object appears that reflects these

goods, suppressing our erotic urges ninety-nine times out of one hundred. The world

is fickle, and it has no interest of raising us to the heavens, or providing us with the

materials to do so. Instead, reason must take a more active approach, and here again it

must rely on its ability to both calculate and evaluate objects. Reason must identify

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those objects that will stimulate eros into pursuing the ends it has come to conclude as

good. We must, then, place ourselves in a context in which such objects are ready to

hand, and in which distractions are kept to a minimum. Let us take for example a

person who has come to understand that a well-ordered soul is essential for the good

life. Reason alone does not have the strength to lead us to possess this good in itself,

so it must conjoin eros’ force in with its own. To do this we must seek out virtuous

people – charity workers, good judges, fine teachers – so that in their presence our

erotic desires for virtue are awoken. In the company of good people we will be driven

to reshape our lives in their image, incorporating their virtue into our own way of

being. It is equally important that we avoid those people who would lead us astray,

and the most dangerous of these people are those who merely appear to be virtuous

when they really are not. Cunning rhetoricians and manipulative pedagogues will also

awaken our eros, though satisfying these desires will only lead the soul away from the

good.

By using the blinders to keep appetite focused on the path that has been

chosen for it, reason is able to focus eros on the best goods, utilizing its force to drive

the soul in its ascent to the divine. We have already seen two ways in which reason

raises us beyond immediacy: first, reason’s relationship both to its own ends and its

objects is mediated by its own understanding, and so nurturing our rational desires

will help us raise ourselves beyond immediacy; and second, reason is able to negate

the immediacy of eros by using the whip, and preventing it from satisfying simply any

fancy that takes it. With the blinders, however, reason is able to exist in a more

complex relationship with eros. Here too it overcomes the immediacy of eros by

lessening the role of luck in our lives. Though our immediate surroundings can never

be free of temptations, provided that we seek out those things that it would be

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beneficial for eros to become infatuated with, we have placed ourselves in a ‘world’

in which we are constantly surrounded by the good. In doing this, reason is able to

curtail many of our base desires before they even awake, allowing it to direct its

energy towards pursuing its own ends. Here, however, we see reason’s ability not to

simply stamp our immediacy, but to incorporate it into the good life. In our weaker

moments we may be forgiven for concluding that we are aiming too high in wishing

to become divine, and that the difficulties that bar our way are simply too great to

overcome. Eros, because of its immediacy, is a source of hope in these times: In the

presence of the beautiful eros springs to life, full of vigor, pulling even the most base

towards the good. The redemption of eros is that it is without despair: it will always

push us towards the divine regardless of how far we are from it, indifferent to the

innumerable difficulties we face in our journey, and unconcerned with the number of

times we have travelled the same path before, or how many times we will have to

again.

Infatuation for What is Good

Neither the life of passion, nor the life of reason is sufficient to lead us to transcend

our deficient condition. Passions are strong enough to pull the soul towards where

they direct it, but the end of their striving is always decided for them, and appetite’s

attention is too often caught by deficient goods for us to be able to rely on it alone.

Reason, by contrast, is able to understand what is good for itself, and to direct the soul

in accordance with this end, but, given both human deficiency, and the nature of

mortal possession, it does not have the strength to lead us towards the good, keep us

in close proximity to it, and also fight against the pull of our base desires. The best

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life, for Plato, is one that is both rational and passionate; i.e., one in which our eros is

focused only on those ends reason has set for it.

In reason lovers have found the means by which they are able to raise their

eros beyond immediacy, but merely being guided by reason is not in itself sufficient

to lead us to the divine. In the Republic Plato argues that: “Every soul pursues the

good and does whatever it does for its sake. It divines that the good is something but

it is perplexed and cannot adequately grasp what it is or acquire the sort of stable

beliefs it has about other things, and so it misses the benefit, if any, that even those

other things may give” (Rep, 6.505e). As such, even when our eros is being directed

by reason we cannot be certain that it is guiding us towards what is truly good. Our

knowledge of what is good, as with all of our possessions, is something that must both

be developed and maintained, and in the next chapter I will examine the last

impediment to coming to possess the good: ignorance.

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Chapter 3: The Stillness of Ignorance

Diagnosing the Greatest Ignorance of All

In the previous chapter we concluded that, if we are to truly possess the good, then we

must continually strive to overcome our deficiencies until we completely resemble the

divine. And even at this point we cannot rest, as it is also necessary to reproduce those

goods that we have attained as they pass away. We also saw that it is in eros that we

find a sufficiently strong force to keep us in motion, i.e., to ensure that we are

constantly raising ourselves closer to the divine. Eros, however, is problematic, and

we highlighted some of the troubles that eros, as an appetitive desire, caused for

lovers, and further showed how they could be overcome through the guidance of

reason. In this chapter I wish to turn to the problems that specifically concern our

rational desire for the good, and my focus here will be on ignorance. The problem of

ignorance is raised time and again throughout Plato’s dialogues, and in the Timaeus

he even goes so far as to claim that “ignorance is the greatest disease of all” (88b). In

what follows I will explore two of the most problematic kinds of ignorance and detail

the effects that each of these has on lovers in their journey to the divine. In the first

section I will examine the problems lovers face in being ignorant of what is good, but

also how this ignorance can be overcome. The remainder of the chapter will be

dedicated to exploring the problems that ignorance of the self can cause, as well as

how to overcome this most malignant ignorance.

* * *

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Ignorance of What is Good

Ignorance as a Limit to Ascent

At the end of the last chapter we began to see how ignorance of what is good could

stifle our ascent to the divine, and in what follows I wish to expand on this claim.

Eros is a necessary tool in our ascent to the divine, but unless it is properly directed

by reason we cannot free ourselves from the tyranny of appetite. Reason, however,

directs eros based on its own understanding of what is good, and, if this knowledge is

deficient, so too will be the goods that we come to possess. Instead of setting eros on

a course to the divine, ignorance causes our reason to focus eros only on inadequate

goods, and to pull eros back from pursuing any goods, however important they may

be, that lie outside of our current understanding of what is good. Possession, we must

remember, requires both the fury of eros as well as the calculation and planning of

reason, therefore we can only truly possess those goods which reason has come to

recognise as good for itself. Because our level of understanding of what is good

determines our possession of the good, our ignorance of what is good serves as the

limit to our ascent.

To clarify this idea let us consider the example of a rational lover, such as an

actor, who ignorantly believes that fame is the primary element of the good life.

Driven by her reason she will place herself in a context in which she will have as

much public exposure as possible, and so will eagerly pursue any role that comes

along. In following this end so enthusiastically, however, she may be blinded to other

goods, such as moderation and wisdom. Though she may occasionally feel eros

pulling her towards these things, reason will quickly whip eros back into line and

focus it only on the pursuit of fame. Even though her rational soul is acting as it

ought, ignorance has led it to prevent eros from pursuing important goods. Because

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her energies are purely focused on the pursuit of fame this is the only good that she

can ever truly possess, as without constantly attending to any other goods she may

possess in part they will eventually pass away. Unless she can overcome her

ignorance of what is good our actor’s ability to ascend will be severely limited, as

possessing a single good can only raise her so far.

Double Ignorance and the Necessity of the Moment of Aporia

Mortals are deficient creatures, and from the above discussion it would be safe to

conclude that, for Plato, no deficiency so distances us from the divine than our lack of

knowledge of what is good. As creatures of becoming, however, as long as we are

striving to overcome our deficiencies we are not defined by them. So despite the

severe problems that ignorance of what is good may cause for our ascent these limits

are not insurmountable. It is necessary for lovers to be committed to striving for a

greater knowledge of what is good, as well as the possession of the good itself. I will

refer to the latter activity as the ‘motion of the soul (as a whole)’, and to the former as

the ‘motion of the rational soul’ specifically. It is important to note that, like all

mortal possessions, knowledge is constantly passing away (Smp, 208a), so insofar as a

person is knowledgeable, in the same way that they are good, they will be in constant

motion. In the Theaetetus Plato states:

Isn’t it by learning and study, which are motions, that the soul gains

knowledge and is preserved and becomes a better thing? Whereas in a state of

rest, that is, when it will not study or learn, it not only fails to acquire

knowledge but forgets what it has already learned? (Tht, 153b-c).

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The perfect state would be one of stillness in which, like the gods, we could remain

eternally and unchangingly in the company of the truth. The gods are free from the

need to transcend their present state, as none could possibly be higher, and because

they exist beyond the vicissitudes of the world where knowledge passes away. For

deficient creatures of becoming, however, stillness can only lead to the degradation of

the soul, so unless we become eternal lovers of wisdom, i.e., philosophers, we are

doomed to a deficient life.

Though we are infected with a terrible disease by being ignorant of what is

good, provided that we have a desire to overcome this state, and act on this desire, we

are not defined by our ignorance. As we learnt in the previous chapter, having a desire

requires both a moment in which we become aware of our lack, and an image of

something to strive towards. It is in this first moment, in the recognition of our own

deficiency, that Plato distinguishes between two kinds of ignorance of what is good:

the ones who are already wise, whether these are gods or human beings, no

longer love wisdom. Nor, on the other hand, would we say that those love

wisdom who have ignorance in such a manner as to be bad. For we wouldn’t

say that anyone bad and stupid loves wisdom. There are left, then, those who

while having this evil, ignorance, are not yet senseless or stupid as a result of

it, but still regard themselves as not knowing whatever they don’t know (Ly,

218a).

Not all people who are infected with ignorance are ‘bad and stupid’, and what

separates these people off from others is their awareness of their own ignorance.

Merely lacking knowledge, though problematic, is a more benign ignorance, as with

this awareness we can come to feel a rational desire to overcome this deficiency.

Provided that we put ourselves in an environment in which we can then trigger our

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erotic desire to overcome ignorance, with sufficient effort we will be able to transcend

our ignorance of what is good, and so put ourselves in a position to possess the truly

good.

I now wish to turn to discuss the kind of ignorance that makes people bad and

stupid, and I will refer to such a state as ‘double ignorance’ as it involves two

moments of ignorance: first, we have a lack of knowledge about some topic; and

second, we are ignorant of this lack. This is to be contrasted with ‘single ignorance’,

as discussed above, which involves being ignorant of what is good, but aware of this

ignorance. Double ignorance is a far more serious problem than single ignorance as it

cannot but lead to stillness within the rational soul. Without an awareness of our lack

of knowledge we will feel no desire for wisdom, and consequently we will not work

to overcome our deficiency. Languishing in such a state we will become defined by

our ignorance, as our actor was above. Of course, double ignorance does not

necessarily lead to the stillness of the soul as a whole, i.e., it does not stifle our desire

to possess the good, as we will still pursue those goods that we do know about, but if

what we love is deficient, then our entire soul will be defined by this deficiency.

Returning to our actor, though she feels no desire to learn about what is good, she still

desires to possess fame. But unless she can overcome her ignorance she will come to

be defined merely as a lover of fame, and so by her deficiency in other goods.

Though double ignorance is problematic it too can be overcome by restarting

the motion of our rational soul. To do this we must come to appreciate our own lack

of knowledge, and thankfully we are not starved of resources that can show us just

this. Our parents and teachers will often make us aware of our own ignorance, and

sometimes our own experience of the world will enlighten our deficient

understanding. However, because the world has no interest in delivering such

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experiences to us, and merely relying on external resources to make ourselves better

is shameful (Rep, 3.405a-b), Plato recommends dialectic as the best tool to

consistently make us aware of our own ignorance. I am not using the term ‘dialectic’

here in the technical sense used in such dialogues as the Sophist and Statesman, but

merely to refer to any conversations in which we actively subject our own knowledge

to rigorous questioning to probe the limits of our understanding. Here we do not wait

for an event to shake us from our dogmatic slumber, or for a teacher to lead us to the

truth; instead, we actively seek out situations in which we will be made aware of even

the smallest deficiency in our knowledge. The goal of dialectic, then, is quite different

from that of learning through experience. In the latter case our goal is to learn

something new, but in the former we wish primarily to be made aware of our own

ignorance.

Having gained new knowledge people may come to realise that ‘I was

ignorant’, but there is nothing at this point to lead them to claim that ‘I am ignorant’.

The goal of dialectic is not primarily to move the rational soul closer to the truth, but

merely to set it in motion. Our aim here is not to nudge our highly problematic

account that much nearer to the truth by merely patching some new knowledge onto

it; instead, in dialectic we question whether anything about our account is correct at

all. Here we do not simply analyse the first idea that comes to mind; instead we

engage in a whole series of questioning and answering to exhaust every possible

avenue that our current understanding will allow. The result of such an examination,

as is dramatized many times in Plato’s dialogues, is aporia,1 a feeling of puzzlement

in which we become aware, not only that we are ignorant of a particular issue, but that

1 Many commentators have seen the necessity of the moment of aporia in the development of our knowledge. See especially Mary Margaret MacKenzie (1988) and Frisbee Sheffield (2006).

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understanding this topic will be far more difficult than what we originally thought.

Importantly, we realise that we will never be able to give a sound account of a topic

given our current level of understanding, and also that we are dramatically distant

from the point in which we would be able to give a complete account.

Feeling aporia, of course, is not yet sufficient for having a desire for particular

goods, as we still need something to strive towards, but the benefit of aporia is that it

does not prescribe the types of things desire ought to pursue, nor where to find them.

Aporia acts as a doorway to a world of possibility in which everything becomes a

potential point of concern, and it is the grounds from which we come to change our

whole worldview – something that we will have to do several times on our ascent to

the divine. Because we are unaware of what direction we ought to take our account

we open ourselves to the possibility that anything could potentially be important for

the good life. Where once we may scoff at the idea that temperance, for example, is

an important good, or that courageous people ought sometimes flee, in aporia we will

at least be free to entertain these thoughts. Here we give ourselves license to play with

ideas, and look at things from perspectives we may previously have never entertained.

Of course, the feeling of aporia will eventually fade, but the benefit of dialectic is that

we have a reliable means of regaining this state by constantly making ourselves aware

of our own ignorance. If we continually subject our knowledge to dialectical

investigation we are able continuously to convert our double ignorance into single

ignorance, and so utilise the force of desire to overcome this limit.

We have seen the problems that ignorance of what is good causes for lovers in

their ascent to the divine, and we have also seen how these problems can potentially

be overcome. I now wish to turn to discuss self-ignorance, and in what follows I hope

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to show why this latter kind of ignorance poses a greater threat to lovers than mere

ignorance of what is good.

The Malignancy of Self-Ignorance

Ignorance of what is good is a terrible disease for lovers, but it is important to note

that, particularly from his Middle Period writings onwards, Plato shifts his focus away

from being ignorant of the virtues, beauty, and even the good, and, taking his mark

from the Delphic Oracle, he gives most attention to the problem of lacking self-

knowledge. This is not to say that Plato no longer saw the necessity of learning about

what is good, but that we must first attend to learning about ourselves before we can

come to know what is good (and therefore before we can ascend to the divine). In the

Phaedrus we are given a cryptic clue as to why this is the case: “I can’t as yet ‘know

myself’,” Socrates says, “as the inscription at Delphi enjoins; and so long as the

ignorance remains it seems to me ridiculous to inquire into extraneous matters” (Phdr,

230a). To tease out the full significance of this claim would be far beyond the scope

of this thesis, so to narrow our discussion somewhat I wish to review briefly some of

the claims made at the end of the Alcibiades I, which, though dubious in its

authorship, may help to shed some light on the relationship between self-knowledge

and our inquiry into, and actions in, the external world.

The Alcibiades I contains some very clear discussions about the problem of

ignorance, but our concern for now will be a passage towards the end of the dialogue

in which Socrates is talking to Alcibiades about the necessity of self-cultivation.

Socrates reiterates the idea that we learnt in previous chapters about the necessity of

transcending our own deficiencies, but importantly he argues here that we cannot

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cultivate ourselves until we understand our own nature (128a). To know ourselves,

Socrates argues, we must look into the part of ourselves that we truly refer to when

we say ‘I’, and this, for Socrates, is the soul (131b). But we cannot merely look to any

part of the soul. Here Socrates tells Alcibiades that to understand the true nature of the

soul we must look at the divine part of it; that is, to the part of the soul that is good.

Only with this self-knowledge can we really understand the nature of the divine, and

only then ought we to act in the world: “Get into training first, my dear friend, and

learn what you need to know before you enter into politics. That will give you an

antidote against the terrible dangers” (Alc, 132b). The ‘terrible dangers’ that Socrates

refers to seem both to be the danger of having our knowledge of what is good

corrupted (132a), as well as the danger of leading the polis astray by acting on our

corrupt understanding of what is good (135b).

In this all too brief overview we have been introduced to the idea that it is

essential that we know ourselves, specifically in relation to the good, before we can

inquire into the nature of things external to us, and before we act in the world.

Because the Alcibiades is of dubious authorship, however, it cannot serve as the focus

of a discussion of self-ignorance in a thesis of this scope. Without this option I believe

it prudent to turn to the Symposium, which, although it has quite a restricted focus in

its discussion of self-ignorance, raises many of the points that are both explicitly

highlighted and implicitly implied in the discussion of self-ignorance in the

Alcibiades. In the following sections I will focus on three ways that we can be

ignorant of ourselves in relation to the good: i) we can over-value our own potential to

possess the good; ii) we can under-estimate our potential; and iii) we can make both

of these mistakes in turn. The effects of each of these kinds of ignorance, which I will

refer to together as ‘malignant ignorance’, vary to a certain extent, though what is

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common to all three is that they curtail our ability to overcome our double ignorance

of what is good, and so lead to the continuation of stillness in our rational souls.

Though I will expand on these ideas in later sections, I wish to explain briefly why

malignant ignorance prevents us from learning.

As we learnt above, provided that our rational soul is constantly in motion,

i.e., provided that we have a desire to learn, the problems that ignorance of what is

good can cause us ought only to be considered temporary setbacks. If this process

were disturbed, however, the situation would be quite different, as the limit ignorance

sets for our ascent would be far more permanent. The problem comes in the moment

of aporia, which, as Gareth Matthews points out (1999: 29-30), does not always lead

to puzzlement; it can also result in a moment I will refer to as ‘impasse’, in which we

either: a) fail to understand that what is enlightened is our own ignorance; b)

recognise our ignorance, but have no desire to learn; or c) have a desire to learn, but

refuse to act on this desire. Regardless of whether Plato uses the term to refer

specifically to one state or another, it is obvious that he was aware that the

illumination of one’s ignorance could lead to both puzzlement and impasse. In the

Meno, for example, we can see both reactions in the slave child on the one hand, and

Meno himself on the other. The former becomes puzzled by his inability to answer

Socrates’ questions, and the awareness of this deficiency leads him to desire more

knowledge (84c). The latter, however, becomes aggressive, distracted from his

discussion of virtue, and questions the worth of inquiring into anything at all (80a-b).

Malignant ignorance, I will argue, transforms what ought to be a moment of

puzzlement into an impasse, and without being able to respond properly to aporia we

have lost a valuable resource, as dialectic will now be useless for triggering our desire

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for wisdom. Malignant ignorance, therefore, reinforces the stillness that comes from

double ignorance by instilling in us an inability to learn.

The Personification of Ignorance in the Symposium

The discussion of self-ignorance in the Symposium is not explicit, and to uncover

what Plato has to say about malignant ignorance here we will have to look deeper into

the text. It is not without significance that the Symposium tells the story of a

celebration at Agathon’s, i.e., the ‘goodman’s’, house. Plato even draws particular

attention to this by adapting a proverb from Eupolis. So for Plato, “Good men go

uninvited to the Goodman’s feast” (Smp, 174b), rather than to the ‘inferior man’s’

feast. Though this claim appears to be simply used to excuse Socrates in bringing an

uninvited guest to the party, it should lead the attentive reader to question the real

relation the ‘goodman’ of the story, and his guests, have to the good. In the

Symposium we are presented with several prominent Athenians, each of whom has a

particular understanding of what is good, and who understand their relationship to the

good in a certain way. Their encomia of Eros are not merely useful for telling us what

they think about the god (or daimon), but also demonstrate their own deficient

understanding of what is good, and particularly their own self-ignorance. Ignorance,

then, is an important theme in the Symposium, though Plato does not simply use

Socrates as a mouthpiece to convey certain ideas on ignorance; instead, he dramatizes

the effects of ignorance in the speakers at the symposium. I believe that every

speaker, including Socrates, is defined by a particular kind of ignorance, and this

ignorance has come to shape their own worldview, and so affect their ability to ascend

to the divine. In the following four sections I will discuss different kinds of ignorance

by focusing on a certain figure in the Symposium. In the first three sections I will

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examine the speeches of Agathon, Aristophanes and Alcibiades to show the problems

of malignant ignorance, and then turn to Socrates himself to highlight the virtue of

‘Socratic Ignorance’.2

The ‘Divine’ Agathon

Agathon, drunk on his victory at a competition amongst tragedians, gives one of the

most fascinating speeches in the Symposium, though the focus of our discussion here

will be on what it shows us about malignant ignorance. In his speech Agathon argues

that Eros is the greatest and most praiseworthy of all the gods (195a), and then paints

a picture of Eros that fits the tragedian himself to a tee. Eros, he argues, is a beautiful

and effeminate young man, delicate and gentle in manner, and soft and supple in

frame. He is moderate, but not through rational self-control; instead, because he is

passionate, and allows all emotions to be subjected to the strongest of them all: eros.

He is wise, but only through his ability to create beautiful poems (196d-e), and, like

the force of ‘Love’ in Empedocles’ philosophy, Eros breeds union and togetherness in

others (197d), and quells strife and discord between enemies (196d).

In giving this account Agathon has put himself forward to his guests as a

divine creature, drawn by love to be like the god himself (197c), and so worthy of

complete devotion. In arguing this way Agathon has put forward the idea that it is

possible for humans to be entirely divine, and he further asserts that this possibility

has been realised by the great poets in general, and himself in particular. Unlike

doubly ignorant people, who are simply unaware of their own deficiency, Agathon,

2 Though Alcibiades’ speech occurs after Socrates’ in the Symposium, it will be necessary to examine Alcibiades’ own self-ignorance to appreciate the superiority of Socrates’ own mindset.

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more problematically, has a strong belief in his own perfection. Though it is doubtful

that he would cling to such an outrageous belief after the celebrations of his victory

die down, it is entirely possible that he could, for example, continue to cling to the

idea that he is wholly moderate, or completely beautiful, for a prolonged period.

Though the tragedian is in a league of his own in thinking himself flawless, his speech

does highlight those far more common times, which will be the focus of this section,

when we think ourselves completely unassailable, either in regards to the possession

of a certain good, or, importantly, in our knowledge of a particular topic. It is not

unusual to find people who, for example, have clung staunchly to a prejudice that they

were raised with in their youth, convinced that they are completely justified in

holding it. But why is such a belief problematic? In an important passage in his

encomium, Socrates states:

no one who is ignorant will love wisdom … or want to become wise. For

what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with

yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent. If you

think you don’t need anything, of course you won’t want what you don’t think

you need (Smp, 204a, my emphasis).

On one level the problems for people who thinks themselves wise are the same as for

doubly ignorant people. Without an awareness of our deficiency they will have no

desire to overcome their present state, and without desire motivating them to

transcend their lack they will live a life of stillness. What is more troubling for the

malignantly ignorant is that they cannot even admit the possibility of a higher point to

which they could raise themselves. For Agathon it is the touch of Eros that raises

people to perfection, and this blessing

Gives peace to men and stillness to the sea,

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Lays winds to rest, and careworn men to sleep (Smp, 197c-d).

For Agathon, stillness is the reward for lovers, as a perfect people neither has the need

to strive for anything higher, nor is such a movement even possible. But, as we learnt

in the first section of this chapter, stillness in mortals cannot lead to anything but the

gradual descent of the soul, as without continual activity we will eventually descend

to a state of complete deficiency. Holding a belief that humans can completely

transcend deficiency, then, is a dangerous state.

Socrates could not begin his encomium of eros until he had shown Agathon,

and all of the other symposiasts, that the desiring person is deficient (199c-201c). All

desire is concerned with motion, and until we have given up on the idea that we are

perfect, and therefore have a right to stillness, we cannot appreciate the proper role

desire plays in our lives. More troublingly, it ensures that aporia can only lead to a

moment of impasse. Unfortunately, though Socrates does question the basic

assumptions of Agathon’s claim to divinity, this attack is far too subtle to lead the

tragedian to an awareness of his own deficiency. Although Agathon is in a league of

his own in claiming complete divinity, there are many examples throughout the

dialogues of those who believe themselves to possess complete knowledge of a

particular topic. None proclaim the superiority of their account more forcefully than

Thrasymachus, who, in Book I of the Republic, declares that his account of justice is

completely praiseworthy (1.338c, cf. 1.337d, 1.338a). It is here that we see most

clearly how one who believes themselves free from deficiency reacts to dialectic.

Socrates engages in a lengthy discussion with Thrasymachus to test the limits

of the latter’s knowledge of justice, and, not surprisingly, the person who thinks

himself perfect cannot even entertain the possibility that, in this discussion, he could

be proved wrong. When Thrasymachus is led to contradict himself he either

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indifferently grunts approval (1.351c, 1.352b), changes the subject by insulting

Socrates (1.343a), or even accuses him of baring false witness to the discussion

(1.340d). From the very beginning Thrasymachus believes that “without trickery

you’ll never be able to overpower me in argument” (Rep, 1.341b), and at the end of

the discussion, when his knowledge has been consistently proved deficient, he holds

to this assertion by stating “Let that be your banquet, Socrates, at the feast of Bendis”

(Rep, 1.354a). Although, prima facie, acknowledging that an effort was worthy of the

goddess of the hunt may seem like praise, we ought to remember that Bendis’

favoured servants are satyrs and maenads – creatures of trickery.

Thrasymachus’ belief that his account was free from deficiency ensured that

his conversation with Socrates only ended in impasse. The same is true for all people

who believe themselves to have attained a divine state, as they blame any doubt they

come to feel about their own possession of knowledge of what is good must be the

result of the trickery of their conversational partner. After all, how else could one find

deficiency in perfection? Because they are unable to come to an awareness of their

own ignorance such people will not feel the pull of desire, and so they will continue to

reserve their right to stillness. But this unwillingness to learn ensures that they will be

unable to overcome their deficient understanding of what is good, and it will also lead

to the degradation of the wisdom that they do possess, as without desire constantly to

push them to reproduce their current understanding, their knowledge will eventually

pass away.

* * *

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Aristophanes and the Absurdity of Ascent

Aristophanes’ account of eros has often been seen as an attractive alternative to

Socrates’ own, as the comedian’s idea of eros as the desire for unity with our ‘other

half’ appeals to our modern understanding of romantic love. Some have even gone so

far as to argue that Plato put forward Aristophanes’ account as a valid,3 if not

superior,4 alternative to Socratic eros. In this section, however, I will argue that

Aristophanes’ speech demonstrates another kind of malignant ignorance, specifically,

the under-estimation of the value of human existence

I wish first to consider an important passage in Aristophanes’ encomium, in

which the playwright alludes to the story of the ‘Net of Hephaestus’.5 This passage

forms the basis of one of the most influential interpretations of Aristophanes’ speech,

given by Arlene Saxonhouse (1985), who argues that it demonstrates that eros is the

desire to return to our original form, or eidos. For Saxonhouse our true form is a state

free from deficiency and desire, and, in arguing this way, as she acknowledges,

Aristophanean and Socratic eros are reasonably similar. Both are felt only by deficient

creatures, and each motivates humans towards a perfect state. In sexual intercourse

we are able to briefly regain the unity that the gods took from us, though the tragedy

of mortal existence is that we can never permanently regain our self-sufficiency. Eros

3 See especially Martha Nussbaum (2007). 4 Allen Bloom (2001) and Gregory Vlastos (1981) each argue that Aristophanes’ account of eros is superior to Socrates’. For those who argue against these positions see Roger Duncan (1977) and Mary Nichols (2004). 5 This story is originally found in Homer’s Odyssey, 7.300-410, and it details Hephaestus’ plot to catch Ares cuckolding him with Aphrodite: Just look at the two lovers … crawled inside my bed, Locked in each other’s arms – the sight makes me burn! But I doubt they’ll want to lie that way much longer, Not a moment more – mad as they are for each other. No, they’ll soon tire of bedding down together, But then my cunning chains will bind them fast

Till our father pays my bride-gifts back in full (7.355-360, trans Fagels, 1996).

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is to be praised, however, because it reminds us of our deficiency, and also of what

we could become.

In what follows I will argue that this is a misreading of Aristophanes’ speech,

and, although the comedian does seem to praise eros as a tool that motivates us

towards ascent, his speech is actually a satire of those who believe that eros can help

us transcend deficiency. The symposiasts would not have been ignorant of Homer,

though it does seem that at least Eryximachus forgets that the Net of Hephaestus is

not a reward for lovers, but a punishment. Though Ares and Aphrodite, like the lovers

in Aristophanes’ encomium, may feel that even sex cannot bring them close enough,

upon being irrevocably tied they quickly learn that this is not a desirable state.

Though they wished for unity, their desire was quickly proved contradictory, as upon

satisfying it they immediately came to recognise their equally strong desire for

individuality. The Net of Hephaestus, then, does not lead us beyond deficiency, it

merely moves us from one deficient state to another, equally undesirable one. Indeed,

Aristophanes’ universe is defined by deficiency. Though Saxonhouse believes that the

circlemen are free from neediness (22), at the beginning of the story we are shown

their jealousy and ambition. Though they are the ‘greatest’ of all mortals, they still

desire the position of the gods. Aristophanes’ gods, however, are also far from being

the perfect Xenophanean gods. The reference to the Net of Hephaestus reminds us

that the gods are lustful, vengeful and jealous creatures, as ripe for ridicule as the

silliest human.

For Aristophanes, there is a contradiction in our desire for ascent, as

regardless of how ‘high’ we raise ourselves we can never escape deficiency. Such

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contradictions are evident in the first three speeches of the Symposium,6 though here I

will only consider Pausanias’ speech.7 Pausanias believes that eros ought to be praised

because it gives the lover license to be free (183c), and yet this freedom leads the

lover to servility, as he throws himself at the feet of his beloved, debasing himself

completely before the young man (184d, cf. 183b). Though Pausanias thought that

eros could raise him to a better existence, it only plunges him into servility. Such

contradictions are evident in Aristophanes’ speech, as, although the circlemen desire

rule, their actions lead them further into servitude. Similarly, the gods’ desire for

independence from humanity only highlights their dependence on us for worship. So

although the lovers think that regaining their original nature will raise them above

deficiency, this is most certainly not the case, as the circlemen are as defined by

deficiency as halfmen. It is deficiency, then, rather than self-sufficiency, which is the

salient feature of all beings.8

For Aristophanes, however, a deficient state is hardly a pitiable one. The

characters of his plays revel in farting, fighting and fornicating, and yet they all have

marvelous, though quotidian virtues. They are pacifists and humanitarians who,

despite often insulting each other, care for their loved ones, and have a concern for the

welfare of the wider community. They are often cowards but they are willing to stand

up to tyrants, and although they are not wise they can spot a ‘bullshit artist’ from a

mile away. For Aristophanes, the truly base people are those who attempt to 6 Though I will here show that Aristophanes suffers from malignant ignorance, and so reject his account of eros, this does not mean that Aristophanes’ belief in the contradictions of the first three speakers is misguided. These speakers too are ignorant of what is good, and as C. D. C. Reeve argues (2009: 301), if we are ignorant of the true nature of the good then our understanding of the world will be incoherent. 7 For a more complete analysis of contradictions in Phaedrus’ speech see Daniel Anderson (1993: 29), and for a similar discussion of Eryximachus’ encomium see Stanley Rosen (1987: 81). 8 Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 153) hints at a similar interpretation of Aristophanes’ speech in her own discussion of the Symposium.

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overcome their deficiency. Because this is an impossible task for humans, acting on

such a contradictory desire can only lead to strife and discord. Aristophanes’ favourite

example is found in those who propagate the Peloponnesian war, as although both

Athens and Sparta can provide for their citizens, certain parties are happy to plunge

the entire peninsula into peril for more power. Such hopeless and pointless war

mongering is also evident in Aristophanes’ speech, as the circlemen desire to usurp

the position of the gods. Acting on our desires for that that is beyond our nature is

dangerous for Aristophanes. Not only can it harm the would-be-gods, but also those

who are caught up in their ambition. And for all this effort, it is often the fate of such

people to end up in a worse position that they were in before, as we saw for the

circlemen, and for Athens.

Though eros is a particular expression of our contradictory desire to overcome

our deficient nature, Aristophanes does have good reason to praise it. Though his

accolades of eros are riddled with satire, love, for Aristophanes, is a relatively benign

expression of our need for perfection, and it can possibly even be helpful to people. In

Aristophanes’ story eros was initially harmful, as it led people to neglect the

necessities of human life, but when Zeus made sex possible humans found a benign

outlet for their absurd desire for completeness. Of course, this is not a perfect

solution. First, our desire for ascent is only temporarily satisfied; and second, love can

lead to a number of new complications, including all of the tribulations that come

with entering (and leaving) relationships, and with starting a family.9 For

Aristophanes, though, we ought not criticise something for being imperfect; instead,

9 Paul Ludwig argues that it is only homosexual couples that have time for political life, because, as Aristophanes argues at 192a-b, the lives of heterosexual couples are complicated with the possibility of childbirth (2002: 33). This draws their attention away from the public sphere, and imposes on them further duties in the home.

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we should simply acknowledge that the trials of love are less harmful that the results

of greed, jealousy, and ambition.

Eros, however, deserves more than merely to avoid scorn; it is also to be

praised, though in an unusual way. In sexual satisfaction we do not simply free

ourselves temporarily from our desire for unity with another, but from our desire for

ascent altogether (191c-d). With this freedom we are able to attend to those things that

truly matter, such as nourishment, shelter, pleasure and society – we cannot escape

the world of deficiency, so we must attend primarily to basic human needs. Eros,

then, is to be praised because it defeats itself when satisfied. Despite everything, eros

is still a problematic desire, though it is a small tradeoff to be in a relationship if we

are able continuously to clear our minds of deluded desires. Eros, then, cannot raise us

to a world in which there is no possibility of being shat on every now and again, but it

ensures that we are not looking up, so we will at least not be hit in the eye.

Aristophanes, unlike Agathon, is perfectly happy to acknowledge his own

deficiencies,10 not only in respect to the possession of the good, but also in wisdom.

Certainly as we shall see when we turn to consider Socratic Ignorance, a willingness

to admit one’s own deficiencies is important in being able to react correctly to the

moment of aporia, however it in itself is not sufficient to ensure that dialectic leads to

puzzlement. For Aristophanes, humans ought only strive for the temporary

satisfaction of their natural desires, as he has a strong belief that the telos of mortal

life is deficiency. In arguing this way Aristophanes demonstrates another kind of

malignant ignorance, and being infected with such a belief ensures that aporia can

only lead to a moment of impasse. For those with such a belief, dialectic simply leads

10 As we shall discover when we turn to consider Socrates’ encomium, however, although Aristophanes can acknowledge his own deficiencies, it is doubtful whether he truly understands the true significance of being deficient.

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us to know what we believed already: that we are ignorant, deficient creatures.

However, the proposition that we ought to utilise this knowledge to motivate us

towards a complete understanding of what is good is absurd for such people. For

Aristophaneans, we ought not pursue such knowledge because: a) it is a waste of

energy, given that the most we will achieve is that we will move from a particular

deficient state to another equally deficient state; b) it complicates our lives with

contradictory desires for ascent, and distracts us from our natural desires for

nourishment, shelter, sex and pleasure, all of which are healthy to satisfy, and are

essential for human life; and c) it is unnecessary, given that deficient creatures are

perfectly capable of leading a ‘good’ (though deficient) life, and have sufficient

knowledge to understand how to do so without harming others. For Aristophaneans,

then, there is nothing for us in the clouds, and those who turn their gaze skywards

ought to be met with laughter. With the belief that deficiency is insurmountable,

dialectic can only lead to impasse, as we cannot seriously entertain the idea that we

ought to strive for greater knowledge of what is good. Though we will be able to

recognise our own ignorance, without an appreciation that we ought to strive for

something greater, we cannot set our rational souls into motion, and so raise ourselves

to a better state.

Alcibiades and the Statue of Silenus

Alcibiades is one of the most fascinating characters in the Symposium given that he

seems to be in a perfect position to strive for knowledge, and yet he continues to

wallow in ignorance. He is clearly aware of his own ignorance (215e), and from this

awareness he has seen the necessity of attending to his rational soul (217a).

Furthermore, it is obvious that he has, at times, had a strong desire for wisdom (218b),

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and he has even caught a glimpse of the divine (216e-217a), and so has seen the

wonderful world that awaits him. But even though Alcibiades is clearly a lover of

knowledge, he does not act on this desire, and so he, like the previous two speakers

we have encountered, is defined by stillness.11 Alcibiades’ stillness is unique,

however, as although he is able often to make some progress towards divinity, all

motions that he makes towards the divine are accompanied shortly after by equally

dramatic retrograde motion towards deficiency, so ultimately his relative position to

the divine always remains the same. In this section I will argue that Alcibiades is

unable to kick-start his rational soul into continuous motion because of yet another

kind of ignorance of human nature, which is shown in his comparison of Socrates to a

statue of Silenus (215b).

Although Socrates is an ugly and ragged man, constantly exhorting his own

ignorance (216d), by comparing him with a Silenus, Alcibiades is arguing that this is

really a veneer, and that once one looks closer one will see that Socrates is, in fact,

completely divine. Alcibiades believes that Socrates is, in essence, both good and

wise, and, indeed, the stories that comprise much of the second half of Alcibiades’

speech seem to confirm this, as here Alcibiades describes Socrates as a wholly brave,

resilient, temperate, and wise man. Because of this Alcibiades believes that Socrates’

protestations of his own deficiency can only be ironic (216e), given that he is clearly 11 Alcibiades’ unique nature has lead some commentators – most notably Jonathan Lear (1999) and Martha Nussbaum (2007) – to claim that his encomium shows the limits of Socrates’ account of eros, given that Alcibiades’ eros seems to be absent from the Scala Amoris; whereas, for Socrates, all eros raises the soul up, Alcibiades’ eros keeps him where he is. As we have seen, however, the Scala Amoris passage details the ascent only of productive lovers, and Socrates does acknowledge that eros can either lead to the descent of the soul unless properly controlled by reason (in the Republic), and when we respond to eros by giving in to pleasure (Phdr, 250e-251a), or that it can have no real effect at all (as we saw with the erotic non-lovers). Alcibiades’ eros, then, is not of a different kind than the one Socrates has describes (in the way that, for Pausanias, Uranian and Pandemonean Eros were), though it is a different expression of this desire.

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in possession of greater wisdom than Alcibiades. As Mary Nichols argues, however,

Alcibiades misunderstands that mortals occupy an intermediary position between

ignorance and wisdom (2002: 202),12 so it does not follow that only gods are wiser

than fools. And yet, for Alcibiades, this seems to be entirely the case. When Socrates

helped illuminate Alcibiades’ ignorance the latter declares himself no better than “the

most miserable slave” (Smp, 215a). Though the great general once thought himself

divine (Alc, 104a), it would seem that, for Alcibiades, after this illusion is shattered,

the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that he exists in total poverty. For

Alcibiades, there are only gods and miserable slaves – and also Socrates, of course,

who is a god who dresses like a slave. Though Socrates does have more knowledge of

what is good than Alcibiades it does not follow that Socrates is divine. Though many

lovers believe their beloved to be god-like (Phdr, 251a-b), Alcibiades’ situation is

more problematic given that he believes that the only other possible state one can

exist in is slavery.

For people who have won themselves a statue of Silenus (by subterfuge or

trade) possessing divinity may seem like a simple proposition. The images of the gods

reside inside the ugly little figure, and to come into their presence is as simple as

cracking the statue open. It is clear that Alcibiades believes something similar about

Socrates. Divinity resides in him in the way small carvings of the gods lie still inside a

Silenus, and that one needs simply to claim the man, and convince him to ‘open up’ to

partake in his wisdom (216e-217a). After some ineffective attempts to trick Socrates

into imparting his wisdom to the young general, Alcibiades thinks it prudent to set up

a deal: his body for Socrates’ knowledge (218c-e). Prima facie, it seems that Socrates 12 Though she admits that it is likely that the Alcibiades II was not written by Plato, for Nichols this conclusion is somewhat confirmed when in this dialogue Alcibiades puts forward the view that there is no-one who is between ignorance and wisdom (Alc II, 139a-b).

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rejects this deal because, as he says, it would be like exchanging “gold…for bronze”

(Smp, 218e-219a), as the value of a good soul far outweighs any physical pleasure.

However, Socrates ultimately rejects this deal because it is bad for Alcibiades: “you

should think twice,” Socrates says, “because you could be wrong, and I may be of no

use to you. The mind’s eye becomes sharp only when the body’s eyes go past their

prime” (Smp, 219a). Of course, wisdom is supremely valuable for everyone, but

Socrates himself would be of no use to Alcibiades if the latter simply expects the

former to pour wisdom into him, as one pours wine into a vessel. As Socrates cautions

Agathon at the beginning of the Symposium, we are not filled with knowledge as one

fills an empty cup (175d-e);13 instead, as we learn in his encomium, we must actively

produce knowledge for ourselves. Passively allowing someone to pour knowledge

into us is useless for three reasons. First, we cannot simply put sight into blind eyes,

as we learnt in the Republic, as someone who is only familiar with a world of slime

would instantly reject the illumination of a world of gold as absurd. Knowledge of the

divine can only come through the gradual development of one’s own understanding,

motivated by both a rational and an erotic desire for wisdom. Alcibiades, however,

does not face this problem, but it is a danger of which lovers must be wary.

Alcibiades does make significant progress in Socrates’ presence, as he is led to

glimpse ‘godlike’ and ‘beautiful’ things, instilling in him an erotic desire for the

divine. Even this world-view, however, would be useless without a commitment on

Alcibiades’ part to ensure that his soul remains in their presence.

13 This passage begins a motif that permeates the Symposium, and is again used in Book II of the Laws, in which Plato uses the image of drinking to describe various approaches to education. Though it is far beyond the scope of this thesis to explore this device in any great detail, it is important to note that Alcibiades is the kind of person who will happily drain a full jar of wine, and yet immediately be unsatisfied, and demand that others fill it for him again (214a). This passage demonstrates Alcibiades’ passive approach to gaining knowledge, which ensures that he will never be wholly satisfied, as any gains he is given will ultimately pass away.

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It is clear that the general fails to reproduce those gains that he has made,

given that he states “the moment I leave [Socrates’] side, I go back to my old ways”

(Smp, 216b). Alcibiades equates possession with satisfaction, and this is hardly

surprising given that he believes that humans are either divine or slave-like.

Satisfaction is an all-or-nothing feeling: one is either satisfied, or one is not. In

Socrates’ presence, when he sees wonderful images, he believes himself to be

completely divine, and therefore wholly satisfied, and when Socrates leaves, and his

ability to see the world in this way fades, he believes himself to be, once again, a

slave. Alcibiades’ fault here is that he is ignorant of the difference between wealth

and resource. A wealthy person, despite their plentiful assets, cannot truly be said to

‘possess’ these things if she will eventual squander them all. A resourceful person, by

contrast, is far richer that the wealthy person, even if she is presently in greater

poverty, given that she is able to generate more wealth for herself, and to preserve it

as it is spent. This highlights an important danger of which lovers must be aware: we

cannot set our standards too low, lest we become satisfied with a superior, but still

deficient, state. As he is ignorant of intermediary states between poverty and plenty he

cannot see that, even with his significant developments, he still has a long way to go

before he reaches a divine understanding of the world, and because of this he cannot

see the necessity of continually striving for wisdom once Socrates has left.

In Socrates’ presence Alcibiades is able to ascend to a higher level of

understanding, but because he is ignorant of human nature – i.e., that we are

intermediary beings – he cannot understand that these developments are his own.14

Though his eros for wisdom is his daimon – that thing that allows him to

communicate with the divine – because he equates possession with satisfaction he 14 This is a lesson that Socrates, quite forcefully, attempts to impress upon Alcibiades in the Alcibiades I (113a-c).

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posits his daimon as external to himself.15 In Socrates’ presence he is able to become

wise, therefore it must be Socrates himself who fills him with knowledge.16 What

Alcibiades does not realise is that Socrates merely facilitates the general’s own ascent

by testing the limits of his knowledge. In aporia Alcibiades is able to overcome his

own ignorance, and develop his understanding of what is good, but aporia, for the

general, can only lead to a moment of impasse given that, when Socrates leaves, all of

the progress that he makes will pass away. Though Alcibiades does feel a desire for

wisdom, without someone around to encourage him to act on this desire, he remains,

for all intents and purposes, still.17 The irony of this situation is that the higher that

Socrates raises Alcibiades, the more the latter will resent the former when Alcibiades

allows all of the knowledge that he has gained to fade away. Given that he believes

that it was Socrates who raised him to divinity, he accuses Socrates of neglecting him

when he falls back into servility. He wants Socrates to impregnate him with wisdom,

but he does not realise that he has been impregnated with the most wonderful gift a

lover can bestow. The final reason that it would be useless for Socrates simply to pour

his wisdom into the young general is that Socrates himself is an intermediary being,

15 For an expanded discussion of this point see John Rist (1967: 28-9). 16 We may wonder how someone as passive as Alcibiades makes any development at all given this mindset, and certainly in the Symposium itself we are given no explicit clues. In the Alcibiades I, however, Socrates does ensure that, at least when he is around, Alcibiades is not simply passively uptaking knowledge (Alc, 106b, 114e), but engaging in the conversation actively. Given that in every dialogue, including in his speech in the Symposium, Socrates utilises dialectic to bring people to aporia to help them to learn, it is most likely that this is the method that Socrates used to help Alcibiades lift himself closer to the divine. 17 It is significant that, upon his entrance to the party, he demands that others carry him to Agathon (212d), i.e., to the goodman. Alcibiades cannot attain the good for himself unless he is taken to it by another. This is to be contrasted with Socrates, whom Agathon insists be lead to his house, but Aristodemus quickly cautions him against this, and insists that Socrates is fully capable of finding his way to the goodman’s house without being led by another (175a-b). We shall begin to see what grants Socrates this ability in the next section, and have a full understanding at the end of Chapter 4.

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and that his level of wisdom would be far closer to that of a slave’s than a god’s. The

greatest gift that Socrates can bestow, then, is the Bacchic frenzy of philosophy, i.e., a

love of wisdom, as this allows Alcibiades to make his own gains for himself, rather

than relying on the deficient knowledge of an older man. Unfortunately, because

Alcibiades is ignorant of human nature, all of these points are lost on him, and

because he cannot act on his desire he is oppressed by feelings of hopelessness.

Without Socrates, he thinks, it is impossible to reach the divine, and, because of this

impasse, he is doomed to deficiency.

‘I know that I know not’ – A Discussion of Socratic Ignorance

An Introduction to Socratic Ignorance

One of Socrates’ most famous and frequently given claims is his disavowal of

knowledge, which is often paraphrased in the literature to ‘I know that I know not’,

and is labeled, appropriately enough, as ‘Socratic Ignorance’. Most analyses of this

concept focus on the Apology, which contains its most well known formulation (21d),

but there is evidence of Socrates disavowing knowledge in the Symposium also, at

175e, and a further disavowal of knowledge is recounted second-hand through the

speech of Alcibiades (216d). In this section I will assess Socratic Ignorance within the

context of the Symposium, and I believe that this will be beneficial, as by focusing

here we are able to gain a unique insight into the significance of this assertion because

of the particular emphasis of the dialogue.

Until relatively recently most commentators have argued either that Socrates’

disavowal of knowledge is either wholly ironic, serving only to stimulate

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conversational partners to put forward their own view,18 or they take Socrates at his

word, and see the claim merely as his acknowledgement that he really knows

nothing.19 More recently there have been some influential attempts to reconcile

Socrates’ occasional claims to, and demonstrations of, his own knowledge with his

frequent protestations of ignorance by arguing that, although he does possess

knowledge of such things as mathematics, he lacks knowledge of things like the

nature of virtues and the soul.20 Such interpretations fail to capture the significance of

such a mindset for the philosopher as a lover of wisdom, however, and most

contemporary analyses see Socratic Ignorance as an essential part of our quest for

knowledge.21 In the recognition of our deficiency we free ourselves from the illusion

that we are knowledgeable, and with this awareness we are in the best position to

learn.

Though I believe that this interpretation is ultimately accurate, it is not yet

sufficiently fleshed out to eliminate certain ambiguities, and so fully explain the

significance of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge. To uncover this ambiguity let us

consider the following question: ‘How do I know that sugar is sweet?’ We could

answer this in many ways, but here I will consider two: 1) we could have tested every

grain of sugar, and so then claim to know that sugar is sweet from this – or, at least,

tested a great deal of sugar and generalized from this; or 2) we could know the nature

of sugar, understand that it is essentially sweet, and from here claim to know that 18 Such an interpretation can be traced back as far as Aristotle, who, in his Sophistical Refutations, argues that Socrates disavowed knowledge to ensure that the definition reached in conversation was as complete as possible (183b5-10). For a more contemporary advocate of this view see Norman Gulley (1968). 19 In the ancient world this view is most famously put forward by Cicero in his Academica, but it is also held by some modern commentators, such as Charles Kahn (1999: 89). 20 See especially Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith (1994). 21 See especially Terrence Irwin (1995: 17) and Mary Margaret MacKenzie (1988: 333).

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sugar is sweet. Each of these answers assumes a very different kind of knowledge

claim, and we ought to keep this in mind when understanding the phrase ‘I know that I

know not’.22 Immediately we must reject the idea that Socrates, like the person who

has tested every grain of sugar, bases his claim to know his own ignorance on having

tested the limits of his own knowledge in respect to every topic. The practical

concerns here are immediately apparent. Even by actively undertaking such a task

through dialectic it would be beyond temporally finite beings to claim rigorous

knowledge of their own ignorance before their deaths. Far more troubling for such a

view, however, are the philosophical concerns that we have identified in the previous

three sections. Without self-knowledge we will often not be able to become aware of

our own deficiency through dialectic, and even if we could there is no guarantee that

we would act on this knowledge. Socratic Ignorance cannot merely be an awareness

of the deficiency of our knowledge, as this in itself does not place us in a position to

22 One more alternative that it will be important at least to note is that one could argue that one has had a lot of sugar, all of which has been sweet, and therefore, although one cannot say with certainty, one can be sufficiently warranted to assert that all sugar is sweet. Gregory Vlastos (1985) gave a famous analysis of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge, though rather than focusing on the significance of this claim for learning, he instead attempts to understand how Socrates could simultaneously assert that he knows nothing, but also state that he knows, for example, that the wicked man will have a worse life than a good man (G, 512b). Vlastos’ solution is to assert that Socrates used the term ‘knowledge’ ambiguously, both in a technical and in a quotidian way. Vlastos separates out ‘certain knowledge’, which is infallible, stable and divine, from ‘elentic knowledge’, which is often full of holes, but which is usually enough to satisfy our practical needs. Applying this to our current discussion we could argue that Socrates’ claim that ‘I know that I know not’ is an elentic statement, so although it is far from certain, Socrates is warranted to state it through experience, and that this is useful enough to help him in his quest for knowledge. This account, however, seems unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, whenever Socrates disavows knowledge he does so without hesitation, indicating that it may be more than merely a strong belief, but something that he knows with certainty. Second, though at the end of an elenchus Socrates usually admits the possibility that what they have together concluded may not yet be true, Socrates never admits the possibility that he may be wrong in suggesting that he is ignorant.

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strive freely for wisdom. Such a view would further assume an understanding of

ourselves in relation to the good.

As Kierkegaard claims, Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge is not based on

empirical evidence:

But ignorance, is a truly philosophical position, and at the same time is also

completely negative. In other words, Socrates’ ignorance was by no means an

empirical ignorance; on the contrary, he was a very well informed person, was

well read in the poets and philosophers, had much experience in life, and

consequently was not ignorant in the empirical sense (Hong ed, 1989, 169).

In agreeing with Kierkegaard here I am not claiming that feeling aporia in our

knowledge of particular topics is unessential in the development of our knowledge,

but that these moments are dependent on our ability to disavow knowledge in general,

which in turn is based on a broader philosophical understanding. Socratic Ignorance is

not merely an awareness of any particular deficiency, nor a collected awareness of all

of our particular deficiencies, but a general mindset, or a way of life, in which we

understand that none of our claims to knowledge are perfect, nor could they be. In

what follows I will argue that Socrates’ knowledge of his own ignorance follows

necessarily from his own self-knowledge, and I hope to show that the kind of self-

knowledge that is prioritised in the Symposium is necessary to know our own

ignorance, and therefore for ensuring the motion of the rational soul.

Intermediacy Revisited

The three speakers examined previously understand themselves in very different

ways. In comparing himself to Eros, whom he posits as the ‘greatest of the gods’,

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Agathon argues himself divine; Aristophanes, by contrast, believes himself, and all

other creatures, to be defined solely by deficiency; and Alcibiades sees himself as

completely divine at certain times, and wholly deficient at others. It is Socrates alone

who posits himself as an intermediary being, and the first task he sets himself in his

encomium is to demonstrate the distance that lovers occupy from both divinity as well

as from a state of total deficiency (202a-e). For our present purposes the most

significant claim that Socrates makes is that we exist in between wisdom and

ignorance (202a), and so although we are able to develop our knowledge to a great

extent, we will never be able to long hold onto a rigorous understanding of the world

as a whole. Because his speech immediately follows Agathon’s, his initial priority is

to deny that we are wise and good creatures through arguing that we love only what

we lack, but he then proceeds to claim that, because lovers constantly strive towards

the divine, we are not wholly deficient creatures either.

The real development that Socrates makes over the other speakers, however,

as R. E. Allen argues (1991: 49), is to claim that lovers share in both deficiency and

divinity simultaneously, and this is the ultimate ‘moral’ of the myth of Eros’ lineage.

Eros is a child of both Poverty and Plenty, and because of this “his life is set to be like

theirs” (Smp, 203b, my emphasis), rather that to be like one or the other. Eros is not

simply like his father at one time, and like his mother at another. As Socrates states,

eros is “always poor” (Smp, 203c), because regardless of what he comes to possess

everything that he gains will pass away. But Socrates’ speech is still an encomium of

Eros (and eros), though Socrates, unlike Agathon, does not simply pick all of the best

features that he can and attribute them to the figure; instead, he attempts to honour

Eros appropriately. Eros is a praise-worthy figure for his ability to continually spring

to life, and raise himself to levels unthinkable by most mortals (203e), though he

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hedges this claim by reminding his audience that everything that Eros possesses slips

away. Because of his mixed lineage, Eros, like all lovers, is an intermediary being,

and to have such a nature is to be governed by both deficiency and resourcefulness

simultaneously, neither wholly defined by poverty, nor wholly capable of

transcending it. Nowhere is this dual nature shown more clearly than in Socrates’

account of how mortals can possess something permanently.

As we have learnt in previous chapters, the gods, for Socrates, are in complete

possession of the good, and they hold on to these goods eternally. It is for this reason

that the gods exist in a state of Being. Intermediary beings are also capable of

possessing the good for a prolonged period of time, but he admits that the life of the

good person will only ever approximate that of the good god. Our share in divinity

gives us the resources to possess what we lack, but because we are also defined by

deficiency everything that we come to possess begins to pass away the moment we

attain it. Instead of continually existing in the same state, then, mortals approximate

such an existence through reproduction. Let us consider what Plato has to say about

the ‘permanent’ possession of knowledge to clarify these issues:

And it’s not just in his body, but in his soul, too [that he is being renewed], for

none of his manners, customs, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, or fears ever

remain the same. And what is still far stranger than that is that not only does

one branch of knowledge come to be in us while another passes away, and that

we are never the same even in respect to our knowledge, but that each piece of

knowledge has the same fate. For what we call studying exists because

knowledge is constantly leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of

knowledge, while studying puts a fresh memory in place of what went away,

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thereby preserving a piece of knowledge, so that it seems to be the same (Smp,

207e-208a).

Consider, by contrast, the way Socrates discusses divine things later in his encomium:

“and all other beautiful things share in that [the divine Beauty], in such a way that

when those others come to be or pass away, this does not become the least bit smaller

or greater nor suffer any change” (Smp, 211b). Though the gods remain in continual

and unchanging possession of their wisdom, intermediary beings are incapable of

clinging to one numerically identical memory eternally. Instead, because we are

defined by deficiency we can only claim to ‘possess’ a certain piece of knowledge

because we are continually replacing our memories with new, but similar ones.

Because of our dual nature our ‘permanent’ possession of knowledge, or any other

good, will involve moments of wealth and deficiency in equal share. Reproduction is

an activity in which we continually come to possess something (the moment of

wealth), only to begin losing it immediately (the moment of deficiency). As Plato

argues, we cannot really exist in the same state over time; the best that intermediary

beings can hope for is merely to ‘seem the same’. The significance of this for our

present interpretation of Socratic Ignorance is that, no matter how much we develop

our knowledge, even if it comes to approximate the wisdom of the gods, every

particular memory we have is passing away, so even the wisest person will still share

in deficiency.

The Paradox of Socratic Ignorance

With the previous discussion in place we are now in a position to establish why

Socrates’ self-knowledge allows him to deny knowledge in general, and, in light of

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this, show the importance of such a mindset to lovers of wisdom. Before we begin this

discussion, however, it is important to note the peculiarity of the assertion that ‘I

know that I know not’, given that it simultaneously affirms and denies knowledge.

Many philosophers have failed to recognise this, and of those that haven’t many

attempt to avoid interpreting this claim as paradoxical, and instead try to explain this

peculiarity through other means.23 Mary Margaret MacKenzie (1988), for example, is

able to avoid interpreting this claim as a paradox by separating out two different types

of knowledge, one dealing with objects in the world, and the other with knowledge

itself, i.e., what knowledge would be like if it were possessed. She then argues that

Socrates has the second kind of knowledge, but not the first, and so his disavowal of

knowledge amounts to a claim that he has genuine second-order knowledge that his

first-order knowledge is deficient. In my interpretation of Socratic Ignorance I will

avoid such methods, however, and argue that we ought to interpret Socrates’

disavowal of knowledge as a truly paradoxical claim.

To begin our discussion it is important to note that Socrates only disavows

knowledge when someone has either assumed that he is knowledgeable, in general

(Smp, 175e, 216d, Alc, 124c, Rep, 1.338b), or in particular (G, 509a, M, 71b, 79c-d),

or after he has been accused of professing divine wisdom (Apo, 20e). At these points

Socrates is able, not only to deny being wise, but also to claim confidently that he

knows that he is not wise, because he understands that he is an intermediary being.24

23 One notable exception is Hyun Hochsmann (1985). 24 There is evidence in many of these dialogues that Socrates appreciates his own intermediacy, though this point is not often raised as explicitly as in the Symposium and the Republic. As early as in the Apology Socrates already believes that there are three kinds of beings: gods, mortals, and spirits, that share in both elements of a divine and mortal nature (27b-28a); and Socrates’ division of ignorance, right opinion, and knowledge in the Meno is extremely similar to his discussion of these issues at the beginning of his encomium in the Symposium, where he assigns each of these to certain kinds of beings.

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To know oneself as such a being gives one license to deny knowledge in general for

two reasons. First, we understand that we are deficient creatures, at an intermediary

point between wisdom and ignorance. We are therefore distanced from the divine, and

so lack greatly in the possession of knowledge. Second, regardless of the amount of

knowledge that we have come to possess, we still appreciate that we cannot escape

our deficient nature, and that this is reflected in our knowledge, as whatever we have

gained is already passing away, if it hasn’t completely already. With self-knowledge

we understand both our distance from the divine, and that our knowledge lacks

permanence, and so we are able to claim to know that we are ignorant in general, even

before we have tested the limits of our understanding through dialectic.

The assertion ‘I know that I know not’ is not simply expressive of the

deficiency of our knowledge, however, as the claim itself mirrors our own dual nature

by suggesting both ignorance and knowledge simultaneously. It is important to

remember that the knowledge that led us to understand the deficiency of our wisdom

also affirms its value. Mortal knowledge shares in both poverty and wealth, but

although it lacks the rigorousness of divine knowledge, and despite its temporal

finitude, in possessing it we are able to raise ourselves above pure deficiency. As we

learnt above, it is knowledge that smashes through the limitations that ignorance

imposes on us on our ascent to the divine. Because they recognise the value of

knowledge, those with self-knowledge will be lovers of wisdom, though rather than

having this feeling only on a particular level, having come to recognise, through

whatever means, their ignorance of particular topics, such people will feel a general

desire for wisdom, as they know that their understanding of any topic will be

deficient. People with self-knowledge, therefore, cannot but be philosophers, and

philosophy will be their general mindset. The phrase ‘I know that I know not’ is only

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one way to express one’s Socratic Ignorance, then; another is Socrates’ equally, if not

more frequently given imperative to strive continually for knowledge. Those with

self-knowledge will seek out situations in which they can test the limits of their

understanding, then seek out environments to trigger their erotic desire to produce

wisdom to overcome their particular deficiencies.25

The most proficient way to test one’s knowledge is through dialectic, and the

people with self-knowledge will eagerly seek out the moment of aporia. And such

people are in a better position to respond adequately to aporia than those in the past

three sections. Unlike Agathon, those who understand themselves as intermediary

beings will enter a dialectical discussion with the full expectation that their

knowledge will be proved deficient. Therefore, they will not see the illumination of

their ignorance as the result of trickery, and consequently will not by blinded by anger

at their conversational partner, as such figures as Thrasymachus were. If anything, as

the Eleatic Stranger suggests in the Sophist (230c), such people will become angry at

themselves that they could have been so foolish as to hold an inconsistent or

incomplete belief, and will feel relieved that their illusions have now been dispelled.

Indeed, because they have a desire to learn it is more likely that they would happily

welcome a partner who will quickly, efficiently, and continually show them the limits

of their knowledge, as only in aporia do we have the potential to learn.26 Those like

25 It is important to note that self-knowledge is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being an intermediary being. It is not a necessary condition because lovers occupying an intermediary position between the deficient and the divine need not be cognizant of their own dual nature to occupy such a position. And it is not a sufficient condition, given that the gods can have self-knowledge that they are wholly divine creatures, free from poverty and deficiency. Only intermediary beings, however, can be Socratically Ignorant, given that only those who are governed by the principles of poverty and plenty simultaneously can both affirm and deny their own ignorance at the same time. 26 This seems to be Socrates’ reaction also, as in the Republic he states: “When you say that I learn from others you are right, Thrasymachus, but when you say I am not

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Aristophanes would laugh at such eagerness, but because people with self-knowledge

recognises their capacity to overcome pure deficiency they will not snigger at such

opportunities. Aristophanes’ laughter at deficiency shows that he does not truly

understand the tragedy of being separated from the divine. Those with self-

knowledge, by contrast, are the people most aware of their own deficiency, and the

detrimental effects it has on their lives. Because they take their ignorance so seriously,

they will never simply laugh at those who strive for knowledge.

In thinking this way, people with self-knowledge avoid the impasses that face

both Agathon and Aristophanes in overcoming their ignorance, but the real benefits

for such people comes when they are cured of Alcibiades’ malignant ignorance.

Because being an intermediary being is to be governed by two principles

simultaneously, people with self-knowledge understand that they can never be simply

ignorant or wise. Regardless of the developments they make, such people will

recognise that they will never transcend deficiency, and so it will be necessary

continually to strive for knowledge, even when they have developed their wisdom to

near-divine levels. If at any stage in their ascent they over-value their own

developments, and come to think of themselves as god-like, they would have been

caught in the trap that snared Agathon, as those who think themselves perfect cannot

respond appropriately to the moment of aporia. In understanding that they can never

escape their own deficiency, regardless of how high they ascend, aporia will continue

to lead to moments of puzzlement, rather than impasse.

Like Eros, most people oscillate between ignorance and wisdom. We all have

the resources to possess knowledge, however we will soon by plunged back towards

grateful [to my conversational partners], that isn’t true. I show what gratitude I can, but since I have no money, I can give only praise” (Rep, 1.338b).

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deficiency when it is forgotten. Even those with malignant ignorance have the

potential to gain knowledge – they simply cannot benefit from dialectic. Those who

understand themselves as intermediate beings, however, are able consistently to

become aware of the deficiency of their knowledge, and with this awareness they will

be able to make the knowledge they do possess more valuable. People with self-

knowledge recognises the value of their knowledge, despite its inherent deficiency,

and so knows that it would be a tragedy simply to let it pass away. Because they are

able to respond to the moment of aporia appropriately, such people are in a position

continually to replace their knowledge, and in doing so go some way to halting the

cycle of endless oscillation between ignorance and wisdom, and to preserve their

proximity to divinity. Though their memories will still be passing away, because they

‘seem to be the same’ over time, the knowledge that they do possess will become

more valuable, as it has transcended its temporal finitude to a great extent. If such

people are able constantly to strive for more knowledge, and reproduce it as they

ascend – and we have seen that there are no impediments in their doing so –, then

they alone can truly claim to be ‘wise’, in any meaningful sense of the word.

To claim ‘I know that I know not’ is highly paradoxical in that it both affirms

and denies knowledge simultaneously. Self-knowledge, after all, is a knowledge that

informs us of our own ignorance, and the deficiency of all of our knowledge.

Knowledge of our own intermediacy, however, affirms the value of our knowledge

also, and leads us to understand that attaining knowledge is an essential moment in

transcending total deficiency. With this simultaneous awareness of the value and

deficiency of our knowledge we see the necessity of reproducing our memories, and

in doing so we are able to grant our knowledge a value that it previously lacked, and

so be able to claim to ‘possess’ knowledge, in a way like that of the gods. Although

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ignorance usually serves as the limit to our ascent, or a stillness in our rational soul,

Socratic Ignorance not only leads us to learn, but such a mindset is the one that most

assures that our rational soul stays in motion. Socratic Ignorance, therefore, is an

essential element in the life of the philosopher.

Some Concluding Words on Socratic Ignorance

Now that we have considered the benefits of Socratic Ignorance we must determine

how we are able to overcome self-ignorance. Unfortunately, Plato remains relatively

silent on this issue, and we are never told how Socrates himself came to have self-

knowledge. From what we have learnt, however, it is clear that there is no reliable

method by which we can overcome our self-ignorance, as dialectic cannot assuredly

lead to puzzlement until after we have self-knowledge. Given this, it becomes clear

that Plato has said the most he can on the issue when he asserts that philosophy begins

in wonder (Tht, 155d). Philosophy begins with an event that shakes us from our

dogmatic slumber, in which we either believed ourselves to be wise, or were simply

unaware of our own ignorance, by illuminating the deficiency of our knowledge, and

instilling in us a voracious desire to learn. Such a situation may happen by chance, in

an Archimedean moment of discovery, or by being inspired to become wise by a close

teacher, or even through the constant badgering of an annoying gadfly. None of these

methods will assuredly work for us, but when this moment comes we have to utilise it

as best we can.

Though this initial moment of wonder is instrumental in helping us overcome

our self-ignorance, it in itself is not sufficient for bringing us to self-knowledge. First,

it is likely that this moment will only indirectly lead us to become aware of our self-

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ignorance. For example, the initial experience may only lead us to understand that we

were ignorant in regards to one topic, and although such an experience confirms that

we were not divine, we may only consciously come to this conclusion after some time

– possibly years. Second, even at this point we could hardly claim to know that we are

not divine, as here it is most likely we would only have a weak belief of this. The

moment of wonder, then, is an essential, though deficient moment in beginning the

movement of our rational soul, so now we must establish how we can utilise this

moment to overcome our self-ignorance.

The answer may initially appear somewhat unsatisfying but, for Plato, it seems

that to understand ourselves as intermediary beings we simply have to give ourselves

strong enough evidence of our own intermediacy. Our belief in our intermediate

nature will become stronger as: i) our knowledge is shown to be deficient in a whole

range of topics; ii) we overcome our ignorance and develop our knowledge in several

cases; iii) come to understand that, at times, we have forgotten what we learnt; and iv)

experience situations in which we have developed our knowledge to a great extent,

and yet are still unable to give a complete account of a topic. Of course, without self-

knowledge these developments will be staggered, as it is not until we are wholly

‘infected’ with Socratic Ignorance that aporia will reliably lead to a moment of

puzzlement for us. However, the more we see ourselves repeatedly undergoing the

process of recognizing our deficiency, overcoming it, only to see that we have not

completely transcended it, the more we will appreciate our own nature, and the

stronger our belief in our intermediacy will grow. With a strengthening belief in our

own intermediacy our dialectical conversations will be smoother. Once we have a

strong enough belief in our own intermediacy we will have sufficient motivation to

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look at ourselves, and discover the philosophical basis for our own intermediacy, and

so gain self-knowledge.

This, of course, is a long and difficult process for Plato, and even after we

have attained self-knowledge we must still struggle to preserve it. After all, our

knowledge of what is good is not permanent, and there is always the possibility that

we will fall back into ignorance. We need to be in a position to reproduce our

knowledge of what is good, then, as it passes away. There are several influences that

could exacerbate this process. Poets and pedagogues often masterfully produce

images that are at odds with the truth, which encourage or confuse us into pursuing

deficient ends. Furthermore, as we satisfy material pleasures our soul is drawn back

towards the world of becoming, obscuring our vision of the divine, and preventing us

from being able to reproduce the knowledge of what is good we had previously

attained. And finally, it is in our nature to simply forget what we have learnt, so even

in the best environment we will still need to be able to quickly and efficiently

reproduce our knowledge. Maintaining self-knowledge is not an easy thing in itself,

of course, and there are two concerns of which lovers, particularly, must be aware.

First, raising oneself only part of the way to the divine is an amazing feat, and even

here the world will seem more fantastic than we could have previously imagined. But

as we begin to see the world as one of gold, i.e., one infused with the good, we ought

to be careful not to be content with a partial view of this world, as dazzling as it may

be. Second, despite all of our efforts, we will inevitably see the deficiency of anything

we gain, but we must not become despondent about this, and come to believe, like

Aristophanes, that ‘ascent’ is simply a movement from one deficient state to another

equally problematic one. To avoid these traps we must consistently remind ourselves

of our dual nature, and prove to ourselves, through dialectic, that we are both deficient

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and resourceful. We must be sure never to rest on our achievements for too long, lest

we begin to forget our own nature, and so fall back into a position in which our

response to aporia is problematic. Thankfully, with a sufficiently strong belief in our

own intermediacy, and particularly with self-knowledge, we will feel the constant pull

of philosophy which encourages us to seek out aporia, learn from it, and so become a

living image of divinity.27

A Brief Coda to Part I of this Thesis

Having established the role that both reason and eros have in coming to possess the

good, and the necessity of Socratic Ignorance in this process, the first part of this

thesis is complete. But before we begin the application of the theoretical framework

that has been hitherto established to the Scala Amoris passage in the Symposium it

will be worthwhile to overview what we have learnt thus far.

Mortals are sundered from the divine, and in comparison to the gods we live a

miserable and deficient life, poor in all of those goods that are to be valued. However,

because we are intermediary beings, and creatures of becoming we are able to

transcend our pitiable state and come to possess those things that are essential to the

good life. Only in eros, however, do we find a desire strong enough to push us

continually towards the heavens, and to preserve our proximity to it, and resilient

enough to by unconcerned with the monumental difficulty of such a task. Eros,

however, is a problematic desire, and it needs to be correctly guided if it is to be an

effective tool in our ascent to the divine. We are reliant on reason to prevent eros from

27 My discussion of Socratic Ignorance within the context of the Symposium has one notable gap: I have not yet addressed Socrates’ claim that the only thing that he understands is ta erotika, or the ‘art of love’ (177e). I will consider this passage in Chapter 4 when I turn to consider Socrates’ position on the Scala Amoris.

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drawing us towards deficient goods, and to direct the appetitive soul towards

environments in which erotic desires for the truly good can be nurtured. However, as

we learnt in this chapter reason needs to educate itself in what is good lest it steer our

erotic desires towards deficient ends. To ensure that we are able to both continually

gain new knowledge of what good, and to reproduce this knowledge, it is necessary to

be Socratically Ignorant, i.e., to know ourselves as intermediary beings, which breeds

in us a general desire for wisdom, which in turn drives us towards dialectic so that the

limits of our knowledge may be tested. Not only does self-knowledge motivate us to

seek out the moment of aporia, it also ensures that it will consistently lead to

moments of puzzlement, rather than moments of impasse.

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PART II: THE ASCENT TO DIVINITY

Chapter 4: Catching a Glimpse of Divine Beauty

At the dramatic and philosophical zenith of the Symposium is Socrates’ description of

the ascent of the lover from the point at which he1 pursues a single beautiful body

through to the time that he turns his attention towards a whole ‘sea’ of beautiful

objects, and finally divine Beauty itself. This passage (210a-212b), often referred to

as the Scala Amoris, or the ‘Ladder of Lover’, has been of particular importance to

Plato scholars for millennia, both for its philosophical complexity and its aesthetic

vigour. But, undoubtedly, another central reason why it has been of perennial interest

to so many readers of Plato has as much to do with what is left out of Socrates’ story

as what he puts in. Though he advances a view we can clearly identify as Platonic,

Socrates gives us only the broadest outline of how the lover achieves his vision of the

divine. The reader is given a great deal of latitude to play with the ideas that Plato

discusses here, and this is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it is useful for setting

the rational souls of readers into motion, but, on the other, it is difficult to determine

what Plato was hoping to impart to prospective lovers for their own journey to the

divine, even if we acknowledge that he did not attempt to give a complete and

rigorous doctrine of ascent here.

Due to the particular way that Plato constructs this passage, and Socrates’

encomium as a whole, there are a plethora of different interpretations of the Scala

Amoris which sometimes vary so greatly from each other that it is difficult to believe

that they could all refer back to the same eight hundred words. With the theoretical

1 When referring to the lover of the Scala Amoris passage I will be using the male pronoun so that there is no disharmony between my discussion and the frequent quotes from the Symposium, in which Plato also uses the male pronoun.

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framework that was established in the first part of the thesis, however, we are in a

position to work our way through many of the ambiguities that riddle this passage. In

doing this we can go some way towards resolving the major points of contention. In

the first part of my reading I will i) give an initial profile of the lover who is climbing

the Scala Amoris, ii) establish what motivates the lover to ascend, iii) determine the

relationship that the lover has to the objects of his desire as he moves from one rung

to the next; iv) explore how the lover comes to possess the truly good life; and v)

question whether the lover’s ascent really ‘ends’ with him remaining in the presence

of the divine. Before I begin my reading, however, it will be important to say a few

words about eros in the Scala Amoris passage.

Some Issues Regarding Eros in the Ascent Passage

At the centre of the ascent passage is eros itself, but despite the fact that Socrates went

to great pains to demonstrate that eros is a desire to possess the good felt in the

presence of the beautiful, he says little else about the nature of erotic desire in his

speech. Thus, when a reader of the Symposium comes to the ascent passage eros

remains something of a mystery, as would, therefore, the role it plays in the lover’s

attempts to possess the good. Indeed, as is shown in the myriad of different

interpretations of the Scala Amoris, one’s account of erotic desire greatly influences

how one understands the lover’s ascent. It will be useful to review some of the main

interpretations of eros to be found in the literature, and compare and contrast my own

position to these views. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to explore each

commentator’s understanding of eros in detail, or to highlight the nuanced distinctions

between these views. Nevertheless, they can be expediently discussed under three

headings without misrepresenting them severely. Those in the first two groups give a

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similar account of erotic desire, but where the first posit eros as a rational desire, the

second argue that eros is separate from reason. In the final group are those who

understand eros as an appetitive desire. To complicate matters, in many readings,

commentators often fail to give a description of their understanding of eros, so for

many we will have to reconstruct their account from claims they made about eros’

abilities, and attempt to fit them under this framework as carefully as we can.

Under the first heading we can group the accounts of eros given by R. E. Allen

(1991), Terence Irwin (1995), Charles Kahn (1999), and Frisbee Sheffield (2006), all

of whom argue – and, with the exception of Allen, explicitly state – that eros is a

rational desire for the good. At the heart of each of these accounts is a rejection of the

idea that there is any meaningful opposition between eros and reason; eros simply is

an expression of our rational activity. The only reason it deserves its own moniker is

that it is the strongest of all rational desires, and it is triggered only in the presence of

the beautiful.2 As a rational desire eros’ relationship to its end and its object is

complex, as it is mediated by the lover’s understanding of what is good. On this

reading, a lover will not feel an erotic desire in the presence of a particular kind of

beautiful object until he has come to understand that the good this object reflects is

something important to pursue. The fact that the lover has an erotic desire for

beautiful souls, therefore, would demonstrate that he has come to understand that

virtues of the soul are essential to the good life. Similarly, the moment the lover stops

believing that these virtues are important for the good life his eros will become

indifferent to beautiful souls. As eros is merely an expression of the rational soul,

these commentators explicitly state that the development of our understanding occurs

within eros itself, so the ascent of the lover is an account of eros’ own learning about 2 This claim was not made by Allen, however, as, for him, all desire is erotic (1991: 48).

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what is good. In addition, eros’ relationship with its object is mediated by knowledge.

Eros is attracted towards a particular object as a beautiful x – for example, a beautiful

law or a beautiful soul –, and eros pursues it because it understands the object’s

important place within the good life. In the context of the Scala Amoris, eros

understands that particular kinds of beauty will provide a fertile environment in which

the lover will be able to give birth to certain goods. In pursuing beautiful objects, eros

both deliberates about how best to attain the ends it has set for itself, and it attempts to

predict the consequences of various avenues of action. Because it is a complex desire,

capable of many different kinds of cognitively engaged activities, eros is the only

principle required to explain the lover’s behaviour on the Scala Amoris. Or, to put it

another way, reason alone is at play in the lover’s ascent, and there is no room here

for appetitive desire.3

3 It is interesting to note that, despite the similarity of the accounts of eros given by these commentators, they each arrive at their understanding in very different ways. Allen and Sheffield focus almost exclusively on Socrates’ encomium, with very little reference to other dialogues, to develop their accounts of erotic desire. Allen bases his reading on Socrates’ claim that eros is ‘of something’, arguing that if a desire is ‘of’ a particular object, then it must be aware of what kind of thing that object is, and how it will bring us closer to the possession of the good (1991: 50). Sheffield, by contrast, builds her reading almost exclusively on the myth of Eros’ lineage (203b-204a), arguing that, because Eros schemes after what he lacks, eros must be a deliberative, and therefore cognitive desire, both able to understand the nature of the good, and recognise objects as beautiful (2006: 50). Without reference to any other dialogues, then, both figures have reconstructed an account of erotic desire in the Symposium that is wholly commensurate with Plato’s description of rational desire in Republic IV. The accounts of eros in Plato’s other dialogues, however, are entirely at the fore of the minds of both Kahn and Irwin in their readings, as is the fact that describing eros as a rational desire in the Symposium would be wholly at odds with Plato’s description of eros in Republic IX, and the Phaedrus. Both, however, felt that only by attributing to eros a rational nature could they account for the lover’s behaviour in the ascent passage. Such a move is, perhaps, more understandable for Irwin, as he has a developmental account of Plato’s thought, but quite surprising for Kahn, who completely rejects a developmental reading of the dialogues. Kahn avoids taking a developmental reading here, however, by suggesting that the eros of the Symposium is nothing other than the (rational) desire for the good at the heart of the Socratic Paradox in both the Gorgias and the Meno, which then became rational desire in the Republic (1999: 63). The eros of the tyrant in Republic IX, then, is an entirely new

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As it was written almost four decades ago, the account of eros given by J. M.

E. Moravcsik (1972) will be one of the oldest that I will discuss here, but although it

is less influential than it once was, it is still an important and sensitive reading of the

ascent passage.4 Ultimately, Moravcsik’s account of eros is quite similar to the one

that we have just examined, but he separates the activities of eros and reason from

each other. For Moravcsik, reason is solely concerned with the pursuit of knowledge,

and in the context of the Scala Amoris passage, knowledge of what is beautiful,

specifically by coming to appreciate the beauty of new kinds of objects, and

recognizing relationships between these objects. Eros, by contrast, pursues beautiful

objects in the world once they have been illuminated by reason. Reason, on this

reading, has the task of directing eros towards the beautiful, but, because of the way

Moravcsik understands eros, reason does not have to be particularly ‘hands on’ here.

Unlike the engineer who forces a surging river along a particular path by constructing

dams and trenches, reason directs eros in the same way a tourist guide book directs

people towards landmarks. Reason need only inform eros of what is beautiful,

confident that it will pursue these objects (and only these objects) in turn. Eros needs

only minimal guidance because on this reading it is not a “blind passion, [but] a wish

or desire … for things deemed on account of their nature of be worthy of having their

attainment become man’s ultimate goal” (1972: 290). On this reading too we can see

that eros has a complex relationship with both its end and object. Eros seeks out those

objects it has recognised as beautiful, and it does so because it pursues only those

goals the lover understands as valuable. On this reading it is impossible to live a

concept in Plato’s philosophy, baring no relation to the eros of the Symposium. All that has occurred here, therefore, is a lexical, rather than a philosophical change. 4 Such was the value that Gerasimos Santas (1989) placed on this reading that he assumed all of Moravcsik’s conclusions for his own examination of the Scala Amoris passage.

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purely erotic life, given that the actions of eros are so intertwined with reason. For

Moravcsik, eros simply does not act until reason has furnished it with an account of

what is good. Therefore, the only danger for the person who always responds to the

pull of eros is that they may be ignorant of what is good. Eros itself is beyond

reproach as a tool for reason.

Up until this point I have focused on those readings in which authors have

attempted to give at least a minimal description of the nature of eros beyond being a

desire for the good, but, as foreshadowed above, there are a large number of

commentators who give no further account of eros in their reading of Socrates’

encomium.5 We can, however, attempt to position many of these commentators in one

of the two groups we have already discussed by considering that all of these scholars:

i) assert that eros pursues different kinds of beauty in accordance with the lover’s

understanding of what is good; and ii) seem to suggest that eros is capable of

recognizing these objects as beautiful, and pursuing them without any guidance – or,

at least, they make no reference to such a need. Here too it seems that eros operates

through an understanding of what is good, and that it is able to recognise its object as

beautiful – key claims in both of the readings we have encountered. Without more

information, however, we cannot tell whether eros, in these readings, is an expression

of our rational activity, or separate from it, so the most that we can do is suggest that

these commentators fit into one of the two above groups.

Thus far, no commentator has seen any role for immediacy in the ascent of the

lover in the Scala Amoris passage, and, interestingly, those who posit eros as an

appetitive desire, i.e., one that does not operate in accordance with an understanding

5 See Allen Bloom (2001), F. M. Cornford (1971), G. R. F. Ferrari (2008), Thomas Gould (1968), Richard Hunter (2004), and A. W. Price (1991).

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of what is good, share this opinion, and view the ascent passage as a guide for lovers

to overcome their passionate eros. Such a view has most famously been given by

Martha Nussbaum (2007), and could also be read into claims made by C. D. C. Reeve

(2009).6 Let us discuss each in turn. Unlike other commentators who have constructed

their account of eros from the Symposium, Nussbaum looks to Aristophanes’ speech

to discover the nature of erotic desire – an account that she believes Socrates took up

with little change in his own encomium. Her focus is on Aristophanes’ description of

how lovers, consumed by their erotic desire for unity (which, Nussbaum argues, will

become ‘the good’ in Socrates’ encomium), come to neglect all other projects

(including staying alive) bar the pursuit of their beloved. She suggests that eros, in its

quotidian incarnation as sexual desire, is an irrational, wild, and passionate desire

that, more often than not, steamrolls through reason’s carefully laid plans. It is

important to note that, even though eros is irrational, it does seem to have enough

calculation to pursue a single beloved to the exclusion of all other things. This

suggests that, even if eros’ relationship to the end of its striving is immediate, its

relationship with the object of its concern is somewhat more complex. Unless eros

attempts to understand its object in some way, it seems doubtful that it could

persistently push the lover towards it. This will be important for our discussion below,

but returning to our present concern, eros is still opposed to rational planning because

its actions are not mediated by any knowledge of what is good, but merely a feeling of

lack (an innate one for Aristophanes, and one that is triggered by beauty for Socrates).

Because of this, Nussbaum believes that such a desire is wholly incommensurate with

a rational life, and ought to be something that a lover of the divine should overcome

6 It is important to note here that neither of these commentators explicitly refers to eros as an ‘appetitive desire’ in their description of it, though they do explicitly contrast it with rational desire.

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as quickly as possible, as it would tear him away from his concern for abstract goods,

and the pursuit of knowledge. She argues that the Scala Amoris passage details

Diotima’s cure for the plague that is passionate eros,7 as the lover comes to embrace a

calmer, more contemplative, and wholly rational life, free from the erratic tugging of

irrational eros. We may wonder how we could refer to someone as a ‘lover’ of the

divine if he has given up on all passionate desire. For Nussbaum, the lover does not

merely abandon eros in their ascent; instead, he comes to transform it into something

akin to a rational desire by turning his erotic attention towards more ‘perfect’ forms of

beauty;8 ones that are free from both change and ugliness. Here, it would seem, eros is

transformed from a passionate desire into one more akin to eros as understood by

Moravcsik.9

Despite her radically different understanding of the nature of eros, Nussbaum,

like the other commentators we have discussed above, sees the ascent of the lover as a

wholly rational exercise; or rather, one which appetitive desire retards when it is

present. I have suggested that Reeve may also have advanced such a view, but

because of an ambiguity at the centre of his discussion of eros this is not the only

possible reading of his claims. To begin, for Reeve, as for Nussbaum, the lover begins

his ascent under the sway of eros in the form of sexual desire – a passionate, and

seemingly irrational desire for a single beautiful body.10 As he ascends, however, and

come to reflect rationally on the value of the beauty that he has come to pursue, 7 This is a reference to Diotima’s ability, as recounted by Socrates, to hold off the plague for ten years from the city of Athens (201d). See Nussbaum (2007: 195). 8 The transformation of eros from an appetitive into a rational desire is more prominent in her article “The Ascent of Love: Plato, Spinoza, Proust” (1994). 9 In his analysis of eros in the Phaedrus, C. J. Rowe also argues that a philosopher must ensure that eros is transformed from a passionate force into a stable desire for wisdom if it is to find a place in the good life (1986: 170f.). 10 Note that Reeve, like Nussbaum, believes that a passionate, irrational desire is capable of pulling the lover for an extended period of time towards a particular object to the exclusion of all others.

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“psychological resources within the lover, beyond sexual responsiveness to physical

beauty, are coming into play. More of the lover is now involved in his love” (2009:

302). The claim that ‘more of ourselves is involved in our love’ could be read in two

ways. First, we could interpret Reeve as suggesting that our ‘love’, i.e., our eros, is

gradually transformed into something more akin to a rational desire, while preserving

some (unspecified) elements of eros’ original nature. On this reading, passionate eros,

as for Nussbaum, is something that we must overcome in the higher mysteries of eros.

Alternatively, we could understand Reeve as suggesting that our erotic attachment to

objects remains qualitatively similar, i.e., both irrational and passionate, but that

reason, independently of eros, takes an increasingly greater interest in the objects that

the lover pursues. If Reeve did advance such a reading he would be the only

commentator here to posit that immediacy would have a role in the lover’s activities

throughout their ascent.

There are great differences in how commentators understand eros, but my own

interpretation is different from all of them. At the heart of my reading is a division

between eros and reason. However I do not distinguish these desires, as Moravcsik

does, by the kind of objects they pursue, but instead by how they operate in the world.

My account of the workings of reason is not significantly different from the one

advanced by the first group of commentators, as I also argued that rational desires are

mediated by an understanding of the good. The only ends that reason pursues are

those it has come to understand as good, and it deliberates about the most proficient

way to achieve these ends. Reason also attempts to understand the nature of its

objects, and assesses the role such objects would play in its pursuit of the good. It is

through the rational part of the soul that the lover is able to plan courses of actions to

achieve particular goods, and to ensure that all distractions are overcome.

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Eros, by contrast, is a wholly appetitive desire, whose salient feature is

immediacy (in all of its incarnations), both in relation to its end and to its object. Eros

does not work in accordance with an understanding of what is good, whether its own

or that of the rational soul’s; instead, the ends that eros pursues are determined

entirely by the environment in which the lover finds themselves. In the presence of a

beautiful body eros leads the soul towards the production of physical goods, whereas,

when its attention is caught by beautiful laws, it will seek to give birth to just

institutions. In the presence of such objects eros will always drive the soul to pursue

the goods that these objects reflect, regardless of whether the lover has recognised

them as good or not, or even if he has come to believe that pursuing such ends would

be antithetical to the good life. When triggered to action eros will push the lover

towards particular ends with all its might, blind to other pursuits. But the moment

these stimuli leave, overwhelmingly strong erotic urges will begin to fade, and will

ultimately pass away entirely, only to be awoken again when triggered by yet another

kind of beauty. In pursuing these objects eros neither understands why its object is

beautiful, nor even that its object is beautiful, though it will be triggered all the same.

Eros has been pre-programmed to pursue the beautiful – it is its ‘natural object’ –, and

its response to objects in the world is entirely mechanistic, in that it reacts with

revulsion to what is ugly, and becomes infatuated with anything beautiful. It operates

like a cog in a machine, turning one way and the next, never directing itself, oblivious

to its role in the machine as a whole, and to the results of its own actions.

Because it is an immediate desire eros is highly problematic, and has the

potential to lead the lover away from divinity by madly striving for the most deficient

goods, completely ignoring those things that the lover has identified as most

important to the good life. But although eros and reason are opposed in nature, their

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activities need not be incommensurate. Eros is not merely a desire for self-

overcoming, but for self-transcendence. Although lacking any ability for internal

direction, because its object is beauty, the divinity that shines from heaven,

(reproductive) eros always pushes the lover towards the possession of the good.

Although eros cannot ever be anything but an appetitive desire, reason is not without

resources to utilise such a tool for its own ends, and it is able to guide eros towards

what it has understood as good. Because eros is not a cognitively engaged desire,

however, reason has to be forceful with it, and utilise both the whip and the blinders

continually to keep it in line. It must actively bring the soul to those beautiful objects

that reflect the ends reason pursues in order to focus eros adequately, and it must stop

eros rushing after any other object along the way. In doing so reason is able to marry

eros’ force to its own to drive the lover towards possession of the good. Such a union

is necessary if the lover hopes to achieve divinity. Reason is proficient at pointing the

lover towards the good, though it lacks the strength continually to lead the soul

towards this end; and eros, by contrast, is incapable of guiding itself, though it acts

with such force that it is capable of smashing through even the largest obstacles to

achieve its end. Only with reason’s guidance and eros’ force can the lover ever hope

to attain divinity.

It is important to remember that Socrates’ speech is not just any ordinary piece

of oratory; it is an encomium (i.e., a praise), and specifically an encomium of eros. At

the end of his speech Socrates’ appreciation of eros is clear, as he exclaims: “I praise

the power and courage of Love [eros] as far as I am able” (212b-c). The timing of this

claim ought not go without notice. He gives it immediately after the conclusion of the

ascent passage, where we have just left the lover in a world illuminated by divine

Beauty, indicating that eros has some praiseworthy role beyond the first rung of the

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Ladder, and well into the higher mysteries of eros. Though one should always

question whether it would be prudent to take Socrates’ claims at face value,

particularly when making such a bold assertion, in turning to the Phaedrus we can

see, once again, Socrates singing the praises of this most forceful desire. After giving

a speech denouncing the importance of eros in a relationship, Socrates expresses the

overwhelming need to exorcise himself of this slander, and give another speech in

which he describes eros as a ‘divine madness’. In his palinode he praises eros as a gift

from the gods, which is instrumental in helping humans raise themselves to the

heavens, and rejoin the gods in their celestial journey.

Though we ought to keep these positive words in mind, it is also important to

recognise that Socrates, unlike Agathon, is not so small-minded as to believe that

something is worthy of praise only if it is an assured means to raise us to divinity.

Socrates is critical of eros in both Republic IX and the Phaedrus, and there is no

reason to believe that he has been carried away by the festivities of the evening into

forgetting these problems – Socrates, after all, is never drunk at a party (220a). And

even though Socrates may have left some of the more unsavoury consequences of

acting on our erotic desire out of his speech, it is very clear that Plato did not when

writing the Symposium. One does not have to look very deeply into Alcibiades’

encomium, for example, to be reminded of the behavior of bad lovers in other

dialogues11 – indeed, Lysias’ speech in the Phaedrus could have been written with

Alcibiades in mind as the bad lover, if his outbursts against Socrates are at all

representative of his true feelings. Many of the problems that Socrates attributes to

eros, and appetitive desire in general, in various dialogues lie implicitly within the

11 Richard Kraut also believes that Alcibiades’ speech serves as a tacit discussion of bad eros in the Symposium (2008: 303).

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speeches of the other attendees, and although they are overshadowed by the praising

words of the revelers, they wait for an attentive reader to make them explicit.

On the Ladder: Pursuing the Good

In what follows I will attempt to give an initial profile of the lover of the Scala

Amoris passage by establishing the exact roles that both eros and reason have in his

pursuit of the good. There is no more appropriate place to begin our analysis than

with the opening lines of the passage, where Socrates states that: “A lover who goes

about this matter correctly must begin in his youth to devote himself to beautiful

bodies. First, if the leader leads aright, he should love one body and beget beautiful

ideas there” (Smp, 210a). Even with this brief description we already have important

clues for determining the forces that are at play in the lover’s soul at the bottom rung

of the Ladder, and, indeed, throughout his ascent. It is immediately evident that eros

has a grip on the lover’s soul, as Socrates states that he ‘loves’ a single beautiful

body. However, we ought not think that the lover here is someone who pursues bodies

for the sake of sexual gratification. In referring to this person as a ‘lover’ (e0rasth/v)

Socrates is clearly contrasting the erotic person on the Ladder both with the tyrant of

Republic IX, and the bad lovers of the Phaedrus, whose eros leads them to pursue

base pleasures, as well as from the charlatans he mentioned earlier in his encomium

(205d), whose eros leads them merely to drape themselves with beauty so as to appear

to be good. For Socrates, the only person to whom the predicate ‘lover’ ought to apply

are those who are led by their eros to ‘give birth’ in the presence of the beautiful, i.e.,

those who seek to reproduce the good for themselves. In the presence of this beautiful

body, then, the lover does not simply contemplate his beloved, nor satisfy his lust;

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instead, his eros pushes him towards self-transcendence by leading him to give birth

to the goods that this beautiful body reflects.

Eros, for Socrates, is a desire that is content to rush energetically towards any

beautiful object that comes along, and whether it is divine Beauty itself, or an object

with the merest spark of beauty, it will pull the whole soul towards it with as much

force as it can muster. The purely erotic lover, whether reproductive or not, is much

like a Don Juan, who pursues every beauty that comes along, and is incapable of

focussed devotion.12 A lover such as this will feel no desire for any object that is not

immediately present, though he will pursue any and every beautiful object that crosses

his path. Neither could such a lover, then, feel an erotic desire for a beautiful body

when it is absent, nor be erotically stimulated only in the presence of this body. The

only situation he would find himself in that would approximate such a state is if he

was constantly in the presence of a beautiful body, and if there were no other

beautiful objects around to perk his interest. But even here we could hardly call him a

‘lover of a single beautiful body’; instead, he would merely be a ‘lover of the

beautiful in general’ who is able to satisfy his erotic urges on one particular object.

The fact that the lover seeks out a single beautiful object at the bottom of the Ladder

to the exclusion of all others shows that something beyond mere (reproductive) sexual

desire is already at play. Something must be present to focus the lover in his pursuit of

a single beautiful body, and hold it back from pursuing other kinds of beauty. Such

activities are indicative of the workings of reason, and its presence in even the lower 12 This sentiment is captured by Moliere’s Don Juan who proclaims:

All beautiful women have a right to our love, and the accident of being the first comer shouldn’t rob others of a fair share of our hearts. As for me, beauty delights me wherever I find it, and I freely surrender myself to its charms. No matter how far I’m committed – the fact that I am in love with one person shall never make me unjust to others. I keep an eye for the merits of them and render each one the homage, pay each one the tribute that nature enjoins (trans Wood, 1953: 202).

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mysteries of eros is evident when we look more closely at the language Socrates uses

in this passage.

In a passage – and, indeed, a dialogue – that is infused with erotic imagery

Socrates uses distinctly unerotic terms in his description of the lover seeking out his

beloved: Here the lover is said:

1) 210a7: i0e/nai e0pi\ ta\ kala\ sw&mata (literally, ‘to go to beautiful

bodies’).13

2) 210b3-4: diw&kein to\ e0p 0 ei1dei kalo/n (literally, ‘to pursue beauty of

form’).

3) 210c7-8: e0pi\ ta\v e0pisth/mav a0gagei=n (literally, ‘to lead to kinds of

knowledge’).

We learn in the Phaedrus (253e-254e) that eros does not simply ‘go towards’

beautiful objects; instead, it charges towards them with all its might. Socrates is very

careful in his use of language in this passage not to mislead his audience into

believing that eros has a directive function in the lover’s life at any stage in his ascent.

Indeed, in giving himself over to his erotic desires the lover commits himself to a

directionless life, where he is pulled this way and that by the world of becoming –

hardly the life of one destined for the divine. It is important to note, then, that even on

the very bottom rung of the Ladder, the lover stands in both an erotic and a rational

relationship with the object of his concern. If the lover pursues a particular kind of

beautiful object, or, perhaps, a combination of different kinds, on every rung of the 13 It is interesting to note that the translation of the Symposium that I have been using throughout this thesis, by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, translate this phrase as ‘to devote himself to beautiful bodies’, a phrase which, in English, is quite erotic indeed. By contrast, the unerotic language is preserved in the translations of R. E. Allen (1991, “going to beautiful bodies”), Seth Bernadete (2001, “go to beautiful bodies”), M. C. Howatson (Howatson and Sheffield, 2008, “directing his attention to beautiful bodies”), Benjamin Jowett (2001, “to turn to beautiful forms”), W. R. M. Lamb (1925, “to encounter beautiful bodies”), and C. J. Rowe (1998, “turn to beautiful bodies”).

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Ladder, it is necessary for something other than mere eros to be at work in the lover’s

soul throughout his ascent.

The lover of the Scala Amoris passage dedicates a great deal of time and

energy to seeking out particular kinds of beautiful objects on all rungs of the Ladder,

but we do not need to appeal to eros to explain this behaviour. We must be careful

here not to mistake eros’ vehement passion with that of reason’s calm tenacity. In the

Philebus Socrates asserts:

Now, this point, I take it, is most necessary to assert of the good: that

everything that has any notion of it hunts for it and desires to get hold of it and

secure it for its very own, caring nothing for anything else except for what is

connected with the acquisition of some good (Phlb, 20d).

Given that the rational soul alone operates in accordance with an account of what is

good, the desires that Socrates speaks of here must necessarily be rational desires.

Therefore, whereas eros ebbs and flows depending on the environment in which the

lover finds himself, insofar as he has a particular account of what is good, the lover

will feel a continual rational desire to pursue the ends that he has come to understand

as valuable. If the lover believes that the good life is to be found in the possession of

physical health, for example, he will ‘hunt’ after this good, deliberating about how to

best achieve this end, and focusing the whole soul on the pursuit of this good alone.

With his account of what is good the lover will see the world in a unique way.

Things that may have previously been met with relative indifference, such as fruit,

bicycles, and government health initiatives, will now take on a new significance and

value. Similarly, objects such as fatty food, alcohol, and habitually lazy people will

arouse negative feelings when none may have been felt before. Not all of these

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objects, however, ought to be valued (or avoided) to an equal extent, as the rational

lover must be careful continually to assess the importance of any particular object to

his pursuit of the good. That is, he must always question both whether an object will

help him achieve his goals or hinder his ascent, and also the degree to which this is

the case. The more beneficial an object is in coming to possess the good, the more a

lover ought to value it. Of all objects that he encounters, though, the rational lover

ought to value most highly the beautiful objects that reflect the goods he pursues.

Coming to possess the good is a difficult exercise, and despite reason’s considerable

abilities, it does not have the strength to commit the soul to a lifetime of continual

production and reproduction of the good. The courage to keep striving in the presence

of so many obstacles, and the strength to overcome these impediments is found in

eros alone, so the rational lover must find some way to bend eros’ force towards its

own ends. The rational soul has to incorporate eros into its own projects, and to do

this it must make sure that eros is directed towards the same ends as it has set for

itself. Reason must seek out proper environments in order to trigger erotic desires for

these goods, and although it will occasionally have to whip eros into line as it is

distracted by other objects, in staying in the presence of particular kinds of beauty

reason appreciates that, more often than not, eros’ energies will be directed in parallel

with its own. It is in the interest of the rational lover, then, to expend a great deal of

energy to seek out beautiful objects, as through them the lover is able to incorporate

immediacy into his own projects, and therefore accelerate his ascent to the divine.

The lover of the Scala Amoris passage is not a wholly erotic figure that

becomes entranced by certain objects; instead, he is a reproductive, rational lover who

pursues particular kinds of beauty in order to possess the good. On each rung of the

Ladder, therefore, the lover is both a rational and an erotic being, though we must be

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careful not to confuse their roles in the lover’s behaviour. In his pursuit of the good

reason has a directive function, while eros has a productive role. Reason’s job is to

seek out particular kinds of beauty, while preventing the other parts of the soul from

pursuing other objects, and in the presence of this beauty eros then drives the lover to

‘give birth’ to the goods that these objects reflect. As our discussion of the Scala

Amoris passage continues we will build on this profile, but with these initial points

firmly in place can we begin to navigate our way through the rest of the passage.

On the Ladder: Moving From One Rung to the Next

Prima facie, there is little difference in the behaviour of the rational lover of a single

beautiful body, and the person who is merely sexually attracted to a body, as both will

eagerly make their way towards this object and reproduce the good that it reflects.

Upon looking at the motivations of their behaviour, however, we can see that the two

lovers could not be more different. Whereas the latter blindly pursues his object,

unaware of its value, and indifferent to the consequences of his actions, the former is

drawn by reason towards his object with an understanding of its value, and a firm

belief that his actions will lead him closer to divinity. But even though Plato believes

that rational lovers of any kind are superior to those who are led by appetite alone,14

the main target of criticism in his dialogues are those who find value in bodies above

14 Although all purely erotic lovers are similar insofar as their actions are directed by the appetitive soul alone, there are, for Plato, many different kinds of rational lovers. In Republic VIII (see also Phdr, 248d-e) Plato describes many different kinds of people, all of whom (bar the tyrant) are rational to some extent, but the influence that reason has on their souls varies. We ought not assume, then, that all rational people are like the lover of the Scala Amoris passage, who, as we shall see below, is a philosopher; the kind of person for whom appetite has no directive influence whatsoever.

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all other things.15 The rational lover of bodies is not much closer to the divine than the

wholly erotic person, so we must ask why Plato believes that the former is on a path

to divinity, while the latter is not. That is, why is the bottom rung of the Ladder

reserved for rational lovers of a single beautiful body? Although it may be true that

they are not much closer to the divine, in giving up the dubious freedom that a wholly

erotic life offers, and in organizing their actions in accordance with an account of

what is good, such people are in a much better position to ascend to the divine than

the erotic person. The Athenian expresses this sentiment in the Laws as follows:

But no matter how states or individuals think they can achieve the good, it is a

conception of the good that should govern every man and hold sway in his

soul, even if he is a little mistaken (Laws, 9.864a).

The hedge at the end of this passage does not belie the peculiarity of this claim, given

that Plato sees ignorance of what is good as a very harmful disease indeed – being

ignorant is never a little mistake. But even those with the most deficient account of

what is good are worthy of some praise insofar as they have committed themselves to

a process of self-transcendence aiming at the divine, despite the fact that they are, as

yet, greatly mistaken in what the good life consists in. Whereas the wholly erotic

person is still an unthinking cog in the world of becoming, pulled this way and that by

their environment, the rational lover has committed himself to take responsibility for

the direction of his striving. He is, therefore, able to revise this trajectory by

developing his understanding of what is good, thus directing himself ever more

precisely towards the divine.

15 In the Sophist (246a-c), for example, Plato is highly critical of the titans, whom he describes as beings that value only what they can ‘hold in their hands’, i.e., tangible bodies. Such people are contrasted with the gods, who find most value in intangible things, such as virtues of the soul like justice and wisdom.

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Nowhere in the dialogues does Socrates have a discussion with a wholly erotic

person, e.g. with a tyrant, because he knows that no good would come of it. One could

no more educate such a person to pursue certain goods than one could convince

gravity to operate on some objects and not others. Socrates’ ready criticism of lovers

of bodies is an acknowledgement that such people are fertile grounds for education.

Because they have a conception of what is good, and aim for the ‘divine’, the path of

their striving can be redirected towards increasingly more important ends. The Scala

Amoris is the story of the development of the lover’s understanding of what is good,

and on each rung of the Ladder he pursues different kinds of beautiful objects in

accordance with this changing understanding. As he comes to see the incredible value

of goods of the soul, for example, much of the energy that he once dedicated to

seeking out beautiful bodies will now be used to pursue beautiful souls, and

consequently the virtues that eros now gives birth to will be very different than they

were before. The lover then repeats this process on every rung of the Ladder until he

catches a glimpse of the divine, and is inspired to give birth to true virtue. Although

we now know what it is to move from one rung of the Ladder to the next, we have yet

to identify what motivates the lover to ascend, or whether anything is needed to

ensure that this ascent is as smooth as possible. The rest of this section will be

dedicated to exploring these issues.

Dissatisfaction and the Production of logoi

As we learnt in Chapter 2, to have a desire requires both an image of something to

strive towards, as well as an initial feeling of lack, so, unless we are aware of the

deficiency of our account of what is good, we will feel no desire to develop our

understanding. There are times at which we will be so impressed by the weight of

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evidence given in our experiences of the world that we cannot but abandon our

previous beliefs, but such events are relatively few and far between, as the world has

no interest in highlighting our deficiency. It is little surprise, then, that, in the

Republic (6.505d), Socrates argues that most people are perfectly content to wallow in

their own ignorance. Although these people believe that they are striving after the

divine, they only pursue an image of the good life, so, at most, their activities will

merely lead them to possess a handful of goods worth pursuing. Because of their

faulty accounts they praise beautiful objects that are only minimally valuable as

though they were tools for raising them the whole way to divinity, and they neglect

other objects that ought to be valued as much, if not more so, than the ones they

currently do. Such ignorance can frequently lead people into trouble – a rational lover

who eagerly pursues beautiful bodies may often (justifiably) receive a slap if he

neglects other virtues such as temperance and a concern for manners –, but more often

than not, these experiences can have an educative role, indicating to the lover that

there are goods of which he is hitherto ignorant. At times, however, living in

ignorance can have far more terrible consequences, as the flaws in one’s account can

sometimes manifest themselves so dramatically that one doesn’t get the chance to

learn from one’s mistakes. Such events litter history books and works of literature,

though nowhere are they shown more poignantly than in love stories. Shakespeare’s

Romeo and Juliet, Goethe’s Werther, and Euripides’ Jason, were all too late to

appreciate the problems with loving something too much or too little. Because eros is

such a powerful desire, rational lovers ought to be very careful where they direct its

fury, lest they do immense harm, both to themselves, and others.

Such stories alone should be enough to convince any lovers that they cannot

have a ‘wait and see’ policy concerning the efficacy of their understanding of what is

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good, but there is another danger that lingers over all lovers, regardless of whether

they face situations as dramatic as those above or not. Given the length of the Scala

Amoris passage, and the steady ascent of the lover in the story, one may be fooled into

thinking that coming to see Beauty itself is a comparatively simple process. However,

for Socrates, learning about the divine requires a lifetime of continual effort, after

which most people will still fall short of their goal, having been too often distracted

along the way. For temporally finite beings, therefore, it is untenable simply to wait

for the world to illuminate the inconsistencies in one’s account, and lead one to

feelings of dissatisfaction, as such a method is unreliable, particularly for those who

hope to attain the higher mysteries of eros. If a lover desires to live a virtuous life, and

not simply a deficient image of such a life, then he must ensure that the ends that he

pursues are truly valuable, and to do this he will have to probe actively into the limits

of his understanding of what is good. There is evidence of the lover in the Scala

Amoris passage doing just this.

The importance of the lover generating logoi, i.e., speeches or accounts,

throughout his ascent has been increasingly well recognised in the literature,16 and I

wish now to focus on the role that they play in the development of the lover’s

understanding of what is good. But before we can do this, we must first determine

their subject matter, so let us turn to Socrates’ description of these logoi in the ascent

passage:

1) 210c: After this he must think that the beauty of people’s souls is more

valuable than the beauty of their bodies, so that if someone is decent in

his soul, even though he is scarcely blooming in his body, our lover

16 See especially Richard Hunter (2004: 93), Charles Kahn (1999: 270), C. D. C. Reeve (2009: 302), and Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 125).

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must be content to love and care for him and seek to give birth to such

ideas [lo/gouv toiou/touv] as will make the young man better.

2) 210d: but the lover is turned to the great sea of beauty, and, gazing

upon this, he gives birth to many gloriously beautiful ideas [kalou\v

lo/gouv] and theories, in unstinting love of wisdom.

Although the generation of logoi is only described explicitly at these two points, the

repetition of language leads one to believe that the lover produces these speeches

throughout his ascent, as does an assertion Socrates makes in the passage that

immediately precedes the Scala Amoris, where he declares that the best lovers will

teem with ideas [eu0porei~ lo/gwn] in the presence of young men (209c). Returning to

the question of the content of these speeches, even with these brief descriptions we

already have important clues to their subject matter. First, we know that they are

beautiful, and second, that they make young men better. As we learnt previously,

beautiful objects reflect the good – which we could, let us remember, equally well

refer to as Being, or the truth –, so any beautiful speech will be an image of the divine

in some way. Here we have two choices. These speeches can either be: i) pretty pieces

of oratory that are beautiful in form alone, much like the encomium of Agathon, who

Socrates says merely selected the most beautiful attributes he could think of and

arranged them harmoniously (198d); or ii) they can also be beautiful in content, and

offer an account of what is good. Given Socrates’ ironic praise of Agathon’s speech in

which he accuses the tragic poet of entirely neglecting truth (198d), and his criticism

of rhetoric and poetry which distorts reality for the sake of pleasure in the Gorgias,

Republic, Phaedrus, and Sophist, we can safely assume that any speech that makes

young men better must reflect the divine in content, and not simply in form.

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To return to the ascent passage, it would appear that the lover, at every rung of

the Ladder, gives accounts of his understanding of what is good, in which he

presumably make claims about the value of the ends that he pursues, and sings the

praises of the beautiful objects that reflect these goods.17 The lover of beautiful souls

from the first quote, for example, would exhort the worth of goods of the soul, while

recommending as valuable things that inspire temperance, courage, and justice. We

can now begin to see why the generation of logoi is essential in motivating the lover

to move from one rung of the Ladder to the next. The lover will only feel a desire to

develop their understanding of what is good when he has become dissatisfied with his

current level of knowledge, so he must find a way to illuminate the deficiencies of his

present account quickly and efficiently. The best tool that he has to do this is

dialectical discussions, but to begin such a discussion the lover has to put forward an

account to be examined. By putting their understanding up for discussion, the lover

can, through questioning and answering, discover the inconsistencies in his position,

and be plunged into aporia, having become completely dissatisfied with his level of

understanding concerning the divine. From here he will have a desire to develop his

knowledge, and, more importantly, he will be free to play with ideas, and seriously

assess the worth of goals that he may previously have instantly dismissed as

unimportant, or possible even antithetical to the good life. In the ascent passage

Socrates tells us that, having generated logoi about beautiful souls, the lover comes to

see the value of beautiful activities and laws; things that he previously thought were

of no consequences whatsoever (210c). This recognition points to a deeper

development. Appreciating the value of new kinds of beautiful objects is indicative of

17 Such behaviour is foreshadowed in Pausanias’ encomium, in which he asserts that, in civilized cities, lovers offer accounts (logoi) to justify their love for particular beloveds (182b).

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a development in the lover’s understanding of what is good; as his account of what is

good changes, so too will the objects which he pursues. Where once the lover

believed that the production of virtues of the soul was of primary importance, through

testing this view in dialectic, he comes to see that they must also strive to give birth to

just institutions if he hopes to possess the divine. This process, of course, must be

repeated throughout the lover’s ascent until, as Socrates says in the Republic,

someone can distinguish an account of the form of the good from everything

else, and survive all refutation, as if in a battle, striving to judge things not in

accordance with opinion but in accordance with being, and can come through

all this with his account still intact (Rep, 7.534b-c).18

Producing an account of the kind described here would be a monumental task, and if

the lover hopes to do this before he dies he must actively begin to test the limits of his

understanding the moment that he reaches a new rung of the Ladder. The lover, then,

must continually generate logoi throughout his ascent, so that he can consistently

recognise the particular deficiencies of his current account of what is good.

Developing one’s knowledge of what is good is primarily a rational exercise,

but before I continue my discussion of logoi I wish to say a few words about a

possible role for eros in the lover’s education. To begin let us consider an idea put

forward by Christopher Bobonich concerning what the lover can learn from pleasure:

Pleasure encourages us to linger and focus on the activities that we are

involved in and bring to bear on them our capacities for making fine and

accurate discriminations. … The goodness or fineness of the activity is

18 Plato makes a similar claim in the Timaeus, where he argues that: “We must do our very best to make these accounts [of reality] as irrefutable and invincible as any account may be” (Tim, 29b).

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independent of its pleasantness, but the pleasantness fixes our attention on the

activity so that we can, by reflecting on the activity, come to appreciate its

goodness and fineness (2004: 362).

What is interesting here is the idea that the appetitive soul’s non-cognitive activities

may actually be worthy of rational reflection given the natural object of these desires.

Eros pursues the beautiful, i.e. those objects that reflect some aspect of the divine, so

a rational lover would do well to spend some time considering the kind of objects that

eros is triggered by, particularly if the lover has hitherto never considered these

objects valuable. Obviously, the appetitive soul is not omniscient, and the further the

lover is from the divine, the fewer beautiful objects there are that will trigger an erotic

desire. For example, because of his incredible ignorance of what is good, the tyrant of

Republic IX only responds erotically to material beauties, and so only strives after sex

and wealth; other beauties, such as that of souls and knowledge, are as yet invisible to

him, and so never catch his erotic attentions. From Plato’s description of lovers of

souls in various dialogues, however, it would seem that someone who has recognised

the value of courage, for example, is also capable of appreciating the value of

temperance, even if he has not actually done so yet. Given this, it is reasonable to

assume that such a person’s eros would be stimulated both by tales of heroism, and of

self-control, and upon reflecting on this latter response such a person may begin to

learn the value of temperance. Eros, then, and not simply philosophical discourse,

may help illuminate new goods for the lover to pursue. I do, however, only say ‘begin

to learn’ here, as we must remember that eros has a tendency to ‘over-value’ its object

by rushing towards it with all of its might, so the rational lover cannot simply give

himself over to their erotic urges. As Bobonich argues, appetite only focuses the lover

on an object, and it is then reason’s job to determine what kind of end that it reflects,

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the significance of this end in the good life, and so the amount of time that ought to be

spent reproducing this good. To do this, however, the lover must engage in

philosophical discourse.

Building the Profile of the Lover: The Motivation for Generating logoi

By generating logoi throughout their ascent the lover of the Scala Amoris passage is

able continuously to illuminate the deficiency of his account of what is good, and so

trigger a desire to develop his knowledge of the divine. But what impels the lover to

produce these logoi in the first place? The answer is obvious, though prima facie

confusing: nothing other than a desire to develop his knowledge of the divine. But this

second desire for knowledge is different from the first. Whereas the first kind of

desire, which I will refer to as desirea resulted from dialectic, the second, which I will

refer to as desireb, could not have, as it is what impels the lover to seek out dialectic in

the first place. As a desire for knowledge, however, desireb must also have been

triggered by the lover feeling dissatisfied with his account of what is good; after all,

we only love what we lack. In what follows I will attempt to discover the origin of

these initial feelings of dissatisfaction, and so determine the nature of the lover’s

desireb for knowledge. To do so I will consider two explanations in the literature for

this pre-dialectical feeling of dissatisfaction, before giving my own account.

To begin I wish to return to J. M. E. Moravcsik’s (1972) examination of the

Scala Amoris passage. In his reading Moravcsik divides the ascent into different kinds

of steps, which he argues the lover must repeat throughout his journey. Hitherto we

have discussed what he calls ‘loving steps’, ‘creation steps’ and ‘understanding steps’,

but what I wish to focus on for our present discussion are ‘disdaining steps’. Each

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step, Moravcsik argues, is performed by either reason or eros, and he suggests that

disdaining steps are solely an activity of eros. From this, he argues that the lover feels

a desireb to develop their understanding of what is good after becoming erotically

dissatisfied with a particular kind of beautiful object. Let us consider an example to

clarify this claim, and see how it relates to our current discussion. After pursuing

beautiful bodies for a certain period of time eros’ reactions to bodies, for whatever

reason, becomes less and less vigorous, until eros ‘gets sick’ of responding altogether.

This process, which, for Moravcsik, reoccurs on most of the lower rungs (and even

some of the higher rungs), causes reason to question the efficacy of its current

understanding of what is good, and thus triggers a (rational) desireb to engage in

dialectic. Moravcsik gives no explanation as to why eros works in this way, but it is

reasonable to assume that he believes that eros has an innate understanding of what is

worth pursuing. If this were correct then eros would, in a way, have a more keen

insight into the really real than the rational soul. Although it cannot give an account of

what is good as reason does, eros has a better nose for what is deficient – eros, after

all, becomes dissatisfied with an object while reason is still singing its praises. Such a

reading would be entirely commensurate with Moravcsik’s account of eros as a

cognitively engaged wish for the truly good, but this explanation for the origins of

desireb will not do for our current reading. Eros is an appetitive desire, and so it is not

the kind of thing that can become dissatisfied with an object for the reasons that

Moravcsik suggests. Eros neither tries to understand its object, nor deliberates about

the role its activities have in the lover’s broader project of coming to possess the

good, so it will not become dissatisfied with an object either because it only reflects a

particular aspect of the divine, or because it is a deficient image of the good. In

arguing this way, however, I do not wish to preclude the possibility that, for Plato,

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after continual contact with a particular object, eros’ reactions become decreasingly

forceful over time. It is difficult to determine conclusively Plato’s opinion on this

matter given that he never raises the issue explicitly, but even if eros is the kind of

desire that does become increasingly disinterested with an object, the fact that this

phenomenon is unrelated to the efficacy of the object as an image of the divine, or the

value of the good that it reflects, a lover would not do well by relying on such an

arbitrary experience continually to instill in them a desireb for knowledge.

I now wish to consider an argument put forward by A. W. Price (1991: 42)

and Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 129-30), which, although not advanced in relation to the

generation of logoi specifically, is a potentially promising explanation for desireb.

Both of these commentators suggest that all people are predisposed from birth to

struggle after the divine. This is not to say that people are born with a (sub-conscious)

awareness of how their understanding is deficient, but that, were they to pursue a

deficient image of the good rather than the truly good, they would eventually feel

dissatisfied with the direction of their striving, which would then lead them to feel a

desireb to develop their knowledge of the divine. Price appeals to Plato’s idea of

recollection to explain this disposition. Because people caught a glimpse of the forms

in their prenatal journeys through the cosmos they all have some innate appreciation

of the divine, and will feel dissatisfied until they can regain this vision in their

embodied lives. There are, however, some problems with this explanation.19 First,

19 It is difficult to tell what Plato really intended with the theory of recollection, and few modern Plato scholars in this area believe that Plato used the theory to justify substantial innate knowledge or innate dispositions in our development towards certain ends. It should be noted, though, that J. M. E. Moravcsik (1971) argues that Plato’s discussion of recollection in the Meno (particularly) suggests that we are born with innate geometric concepts; and in Gail Fine’s (2008) analysis of the Meno she advances the idea that Plato’s discussion of recollection here is used to justify our innate disposition to favour better arguments over worse ones. I suggest that we should read the theory mythologically, and understand Plato here as advancing the

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nowhere in his discussion of recollection does Plato suggest that having innate

knowledge is sufficient for instilling in the soul a general disposition to struggle after

the divine. He does say that specific instances of recollection can stimulate a lover to

pursue wisdom (M, 81d-e, Phd, 74d-e, Phdr, 249d), but this does not account for

someone having an innate feeling of dissatisfaction with his level of understanding.

Second, such a reading would be inconsistent with Plato’s claim in the Republic

(6.505d) that we encountered above that most people wallow (contentedly) for all of

their lives in double ignorance. Such people are so pitiable, for Plato, because there

simply is no prenatal tendency to develop one’s understanding of what is good, so

unless such people build up the courage to submit their account up for examination,

they will remain unaware of their ignorance.

Given the problems that follow from double-ignorance we must conclude that,

whatever leads the lover to have pre-dialectical feelings of dissatisfaction with their

account of what is good, it cannot be something shared by all people. Clearly, then,

our profile of the lover on the Ladder as a rational person who pursues objects in

order to reproduce the good is not yet specific enough to capture who this person

really is, and the inner-workings of their soul. Socrates believes that the lover of the

Scala Amoris passage is an extra-ordinary person – indeed, whereas this lover is

moving up the Ladder towards divinity, Diotima doubts whether Socrates, at this

idea that, because “nature as a whole [is] akin” (M, 81d), we can work our way to divine understanding by reflecting on those things that we already know. Education, then, would be nothing more than a re-examination of our quotidian knowledge. This reading is in line with more recent accounts of recollection, such as those given by Dominic Scott (1987, cf. 2006) and Charles Kahn (2009), in which it is suggested that recollection is the transformation of beliefs, based only on sense experience, into knowledge through rational reflection. There are, however, many differences between my reading and theirs, but because it if far beyond the scope of this thesis to fully contrast my view with other interpretations of Plato’s theory of recollection, and, moreover, to recommend my reading over others, I will mention these points only in passing.

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stage, could even understand what this lover was doing (210a) –, but we must ask

what exactly he possesses that gives him, and not others, a pre-dialectical appreciation

of the deficiency of his own knowledge. Unfortunately, Socrates never explicitly

gives us any hints in the Scala Amoris passage itself, but when we consider claims he

made earlier in his encomium, things become clearer. We must remember that

Socrates could not begin his praise of eros until he had proven to his audience that

only intermediary beings feel desire; i.e., he had to show that we love only what we

lack. His speech proper begins with him suggesting that Eros, and all lovers, are

intermediary beings, and his discussions of ignorance, reproduction, and human

immortality all flow from this point. What I wish to suggest here is that the lover of

the Scala Amoris passage has pre-dialectical feelings of dissatisfaction about his

knowledge of the divine because he possesses self-knowledge; i.e., he knows himself

to be an intermediary being. To be an intermediary being, let us remember, is to be

forever defined by two opposing principles simultaneously, poverty and plenty, and

someone who knows himself as such a being appreciates that even his mode of

possession shares this nature. As creatures of becoming we have to reproduce

continually any good that we possess, as everything that we produce will pass away.

Most people, however, will not notice as their virtues fade into nothing, so they will

not feel a desire to reproduce them until something (like dialectic) makes them aware

of their loss. Someone with self-knowledge, however, does not have to wait for such a

time. Because he understands his own nature, and therefore the nature of mortal

possession, he will not just suspect, but know that his possession of virtues always

shares in deficiency to some extent, and thus recognise the need to reproduce

continually this good. The same is true of knowledge. A person with self-knowledge

will always be aware that his understanding of what is good shares in deficiency. A

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lover who understands himself as an intermediary being, therefore, will have a

continual and innate feeling of dissatisfaction with his knowledge of what is good,

even before he engages in dialectic. It is for this reason, then, that the lover has a

desireb to develop his knowledge; self-knowledge cannot but breed in a person who

has it an “unstinting love of wisdom” (Smp, 210d).

Given that he already sees the necessity of developing his understanding, we

may ask why this desire would lead the lover towards dialectic, rather than to pursue

knowledge of the divine directly. There are two reasons for this. First, although self-

knowledge does indeed give the lover the knowledge that his understanding of the

divine is deficient, the feeling of dissatisfaction that results from this is too general to

kick-start the lover’s rational soul into motion. Only when he has illuminated the

particular deficiencies of his account will they feel a sufficiently strong motivational

force to develop his understanding of what is good. Second, only after a lover has

tested the limits of his understanding will he be plunged into aporia, and so open

himself to new experiences of the divine. Unless he does this, the lover will not be

able to shake off the dogmatic assumptions that he has held for so long. So although

both desirea and desireb have the same goal, we can see that their origins are quite

different. Whereas desireb is triggered by a general and innate knowledge that mortals

always share in deficiency, desirea is triggered in dialectical discussions, with the

illumination of particular inconsistencies in the lover’s account of the divine. Both,

however, are essential moments in the lover’s ascent. Desireb motivates the lover to

engage in dialectic, while desirea pushes the lover to seek out new experiences of the

divine.

With this discussion in place we can see that the lover of the Scala Amoris

passage cannot merely be someone who pursues beautiful objects in the world; he

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must also be a lover of wisdom, constantly striving to develop their understanding of

what is good. His ascent, therefore, involves not one, but two quite separate activities:

first, bending his eros towards particular kinds of beauty in order to reproduce the

good, and second, generating logoi to begin dialectical discussions in order to

illuminate the deficiencies of his account of what is good, and trigger a desire to seek

out knowledge of the divine. Both of these exercises require a lifetime of continual

effort, so we can understand why Socrates believes only the most extraordinary

character could ascend to the divine given the temporal constraints of mortality.

An interesting idea follows from this conclusion. The fact that the lover must

test his understanding of what is good in conversation suggests that his ascent is not a

solitary exercise. Conversation, after all, cannot occur without a conversational

partner. Before I continue with my examination of the Scala Amoris passage I wish to

digress for a moment and consider the role of the Other in the lover’s ascent.

Although this is a rich and complex issue in Plato’s philosophy, I will restrict my

discussion only to those points that are most relevant to our analysis, specifically

regarding the role of the Other in the generation of logoi.

A Brief Discussion on the Role of the Other in a Lover’s Ascent

In one of the most influential examinations of the role of the Other in Plato’s theory

of love, Gregory Vlastos (1981) criticises Platonic eros because he believes that it

reduces the Other merely to being a placeholder for ‘the good’ and ‘the beautiful’. On

this reading, when a lover says that he ‘loves’ a particular person, what he really

means is that he is erotically attracted to certain beautiful qualities that this person

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possesses, rather than valuing the person in all of her20 idiosyncrasy. However, the

lover does not even value these qualities insofar as they belong to that particular

person. They do not love Joan’s wisdom, or John’s temperance; instead, these

possessions merely act as images for the real objects of the lover’s affections –

wisdom and temperance themselves. Because a lover is only erotically concerned

with certain features of the Other, Vlastos argues that such a person could not

possibly recognise the Other as an individual worthy of unique concern and respect

for her own sake – what Kant would call an end-in-themselves. As the Other is

merely treated as a placeholder for ‘the beautiful’ it would seem that the lover’s

relationship with the Other is wholly instrumental, as the lover uses her as “rising

stairs” (Smp, 211c) on their journey towards the divine.

Vlastos is not alone in holding such a view,21 and, indeed, many of the

conclusions that he draws are commensurate with ideas that I have advanced in this

thesis regarding eros. First, as an appetitive desire, eros responds only to its natural

object, the beautiful, and because all people are intermediary beings, sharing in both

beauty and ugliness, eros will inevitably only be attracted to some properties of a

person and not others. Second, because eros is non-evaluative, insofar as someone

only stands in an erotic relationship with another person, or rather, the beauty that she

possesses, they will not, and cannot understand this person as a special kind of being

worthy of unique respect. It must be noted, however, that the lover of the Scala

Amoris passage is not a wholly erotic person, as his relationship with beautiful objects

in the world is both an erotic and a rational one. But even for a rational lover, insofar

as he is concerned with possessing the good for himself, it is the job of the rational 20 Although, for Plato, the agent who is the object of the best lover’s erotic attention will be male, for the sake of convenience I will use the feminine pronoun when referring to the Other here, as it will ensure that the referent of the pronoun is clear. 21 See especially Martha Nussbaum (2007, cf. 1994) and Martin Warner (1979).

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soul to evaluate objects for their efficacy in triggering an erotic desire for self-

transcendence, and in the Phaedrus particularly, Socrates goes to great lengths to

show the unique ability of the Other (the beloved) for triggering the lover’s desire for

ascent (250c-252c).22 Insofar as she is treated as an image of the divine, even for a

rational lover, the Other has the same role in the lover’s ascent as any other object.23

22 It is not the focus of this discussion to explore why the Other is such a powerful image of the divine, although I do wish briefly to note the reason, as it raises many other important issues regarding the role of the Other in the lover’s ascent. To begin it is important to note that, for Socrates, lovers are predisposed to be attracted to those who share their own nature (Phdr, 252c-253c). Mythologically, Socrates’ explanation for this is that the lover and their beloved, before their souls have become embodied, were in the chorus of the same god as they journeyed around (and above) the heavens. To de-mythologise this claim somewhat, Socrates seems to be suggesting that people are attracted to those who embody the same goods as they themselves value. Lovers of honour (the attendants of Ares) prize those who reflect honour most clearly, and the same is true for lovers of rule (the attendants of Hera), lovers of wisdom (the attendants of Zeus), and all other lovers. Because they share this nature, Socrates argues that the beautiful beloved is not only beneficial to the lover because she acts as an image of the virtues he value; in addition, the Other becomes a living image of what the lover himself would be ideally (cf. Alc, 133a-c). Although things like beautiful vases and poems can trigger a lover’s erotic desires for self-transcendence, seeing divinity actualized in a human figure is obviously far more useful for instilling in the lover desires, both erotic and rational, to struggle for divinity. This point leads to many interesting and important ideas regarding the role of the Other in the development of the lover’s self-knowledge, and questions of the self-other relationship, but unfortunately it is beyond the scope of this thesis to explore these issues here. For a more extensive analysis of this first issue see Charles Griswold (1996), and for the latter see Andrea Nye (1990, cf. 1994). 23 We ought not conclude from this point, however, as Vlastos does, that the lover’s relationship with the Other is wholly instrumental here. The rational soul is capable of respecting many different concerns in its interactions with an object, and so can simultaneously value an object for consequential reasons, as well as an intrinsically valuable object (see Rep, 2.357a-358a). A rational lover, therefore, can appreciate something as a useful tool while also ensuring that he does not merely treat it instrumentally. Eros, Socrates admits (Phdr, 237d-238c, 252d), does lead the lover to neglect his manners as it blindly pulls the soul towards its object, but he also states that it is important that the lover does not merely give eros free reign, to ensure that his beloved is treated with the reverence she deserves as a creature of becoming who shares in divinity, and also has the potential for ascent (254e). Such a reading is wholly in line with ideas advanced by Kenneth Dover in his influential study of Greek morality, where he argues that self-interest, for the Greeks, was not necessarily considered to be mutually exclusive with a concern for the Other for her own sake:

It is easy to see that certain types of behaviour motivated by sexual desire – notably rape, alienation of affection, and seduction under false pretences – are

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Prima facie, Plato’s discussion of the Other in the Phaedrus seems wholly

commensurate with the conventions of Greek pederastic relationships, in which the

lover merely asks that the boy submit passively to his advances, and allow the lover to

use the boy as a means to slake their desire for pleasure. In these proceedings it is

expected that the boy will take no pleasure himself, but to stare ahead indifferently,

while possibly considering the benefits that come from being in such close proximity

to a social and intellectual superior.24 The passivity of the beloved is a central theme

in many of the speeches in the Symposium also. Phaedrus attempts to catalogue the

myriad of benefits that the beloved tacitly receives by having a virtuous lover, and

Phaedrus is perfectly giddy at the idea of a beloved submitting entirely to the

advances of a lover. Also, Alcibiades’ plan to ‘crack open’ Socrates, encouraging him

to impart all of his knowledge, is based on appearing as submissive to Socrates as

possible (217a). Plato’s philosophical lover appears to be quite similar to

conventional lovers, then, except rather than using the Other as a means to pleasure,

she is instead an instrument for the production of the good. And here too, as an image

of the divine, the Other plays a purely passive role in the lover’s ascent, as her mere

presence is sufficient for triggering in the lover an erotic desire for self-transcendence.

particular cases of self-advancement without regard for the interests of others, and can therefore be subsumed under the same moral category as theft, cowardice, cruelty and avarice. … There remains, however, a considerable range of sexual behaviour, by no means confined to marriage or even heterosexual or one-to-one relationships, which is exempt from the charge of ‘self-advancement without regard for the interest of the other’ (1994: 205).

It is this latter kind of relationship which Socrates clearly recommends. Directly after Socrates sings the praises of the Other as a tool in the lover’s ascent he then says that the best lover: “shows no envy, no mean-spirited lack of generosity, towards the body, but makes every possible effort to draw [their beloved] into being totally like themselves and the god to whom they are devoted” (Phdr, 253b-c). 24 For a more extended discussion of pederastic conventions in Classical Greece see Kenneth Dover (1989) and David Halperin (1986, cf. 1990).

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We ought to remember that Socrates is often critical of other speakers in the

Symposium because of their passivity (either in regards to self-control or self-

transcendence), and in the remainder of this section I wish to consider whether Plato

really agrees with the idea that the lover finds the best company in his journey to the

divine with a merely passive partner. Let us consider a claim made shortly before the

ascent passage in which Socrates states that the lover is supremely fortunate who

finds a beautiful person who makes him “instantly teem with ideas and arguments

[eu0porei~ lo/gwn] about virtue” (Smp, 209b), or literally ‘be resourceful in giving

accounts’. In his article Vlastos focuses on the Other as a placeholder for ‘the

beautiful’, and so his examination is restricted to the consideration of the Other in the

lover’s production of the good. However, as we have seen, the lover’s ascent is

composed of an additional activity, the development of their understanding of what is

good, and we saw that the generation of logoi was central to this process. In what

follows I wish to consider three ways in which an Other may make a lover ‘teem’

with ideas about virtue, and to do this I will consider three personalities from the

dialogues: Charmides, Protagoras, and Socrates.

At the beginning of the Charmides we learn of the great beauty of Charmides

himself. As the young man enters the room Socrates is immediately struck by his

physical beauty, and as he joins the gathering his cousin Critias also praises him for

the beauty of his soul, and particularly his possession of temperance (158c-d). What is

of interest to us here is that this beautiful young man instills in Socrates a desire to

generate logoi about temperance (158c-d), and, moreover, Charmides’ mere presence

as a being that reflects this virtue is sufficient to instill in Socrates this desire. Perhaps

this is the phenomenon that Socrates hints at in the Symposium that makes a lover

teem with ideas, and if it is then all that the lover needs from the Other is that she

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reflects many different aspects of the divine, so that the lover is inspired to produce

logoi of many topics. Here again the Other is merely a placeholder for the beautiful,

and so has a passive role in the lover’s ascent as an image of the divine. But although

it may well be important for a lover to be inspired to generate logoi in this way,

Socrates’ conversation with Charmides casts doubt on the ability of a merely beautiful

person to make a lover teem with ideas. Socrates can barely carry on a conversation

with the young man concerning virtue for three stephanus pages, and their discussion

never progresses far beyond its starting point. Indeed, rather than focusing on

examining definitions of temperance, Socrates spends most of his time explaining to

the young man what he expects the form of a definition of temperance will take, and

querying the origins of Charmides’ own thoughts. Because the conversation was

bogged down on these issues, the interlocutors had little time to advance and explore

arguments about virtue. It is not until he begins a discussion with the much older

Critias that the conversation begins to blossom with ideas, not just about temperance,

but about self-knowledge and ignorance. Although Charmides is an image of many

different aspects of the divine, this fact alone is insufficient for making Socrates teem

with ideas about virtue. To do this it seems that the Other must not merely inspire a

lover to produce logoi, but contribute something substantial to the conversation itself.

The second personality I wish to discuss here is Protagoras, a sophist who, for

the right price, actively attempts to impart knowledge of virtue to his interlocutors, in

the interest of making them better people (Prot, 318a-b). Whether teaching through

stories or argumentation, Protagoras’ pedagogical tool of choice is the speech, an

extended monologue in which the sophist attempts to impart rigorous, systematic, and

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coherent pieces of thought to his audience,25 who are expected merely to take up this

information passively. Both Protagoras (318a-b) and many of his supporters (310d)

believe that hearing one of these speeches is sufficient for making people wise in the

subjects of which he talks, and, indeed, several attendees in the Symposium hold a

similar view of education. As we learnt in the previous chapter, both Agathon (174d)

and Alcibiades (217a) hold to the idea that one can ‘pour’ wisdom into another

person, as one pours wine into a cup. One could imagine how speeches like those

Protagoras offers could potentially make a lover teem with ideas. In his ‘great speech’

in the Protagoras (320c-328d), for example, the sophist raises issues as diverse as

human development and the origin of virtue, and the nature of laws, virtue, and

education. But even when speeches cover a wealth of different topics Socrates is

highly doubtful that they can lead a person to teem with ideas and arguments, and,

indeed, he goes so far as to argue that they may rob from lovers their desire for

wisdom.

In the Phaedrus we are given interesting insights into Socrates’ opinion of

speeches in his response to Lysias’ speech on love,26 and here he is highly critical of

those who compose extended texts in order to pour knowledge into their audience.27

25 Protagoras is so reliant on speeches that, at many times during his elenchus with Socrates, he spontaneously bursts into extended monologues on the subject of their discussions (350c-351a) – much to the enjoyment of many of the attendees. 26 For an extended analysis of Plato’s discussion of speeches in the Phaedrus see Charles Griswold (1996) and Charles Kahn (1999). 27 It is important to note that, for Plato, not all extended pieces of writing attempt to pour knowledge into their audience, and so avoid many of the criticisms that Socrates raises regarding writing in the Phaedrus. Perhaps the best example of this is the Platonic myth, which, it is often argued, does not attempt to teach people anything substantive, but merely nudge people in the right direction, either ethically, through appealing to people’s emotions, or epistemologically, through giving people an image of the way the world really is. For those who believe that myth has only the former function see G. W. F. Hegel (trans Haldane and Simon, 1894) and Luc Brisson (1998), and for those who believe that myth has both of these functions see Eugenio Benitez (2007) and Janet Smith (1986).

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Socrates advances many arguments to highlight the problems for this method of

education,28 but most relevant for our present discussion is his criticism or writing in

the ‘Myth of Theuth’ passage (264c-275c). The god, Theuth, having invented the art

of writing, recommends it to the Pharaoh, Thamus, as a tool for educating the people

of Egypt. But Thamus spurns this gift because he believes that it would actually

impede the education of his people by giving them the mere appearance of wisdom,

rather than wisdom itself: “you will make them seem to know much”, says the

Pharaoh, “while for the most part they know nothing” (Phdr, 275a-b). We have seen

how important it is for people to overcome their belief that they are wise, as only

those who have given up on this illusion will desire to develop their knowledge.

Speeches, according to Socrates, have the real tendency to make people believe that

they are wise, and lead them to forget that, as intermediary beings, their knowledge

will always share in deficiency to some extent.29 We must remember that it was the

philosophical lover’s knowledge that he was an intermediary being that led him to

generate logoi in the first place, and in undermining his self-knowledge speeches have

the uncanny ability to interrupt this activity. Even a speech filled with ideas about

virtue, far from making a lover teem with ideas and arguments about these issues,

may indeed do the exact opposite, and lead the lover to believe that no further

28 The so called ‘Philosophical Digression’ of the 7th Epistle (340c-245c) contains an extended criticism of writing which raises many points that are similar to those advanced in the Phaedrus, but because of the controversy concerning the authorship of this passage I will omit discussing it here. For more extensive examinations of the arguments advanced in the Philosophical Digressions see Ludwig Edelstein (1966) and Glenn Morrow (1929), and for discussions regarding the authenticity of the 7th Epistle see Elizabeth Caskey (1974) and Harold Tarrant (1983). 29 This danger, one imagines, would become greater as the skill of the speaker increases. The greater the grasp the speaker has on the art of rhetoric, the more proficient they will be at constructing speeches in a way that make him appear wise. Protagoras all but admits that he is one such speaker when he states that he seems wise only when he is able to generate speeches (Prot, 335a), suggesting that he appears average in his possession of knowledge when conversing in all other ways – particularly through dialectic.

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exploration of these issues is needed, and as such, the lover will see no reason to test

his knowledge of these matters in conversation with others. Such a situation, however,

would be disastrous for someone who is hoping to develop his knowledge of the

divine, as, even if a speech did help a lover increase his knowledge of virtue to some

extent – or even if it raises him all the way to divine understanding –, the fact that the

lover will no longer feel the need to generate logoi, and so trigger a desire to

reproduce his knowledge, will quickly offset any temporary benefits he may have

gained.

Neither merely beautiful figures, like Charmides, nor those who teach through

speeches, such as Protagoras, are able to make a lover teem with ideas about virtue.

The former plays too passive a role in discussions of these topics, and the latter

expects the lover himself to be passive here, as though he should merely be a

receptacle of the Other’s knowledge. The problem with both of these views is that

they assume the passivity of one of the conversational partners, so perhaps what the

lover needs is an interlocutor who, through her own actions, triggers in the lover a

desire to develop his own accounts about the divine. Dialecticians are the experts at

doing this, and in the dialogues it is evident that none are more proficient than

Socrates himself. Unlike a speechmaker, Socrates enters into a discussion with the

intention, not of imparting his own ideas to his conversational partners, but to test

their beliefs about virtue. He does this through a series of questions in order to

illuminate the limits of his interlocutor’s knowledge, and to show inconsistencies in

their beliefs. Importantly, Socrates does not merely critique the first definition his

partner offers; instead, throughout their discussion, Socrates encourages them to come

up with accounts that overcome any problems their initial ideas ran into. In doing this,

conversations that began as examinations of a single virtue often turn into discussions

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of a whole range of connected issues – Socrates’ discussion of knowledge in the

Theaetetus is the most obvious example of this. It is this ability to aid others in

developing their accounts in various directions, and to turn their attention to related

issues, that leads Socrates to refer to himself as a ‘midwife’ (Tht, 157c), who helps

people ‘bring to term’ new ideas and arguments in a discussion. These ideas have not

come from Socrates himself, as if he had poured them into his conversational

partners; instead, they are ideas that have existed in foetal form in his interlocutors,

which Socrates has simply encouraged them to articulate (Smp, 209c, Tht, 157c-d).30

Applying his skills as a midwife, Socrates is able to help his interlocutors give

birth to many arguments, but this is not yet the real benefit of having a dialectician as

a conversational partner. After Socrates has led his interlocutors down many paths,

and helped them overcome many obstacles, the subject matter of their conversation

will be the very best arguments that these people can offer. But Socrates does not

merely rest content at this point; instead, he will explore these ideas with more

tenacity than ever. As we see in the dialogues, the result of such investigations is,

more often than not, aporia, in which Socrates’ interlocutors appreciate, not simply

the particular problems that plague their ideas, but that their whole level of

understanding is deficient, and prohibits them from giving a complete account of a

given topic. It is with this appreciation of their deficiency that Socrates’ partners will

feel a desire to develop their knowledge for themselves, and having been freed of

their dogmatic assumptions, everything will become a potential point of concern.

With a strong desire to develop their knowledge, and now being open to any path of

investigation, a lover has all the resources he needs to teem with ideas about virtue as

30 For an extended discussion of Socratic midwifery see Radcliffe Edmonds (2000).

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he pursues a myriad of avenues of thought regarding the divine, generating logoi, and

investigating the benefits and detriments of each through dialectical examination.

Given the preceding discussion we now know that the Other who makes the

lover teem with ideas about virtue is one who both reflects the divine, and so triggers

the lover’s erotic desire for self-transcendence, and also motivates the lover to

produce accounts of virtue, and then helps test the strengths and weaknesses of these

accounts in dialectic. Inspired in this way, the lover is capable of great acts, and yet he

must be mindful not to get carried away by his achievements and come to think that,

having developed an account that overcomes the problems that plagued his previous

ones, he is now wise. The problem here is the same as we saw above with speeches.

Only those with self-knowledge, i.e., those who understand that their knowledge will

always share in poverty to some extent, will feel a desire to submit their

understanding to dialectical examination, and unless they are able to achieve

consistently a moment of aporia they will not have the resources to teem with ideas

about virtue. In such a situation a lover would usually have to wait for the world to

illuminate his ignorance with sufficient clarity in order to re-start the motion of his

rational soul, but an Other who appreciates this fact about human nature could speed

up this process by taking the initiative, and begin questioning the lover’s

understanding, without waiting for the lover to offer it for examination first. In this

way the Other could help trigger in the lover his desire to strive for knowledge, and

thus encourage him to generate logoi about virtue. The best companion a lover has in

his journey towards the divine is not merely a beautiful dialectician, but specifically

one with self-knowledge, who actively tests the limits of the lover’s understanding.

Indeed, in the Symposium there are some indications that it is Socrates’ self-

knowledge that greatly contributes to his being such an excellent conversational

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partner. It is interesting to note that, in his discussion with Diotima, Socrates acts

much like his interlocutors in other dialogues. He allows Diotima to guide the whole

conversation, while only giving short answers himself, and he prefers it when she

merely exposits information, rather than asking questions of him. The gadfly of the

other dialogues is barely recognizable. But what differentiates Socrates here from the

Socrates elsewhere is that the latter understands that mortals are intermediary beings,

sharing in both poverty and plenty, while the former does not.31 Although the fact that

Socrates sought out Diotima shows that he already desired knowledge, a love of

wisdom had clearly not yet gripped his soul en force until after their discussion. But

with the realization of his own intermediacy it is little doubt that Socrates would have

become a true philosopher, as self-knowledge cannot but breed in people a

philosophical mindset. And it is Socrates’ vociferous searching for wisdom, and

active probing of others’ beliefs, that makes him so good at illuminating others’

ignorance, and triggering in them a desire for wisdom.32

From this conclusion comes a novel idea: the best companion in a lover’s

ascent will be another lover who strives for divinity also. Plato explicitly raises this

idea in one of the most intriguing passages in the Phaedrus, found at the end of

Socrates’ palinode (255a-257b), in which he suggests that, after serving for some time

as an image of the divine for a philosophical lover, a hitherto passive boy will begin

to feel a ‘counter-eros’ [a0nte/rwv] for his lover (255e), which, with proper self-

control, leads the boy to become a lover of wisdom himself; a desire which, after

31 This realization clearly came only after this discussion with Diotima, given that nowhere in his story does Socrates recount his having an Archimedean moment in which he appreciates the full significance of Diotima’s claim. 32 It is important to note, though, that Socrates’ confrontational style in conversations often leads his interlocutors to become irritated by him. As we saw with Thrasymachus in the last chapter, this anger can often prevent his interlocutors from feeling a desire for knowledge.

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some nurturing, he expresses by “[devoting] his life to Love through philosophical

discussions” (Phdr, 257b). Here Plato is not merely pulling down the standard

hierarchical pederastic relationship by positing the idea that both lover and beloved

ought to be active; he is also arguing that the two parties’ roles and activities should

be exactly the same, and, indeed, that this is the most beneficial partnership for the

two. As David Halperin argues, “the genius of Plato’s analysis is that it eliminated

passivity altogether: according to Socrates both members become active, desiring

lovers; neither remains solely objects of desire” (1986: 68). In devoting themselves to

a life of active philosophical examination, which Halperin refers to as one of ‘erotic

reciprocity’, both parties develop logoi about the divine, and each helps the other to

probe and explore the limits of their ideas. As Radcliffe Edmonds points out, such a

situation is the ideal of Socratic dialectic, though it is a situation Socrates infrequently

finds himself in in the dialogues (2000: 271). Immediately we can see why such a

relationship would be ideal for the development of each party’s knowledge. In

dialectic both lovers are able to utilise, not just their own experience and opinions of

virtue, but also those of the other lover, and so potentially come to appreciate

connections that they may never have hitherto considered. And erotic reciprocity

would be particularly useful after their examinations have plunged them both into

aporia, as here they can help each other gain insight into a new way of looking at the

world, leading the other to broaden their understanding of what is good. Erotic

reciprocity is captured in an allusion Socrates makes in the Symposium (174d) –

which also reoccurs in the Protagoras (346d) – to a passage from the Iliad (10.224)

which Socrates adapts (heavily) to the phrase: “When two go together, one has an

idea before the other”. In this way each lover is able to build upon the knowledge of

the other, and also ensure that the other party is constantly teeming with ideas, so that

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their conversations will be as rich and multi-faceted as possible, and their ascent will

be both swift and smooth.33

Though I have had little time to expand on these concepts in sufficient depth,

what I have hoped to demonstrate is that, far from recommending that the Other has a

merely passive role in the lover’s development, Socrates’ comments in the

Symposium suggest that the best companion the lover of the Scala Amoris passage has

in his journey to the divine is an active lover of wisdom. There is still much to say

about many of these topics, and other issues concerning the role of the Other that I

have not been able to discuss at all, but an examination of these issues will have to be

left to others. For now, let us return to our reading of the Scala Amoris passage.

An Expanding Understanding of the Beautiful

On the Addition and Subtraction of Beautiful Objects

As the lover of the Scala Amoris passage moves up the Ladder his understanding of

what is good changes, and, as it does, so too will the direction of his becoming.

Where in the lower mysteries of eros the lover is focused entirely on possessing

physical goods, as he ascends he turns his attention towards the production of goods

of the soul, and then just customs and institutions, and finally knowledge. In parallel

33 The intimate connection of the lovers’ development raises many issues regarding the connection between egoism and altruism in Plato’s theory of love. Although Julia Annas (1977) is particularly concerned with philia in Plato, her paper raises interesting questions about whether the lover’s other-concern is primitive, or whether it is ultimately derived from egoistic premises (the latter being Annas’ view). Contra Annas, Andrea Nye (1990) suggests that, even though both parties give birth to their own ideas about virtue, the fact that these arguments have been nurtured by both parties, and because the lovers gain the same benefit from these ideas, the ‘for the sake of’ one party becomes inseparable from the ‘for the sake of’ the other. On this view self-concern and other-concern are completely indistinguishable from each other. It is important to note, however, that Nye does not read Diotima as espousing Platonic ideas, but ones that are for the most part at odds with Plato’s other dialogues.

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with this development will be a change in the lover’s world-view, as he comes to re-

consider the utility of objects for triggering an erotic desire for the new ends that he

has come to value. Often objects that may have been supremely useful in the lower

mysteries of eros will have little or no value in directing eros towards the production

of other goods. A statue of Adonis, for example, although effective for stirring in the

lover an erotic desire to care for his physical wellbeing, is hardly useful as an image

of goods of the soul, such as moderation. It is clear from the Scala Amoris passage

that the lover brings new objects into his sphere of concern as he move up the Ladder,

but what is less clear, and quite contentious in the literature, is the fate of the objects

that were once valued at previous stages in his development when the lover moves to

a higher rung. The issue here is whether the lover’s ascent involves – to use Martha

Nussbaum’s (1994) terminology – both the addition and subtraction of objects from

the lover’s sphere of concern. Given what we have learnt about why a rational lover

values certain objects we know that this matter is indicative of the more fundamental

issue of whether the lover comes to abandon the pursuit of those ends he previously

found important to the good life; or if, by contrast, he incorporates new ends into his

conception of the good, and so divide his attention between the pursuit of several ends

simultaneously. If the former is the case then it would seem that the vast majority of

objects would only be useful to the lover on one rung of the Ladder, and will be of no

concern for him at other stages in his ascent – following Price (1994: 44) I will refer

to this as an ‘exclusive’ reading of the lover’s ascent.34 If the latter is true, then the

same objects could be valued throughout the lover’s ascent – what has been called an

34 For those who advance such a reading see R. E. Allen (1991), Allen Bloom (2001), F. M. Cornford (1971), Charles Kahn (1999), J. M. E. Moravcsik (1972), Martha Nussbaum (1994, cf. 2007), and Gerasimos Santas (1988). It should be noted, though, that, in his later work, Plato and Platonism (2000: 112), Moravcsik revises his view and advances an inclusive reading of the lover’s ascent.

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‘inclusive’ reading of the lover’s ascent.35 In what follows I will consider to key

claims in the Scala Amoris passage to resolve this issue, and in the remainder of this

section I will then explore the lover’s final step up the Ladder of Love.

The commentators who advance an exclusive reading of the lover’s ascent

often focus on two particular assertions Socrates makes in the ascent passage to

justify their view. The first describes the lover’s reaction to their pursuit of a single

beautiful body after he has come to recognise that this kind of beauty is shared by all

bodies (210b), and the second details the lover’s opinion of the value of beautiful

bodies after he has become a lover of laws (210c). These descriptions run as follows:

210b: When he grasps this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and

he must think that this wild gaping after just one body is a small thing and

despise it.

210c: The result is that our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of

activities and laws and to see that all of this is akin to itself, with the result that

he will think that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance.

From these passages there seems to be strong evidence for an exclusive reading of the

lover’s ascent. In the first quote the lover is said to think badly of pursuing physical

wellbeing through a single image of this good, and many proponents of an exclusive

reading of the lover’s ascent have generalized from this to conclude that the lover

comes to ‘despise’ the direction of his striving on all rungs of the Ladder once he has

ascended to a higher point. So the lover of souls will despise his previous pursuit of

bodies, and the lover of laws will despise the pursuit of souls, etc. The second quote

35 Among those who argue for an inclusive reading of the lover’s ascent are Thomas Gould (1968), Richard Hunter (2004), Luce Irigaray (1994), Richard Kraut (2008), Gabriel Lear (2006), Donald Levy (1979), Andrea Nye (1990, cf. 1994), A. W. Price (1991), and C. D. C. Reeve (2009).

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here seems to give us some indication of why the lover’s reactions are so strong. Once

the lover has seen the value of beautiful laws he comes to recognise the beauty of

bodies to be a thing of ‘no importance’. It appears here that the lover now believes

that pursuing the good life through the production of physical goods was a fool’s

errand, and the apparent beauty of bodies was nothing more than a red herring in his

hunt for true beauty. Again, many commentators assume from this that the lover has

similar reactions to the previous objects of his concern as he moves up the Ladder,

coming to recognise, until he reach divine beauty itself, that all objects are unworthy

of such focused attention. I think, however, that there are problems with the

translations of these sentences that make an exclusive reading look more appealing

than it really is, and to illuminate this, let us turn to the Greek text:

210b6-9: tou=to d’ e0nnoh/santa katasth=nai pa/ntwn tw~n kalw~n

swma&twn e0rasth/n, e9no\v de\ to\ sfo/da tou=to xala/sai katafronh/santa

kai\ smikro\n h9ghsa/menon.

210c3-7: i3na a0nagkasqh|= au] qea/sasqai to\ e0n toi=v e0pithdeu/masi kai\ toi=v

no/moiv kalo\n kai\ tou=t’ i0dei~n o3ti pa=n au0to\ au0tw?|~ suggene/v e0stin, i3na to\

peri\ to\ sw~ma kalo\n smikro/n ti h9gh/shtai ei]nai.

To begin I wish to consider Nehamas and Woodruff’s translation of the term

‘smikro/n’. In the first sentence, in which the lover is said to believe (h9gei~sqai) that

the love of a single beautiful body is ‘smikro/n’, the term has been translated as ‘a

small thing’; in the second sentence, however, where Socrates states that the lover is

said to believe (h9gei~sqai) the beauty of bodies is ‘smikro/n’, it has been translated as

‘a thing of no importance’. Given that the two passages use such similar language it is

odd that Nehamas and Woodruff would translate the same word in two different

ways. The real issue here, however, is that ‘smikro/n’ has no sense that means

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‘nothing’ or ‘a thing of no importance’; it only has the sense of a ‘small thing’, or a

‘thing of slight value’.

The second problem I wish to address will be somewhat more difficult to

resolve conclusively, but the previous analysis should give us some insight here. Let

us consider the term ‘katafronei~n’, which Nehamas and Woodruff have translated

here as ‘to despise’. Although this is a common and accepted translation of the term,

‘katafronei~n’ also has a weaker sense, meaning merely ‘to think slightly of’. The

two senses can usually be distinguished by their construction – the former taking an

absolute, the latter a straight genitive –, but unfortunately it is the verb ‘xala/sein’,

‘to slacken’, that governs the construction of this sentence. Let us, then, consider the

two options for the translation of this sentence, and see which is most coherent:

210bS: he must think this wild gaping after just one body is a small thing

[smikro/n] and despise it.

210bW: he must think this wild gaping after just one body is a small thing

[smikro/n] and think slightly of it.

The fact that Plato uses the term ‘smikro/n’, ‘a small thing’, rather than ‘fau=lon’ or

‘a0xrei~on’, meaning ‘a worthless thing’, or a phrase like ‘ou0de\n ei]nai’, ‘a thing of no

importance’, gives us some insight here. In 210bW the adjective ‘smikro/n’ and the

verb ‘katafronei~n’ reinforce each other’s meaning in the sentence, as here the lover

‘thinks slightly of’ the love of that which has only ‘slight’ value; whereas in 210bS,

the meaning of ‘katafronei~n’ seems to conflict with ‘smikro/n’, as it would be odd

to go so far as to despise the love of something that has some value, even though it

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only be small. Because of this conflict I believe that the weaker sense of

‘katafronei~n’ is more appropriate here.36

Taking these points into consideration we can now revise the translations as

follows:

210b: When he grasps this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and

he must think that this wild gaping after just one body is a small thing [and

think slightly of it].

210c: The result is that our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of

activities and laws and to see that all of this is akin to itself, with the result that

he will think the beauty of bodies [a small thing].

With these small amendments the message from these descriptions has changed

dramatically. In the first quote the lover does not despise his previous love of one

beautiful body, as if he were wholly misguided in pursuing this object; although he do

think slightly of lavishing so much attention on a single body, now that he has come

to appreciate that the beauty of all bodies is akin. And in the second sentence the lover

of laws does still recognise some amount of value in the beauty of bodies, although he

clearly believes material beauty to be slight in comparison with the beauty of

intangible objects such as laws (and, presumably, souls). With careful consideration

of the translations here, far from being evidence of an exclusive reading of the lover’s

ascent, these passages point to an inclusive reading, in which the lover continually

incorporates new objects into his sphere of concern. As the lover moves up the

36 In this conclusion I am in the minority, as the majority of translators use the stronger sense of ‘katafronei~n’. See especially Seth Benardete (2001, “in contempt”), M. C. Howatson (Howatson and Sheffield, 2008, “despising it”), Benjamin Jowett (2001, “despise”), W. R. M. Lamb (1925, “contemning”), and C. J. Rowe (1998, “despising”). However R. E. Allen (1991) does opt for a weaker sense of the verb and translates it as “looking down”.

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Ladder, then, he does not go from being a lover of bodies to a lover of souls (and so

on), shunning those objects he once valued so highly; instead, when he becomes a

lover of souls he adds this love to his love of bodies, valuing each together. There is,

however, an important hedge here. As he ascends the value that the lover attributes to

certain objects does not remain constant, but changes as he moves from one rung for

the next. At 210b we see that the object that once exhausted the lover’s understanding

of what is beautiful now shares a place with many other beautiful bodies; and at 210c

we learn that, by the time the lover has recognised the beauty of laws, beautiful bodies

have been relegated to a more peripheral place in their sphere of concern.

From the above discussion we have reached two conclusions: a) that the

lover’s ascent is one in which he adds new kinds of beautiful objects to his sphere of

concern; and b) as he adds new objects, the importance that is placed on different

kinds of beauty changes. Both of these points are commensurate with important ideas

that we have encountered previously in discussions of the lover’s ascent. First, as we

saw in the example of the actress in our examination of ignorance, the possession of

any single good is only able to raise us so far to the divine. Fame, for example, is able

to lead the actress some way towards the good life, but because she neglects other

goods she will only be able to attain a single element of this life. The same is also true

for the pursuit of goods that Socrates spends far more time recommending to his

interlocutors. In the Republic we learn that the person who possesses courage and

moderation, though supremely fortunate, cannot derive the true benefits from these

virtues unless he also seeks to possess the virtue of justice – here, again, the lover’s

ascent is limited when pursuing only certain goods.37 As he climbs the Ladder, then,

37 Besides the Republic, the necessity of pursuing several ends simultaneously is best shown at the end of the Philebus, when Socrates concludes that both knowledge and pleasure are needed for happiness, and in the Laws (1.631b-e), where the Athenian

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the lover cannot merely abandon his concern for physical goods when he comes to

appreciate the importance of virtues of the soul; nor leave behind the production of

justice and piety when he turns to pursue wisdom (etc.). But despite the fact that the

lover must pursue all these ends simultaneously, this does not mean that he ought to

spend an equal amount of time and energy pursuing each. For Plato, striving for

physical wellbeing is clearly far less important to the lover’s ascent than the

production of goods of the soul, and of all activities, the love of wisdom is the most

essential to this process. As such, the lover of the Scala Amoris passage should

portion out his energy to pursue certain goals in proportion to their relative

importance in the good life.

Here we have found the philosophical basis for why the lover’s evaluation of

certain objects changes as he ascends. At the bottom of the Ladder the lover treats

material beauty as supremely valuable as he believes that the reproduction of physical

goods is sufficient to raise him to divinity, but when the lover comes to appreciate the

necessity of attending to the hygiene of his soul, beautiful bodies lose their place as

the sole objects in the lover’s sphere of concern, as he comes to see that images of

virtues of the soul are also important for directing his eros towards the production of

the good. And when the lover recognises that the hygiene of the soul is more

important than physical wellbeing, he will value objects that reflect these goods more

highly, and will spend a greater proportion of his time and energy to seeking them

out, while a lesser, though still a respectable amount of energy, will by dedicated to

reproducing physical goods. Beautiful souls, then, will take central place in the

lover’s sphere of concern, while the beauty of bodies will assume a more peripheral

position, and will be considered a small thing in comparison to the former kind of argues for the necessity of possessing virtuous souls, healthy bodies, and material plenty to lead a truly virtuous life.

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beauty. This reshuffling will be repeated throughout the lover’s ascent, as objects’

importance within the lover’s sphere of concern are reoriented in accordance with his

developing understanding of what is good.

To summarise what we have learnt, the lover’s ascent up the Ladder is one in

which his understanding of what is good continuously grows, until he appreciates

every end that must be attended to if he is to live the good life. From here the lover

will be able to recognise every kind of beauty, identify what good any beautiful object

reflects, and assess its importance as a means to self-transcendence. Having

developed his knowledge in this way, when he turns to look at the world, the lover

will be presented with a “great sea” of beautiful objects (Smp, 210d), all of which the

lover values (to a greater of lesser extent) as useful in his ascent.

Generalization and Glimpsing Divine Beauty

At the end of the previous discussion we left the lover near the telos of their ascent,

gazing at a whole sea of beautiful objects. But there is still one last step the lover must

take before he reaches the highest rung of the Ladder of Love: he must catch a

glimpse of divine beauty itself (210e). Although Socrates spends more time detailing

the lover’s vision and activities at this stage in his ascent than all the other stages put

together, his description is in many ways as vague here as at any other point in the

Scala Amoris passage, and, indeed, of all of the issues for interpretation in this

passage, there is least consensus in the literature of how we are to understand the

significance of this final revelation. On one particularly influential reading, we are

supposed to consider divine beauty like a monolith, rising high above, and wholly

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separate from, the sea of beautiful objects that the lover once appreciated.38 Unlike the

objects of the undulating and turbulent sea below, in which things constantly pass

from one form into another, and always share in ugliness to some extent, divine

beauty has a completely different nature: it is eternal, changeless, and perfectly

beautiful. Unbeknownst to the lover, he has been seeking an object just like this from

the very beginning of his journey. Throughout his ascent the lover has pursued objects

that he believes will help deliver him to the divine, and after encountering a myriad of

objects that are only beautiful in part, in divine beauty he has found an object that will

allow him to produce true virtue, rather than a deficient image of it. From this point

the lover then sees his folly in pursuing the kind of objects that he once valued, and in

the last moment of his ascent the lover gives up his concern for the world of

becoming, and its ever-changing inhabitants, as he redirects his erotic energy

exclusively to objects of Being.

Two features of this reading are immediately of interest: first, it is an

exclusive reading of the lover’s ascent, as in the end the lover is said to give up his

concern for all objects bar the new object he has discovered, divine beauty itself; and

second, it is based on a Two-Worlds Theory, in which there is a strict logical divide

between objects of becoming and objects of Being. It is far beyond the scope of this

thesis to problematise this reading rigorously, so I will undertake the far more modest

task of proposing an alternative reading that is more in line with the conclusions we

have reached regarding the lover’s ascent throughout this paper. Before I offer my

own reading, however, it will be necessary to discuss an element of the lover’s ascent

that we have hitherto neglected: what Moravcsik (1972) refers to as ‘steps of

generalization’. 38 The most prominent proponents of this view are Allen Bloom (2001), Charles Kahn (1999), J. M. E. Moravcsik (1972), and Martha Nussbaum (2007, cf. 1994).

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Thus far in our examination of the Scala Amoris passage I have focused only

on the ‘transcategorical’ steps of the lover’s ascent; i.e., those steps that necessitate

the lover to seek out new kinds of objects that reflect the latest end he has

incorporated into his understanding of what is good. The example we have often used

above concerns the need for the lover to seek out beautiful souls as they become

concerned with the hygiene of their soul. At this point it is important to note that, in

the above reading, the last step of the lover’s ascent is considered to be a

transcategorical one, but we will not see the full significance of this until later. For

now, what is important is that some motions up the Ladder do not involve the

recognition of value in new kinds of beautiful objects; instead, in some steps the lover

merely learns something new about those objects that he already values. This is what

occurs in generalizing steps, which are described explicitly at two points in the Scala

Amoris passage:

210a-b: then he should realise that the beauty of any one body is brother

[a0delfo/n] to that of any other.

210c: The result is that our lover will be forced to gaze at the beauty of

activities and laws and see that all this is akin [suggene/v] to itself.

As the key terms here indicate, central to both of these steps is the recognition of

family resemblances between objects within certain classes of beauty. In the first

quote the lover learns that the beauty of one body is akin to that of any other body;

and the same is true in the second quote for beautiful laws. At each of these points the

lover learns that the reason why one object within each of these classes is beautiful is

the same as why any such objects within that class are beautiful. To clarify this idea

let us take the example of beautiful bodies. In a generalizing step the lover appreciates

that there are not several different, unrelated sources of physical beauty, as if there

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were many different archetypes of physical attractiveness, all of which the lover

pursues simultaneously because each kind of physical beauty just happens to be able

to trigger an erotic desire for physical wellbeing; instead, what they learn is that all

physical beauty originates from its relationship to a single principle, and given what

we have learnt about the nature of beauty we know that this principle is the virtue of

physical wellbeing. Alan and Alison, then, have beautiful bodies if and only if their

bodies are images of physical goods, and the same is true for beautiful laws regarding

the good of just institutions. Given the repetition of this description it is reasonable to

assume that a similar recognition occurs with every kind of beautiful object that the

lover encounters before he comes to gaze on a whole sea of beauty. As he ascends,

then, the lover recognises that physical beauty, and the beauty of knowledge (and so

on), is a unified thing, and that the objects that partake of this beauty are related in an

important way. We must, however, be careful with what we have concluded here.

These quotes indicate that, by the time that the lover gazes on a sea of beauty, he is

able to recognise the unity of beauty within particular categories of objects, but

nothing is said about the lover’s ability to recognise relationships between categories

of objects. So although at this point the lover is able to recognise that all beautiful

bodies are akin, and that all beautiful souls are akin, we are given no indication that

he thinks at this point that the beauty of bodies is akin to that of souls. What is

important to note from these generalizing steps is that Socrates clearly believes that,

in recognizing that physical beauty, or the beauty of knowledge, is a unified thing, the

lover is making important, positive developments in his ascent to the divine.

As recognizing the unity of different kinds of beauty appears to be critical to

his ascent, we can safely assume that the lover of the Scala Amoris passage takes an

active approach to his education here. As for the development of his understanding of

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what is good, dialectical examinations would again be the most expedient means by

which the lover can probe the limits of his knowledge, and then trigger a desire to

learn about the relationship between different beautiful objects. Here, however, he

would not give accounts of the nature of the good; instead, most useful for his present

concern would be discussions about, taking the example of physical beauty, what it is

that makes bodies beautiful, specifically whether it is one thing, or many. At the heart

of this discussion is whether there is a plethora of physical goods, or whether all ends

that contribute to physical wellbeing are merely aspects of the same virtue. Given the

quotes that we examined above, Socrates clearly believes that the lover’s

understanding develops in an important way when he comes to give an account of

physical beauty that encompasses all (and only) beautiful bodies. With this

knowledge the lover is then able to make general claims about all beautiful bodies,

and recognise the relationship that each beautiful body has to every other beautiful

body. Given that we have already discussed the function of logoi in some depth, I will

not linger on this point, but merely note that the generation of logoi is as essential for

generalization steps as it is for transcategorical steps.

With the previous discussion in place I am now in a position to give an

alternative account of the final step of the lover’s ascent, and what I wish to suggest

here is that this last step is not a transcategorical one, in which the lover comes to

recognise a new kind of object; instead, I believe that we should understand it as a

step of generalization, in which the lover comes to appreciate the relationship between

the various kinds of beautiful objects they have encountered. To clarify, in this last

step the lover gives up on the idea that all of the various kinds of beautiful objects that

he has encountered in his ascent – bodies, souls, laws, etc. – derive their beauty from

different sources, as if one thing makes bodies beautiful, and another makes laws

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beautiful. What he realises in this final moment is that each of these different kinds of

beauty are nothing more than different aspects of the same thing: divine beauty itself.

In this last step, then, the lover has developed an account that captures how each

beautiful object relates to divine beauty, and, therefore, to each other. Here again, this

movement is indicative of a deeper shift in the lover’s understanding of what is good.

In this final step of the Ladder the lover recognises that there are not many different

good lives which they pursue simultaneously; instead, the pursuit of physical

wellbeing is linked to the concern for the hygiene of the soul and the development of

wisdom (etc.) because all of these ends are merely elements of a single principle: the

(one true) good life. At the top of the Ladder the lover is able to construct an account

of what is good that leaves out no worthwhile pursuit, and includes no worthless

activities, and, furthermore, he can recognise the relationship between each of these

particular ends, and identify their relative importance in the good life as a unified

whole.

Obviously, the reading I have suggested here is very different from the one

that we encountered at the beginning of this discussion, but I believe there is good

reason to accept a ‘generalization reading’ of the lover’s final step up the Ladder. To

begin I wish to consider a passage from the Phaedrus, in which Socrates makes the

following claim regarding the recollection of the divine:

Seeing that man must needs understand the language of Forms, passing from a

plurality of perceptions to a unity gathered together by reasoning; and such

understanding is a recollection of those things which our souls beheld

aforetime as they journeyed with their god, looking down upon the things

which now we suppose to be, and gazing up to that which truly is (Phdr, 249b-

c).

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Here Socrates suggests that vision of the divine returns to those who reflect on the

relationships between pluralities of objects, and recognise the unity that binds them all

together. Certainly this is the activity that lovers undertake in generalizing steps, but

is there any evidence of the lover undertaking such a procedure with respect to

different kinds of beautiful objects before he glimpses the divine in the Scala Amoris

passage? When we turn to the end of the lover’s ascent it is immediately striking that

the lover does not move directly from being a lover of knowledge to a lover of divine

beauty, but that, between these two stages, there is a step in which the lover gazes on

a whole sea of beautiful objects, and generates there “many gloriously beautiful ideas

[kalou\v lo/gouv] and theories, in unstinting love of wisdom” (Smp, 210d). At this

rung of the Ladder there is no indication that the lover is gazing up, and attempting to

discover new ends to pursue, or new kinds of beauty to value; instead, he seems here

to be looking back on the myriad of beautiful objects that he has already encountered

throughout his ascent. This suggests that the lover here is reflecting on the

relationship between these various kinds of beauty, and that in these logoi the lover is

putting forward accounts concerning what makes each of these kinds of objects

beautiful – the key activities in steps of generalization. Given that Socrates tells us

that it is from the lover’s activities at this point that he catches a glimpse of the divine,

these two passages together suggest that the lover’s vision of the divine comes

through the recognition of the unity of different kinds of beauty.

In understanding the lover’s final step up the Ladder as one of generalization,

rather than a transcategorical move, we have allowed for the idea that, in turning to

divine beauty, the lover is not blinded to beautiful objects in the world. As Socrates

states in his quote in the Phaedrus, upon recollecting the divine, the lover looks up to

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those objects of Being, but also down to objects of becoming.39 The rich Two-Worlds

language Plato uses here belies the unity of these processes. At the end of his ascent

the lover recognises divine beauty in the myriad of beautiful objects that he has

encountered, and he experiences divine beauty through these objects, using them as a

conduit to the divine. In this final step the objects of the lover’s concern has not

changed; instead, it is the way that the lover looks at these objects that is different. In

this last step of the Ladder the lover comes to look at the sea of beautiful objects, not

as a series of discrete waves, each representing a different beautiful object, but as part

of a unified mass of beauty, that is shaped in accordance with a single principle.40

What I have hoped to show in this section is: a) that the good life is a multi-

faceted affair that involves the simultaneous pursuit of several ends; and b) that, in

turning to divine beauty, the lover does not give up their concern for other beautiful

objects. With these points in place we are now in a position to discuss the lover’s

activities at the top of the Ladder.

* * *

39 Although no other philosophers have drawn this conclusion from considering the final movement in the lover’s ascent as one of generalisation, several commentators have also suggested that, at the end of their ascent, the lover looks both up to the divine, and down to the world of becoming, recognizing value in each of these worlds. See especially Thomas Gould (1968), Richard Kraut (2008), C. D. C. Reeve (2009), and Frisbee Sheffield (2006). 40 Although the brevity of Socrates’ description of the lover’s ascent up the Ladder gives one the idea that, perhaps for a truly extraordinary person, such an undertaking could possibly be quite swift, in light of our discussion of the final step on the Ladder we have our strongest evidence that, to catch a glimpse of the divine, one’s ascent must be slow, careful, and methodical. It is not merely enough for the lover to build continuously on his understanding of what is good, and identify which objects trigger eros in different directions; in his ascent the lover also has to come to recognise the relationship between each of the ends they pursue, and the beautiful objects they value. Such an undertaking, of all of the lover’s activities during their ascent, would require continual experience with many kinds of beautiful objects, and a countless number of patient, detailed discussions of each one’s place in the good life. The lover who attains divinity, therefore, is not merely the person who can learn fastest, but the one who also can retain knowledge, and reflect on what he has learned.

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Possessing the Divine Life

Through a lifetime of continual dialectical probing of his understanding of what is

good the lover of the Scala Amoris passage has adequately prepared himself to catch

sight of divine Beauty, and to appreciate the unified nature of the truly good life. Here

the lover finally has the resources to understand the world aright, and he sees the

divine principle at play in all parts of both the visible and invisible realms. To use the

image of the Republic, his entire world is now illuminated by the light of the Good,

and he understands everything through its relationship to the good life. He is able to

identify the exact value of each beautiful object, and account for its value; and he is

aware of every end that must be pursued, and its relative importance in the good life.

But the mere contemplation of the divine is insufficient for liberating the lover from

deficiency, as now that he understands the true nature of the good life he must

struggle to possess it for himself.41 As Diotima says, the lover at the top of the Ladder

must now “live his life” (Smp, 211d) in accordance with his understanding of what is

good.

Despite his extraordinary position in the highest mysteries of eros, the

procedure that the lover undertakes to possess the good is exactly the same here as at

41 Allen Bloom (2001: 147), Martha Nussbaum (2007: 181), and Stanley Rosen (1987: 276) all argue that the divine life is one of mere contemplation, but, as Harry Neumann (196: 44) points out, and has been reiterated many times throughout this thesis, the lover’s ascent is a productive one, in which beauty instills in the lover a desire to give birth to virtue. There is, however, some disagreement in the literature as to what exactly the lover produces at the top of the Ladder. R. E. Allen (1991: 82), Richard Kraut (2008: 298), and Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 134) argue that they merely produce knowledge, while Julia Annas (2000: 62), Ruby Blondell (2006: 155), Charles Kahn (1999: 272), Harry Neumann (2007: 44), A. W. Price (1991: 51), and C. D. C. Reeve (2006b: 144, 2009: 302) argue that the lover produces all those virtues which he pursued at lower rungs of the Ladder. The conclusions I advanced in the last chapter align my reading with that of Allen et al, as the lover who neglects all but one virtue cannot attain the truly good life. To do this he must understand and produce all virtues that are at all valuable.

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any other rung of the Ladder. Possession comes through production, so reason must

direct eros towards objects that reflect the ends he values. Although the lover, having

recognised the unity of the good life, is reminded of all elements of such a life when

considering any given one, it is necessary that reason still direct eros towards objects

that reflect each particular aspect of the divine in turn, given that eros is unable to see

the connections between different kinds of beauty as reason does. But now that reason

directs eros in accordance with the divine principle, eros cannot but motivate the lover

towards the production of “true virtue” (Smp, 212a). On the previous rungs the lover

neglected certain goods, and even those that he did pursue were either valued too

much, or too little. Therefore, although the life he produced for himself did resemble

the divine life to some extent – and increasingly so as he moved up the Ladder –, he

could only produce something that was a deficient image of the good life. But when

reason is nourished by visions of the divine, it recognises exactly which ends it must

direct eros towards, and the relative amount of time they ought to spend seeking out

objects that reflect these ends. The actions of a lover who understands the divine are

described in the Republic as follows:

As he looks and studies things that are organized and always the same, that

neither do injustice to one another, nor suffer it, being all in a rational order,

he imitates them and tries to become as like them as he can. … Then the

philosopher, by consorting with what is ordered and divine despite all the

slanders around that say otherwise, himself becomes as divine and ordered as

any human being can (Rep, 6.500b-d).42

42 Although Plato does not describe the philosopher specifically as a lover in this passage, he does so at various points in the Republic, and particularly in Book VI at 6.485a-b and 6.485d.

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In the last lines of his encomium Socrates echoes these sentiments, and tells us that

the person who directs their eros towards the production of true virtue will gain the

friendship of the gods (212a-b) – perhaps signifying some level of equality between

the lover and the gods.

The End of the Ascent

Now He Springs to Life, Now He Dies – All in the Very Same Day

It is here, at the top of the Ladder, that Socrates leaves the lover at the end of the

Scala Amoris passage, enjoying the benefits that come from producing true virtue in

the presence of the divine. But does the lover’s journey on the Ladder end with him

finding a permanent home in the highest mysteries of eros? In order to answer this

question we must remember that lovers do not merely have to struggle to develop

their knowledge of what is good, but also to maintain their level of understanding. As

we learnt in Chapter 3, knowledge is no less prone to passing away than any other

mortal possession, and this has dramatic implications for how we are to understand

the lover’s ascent. As his understanding of the divine becomes more complete the

lover moves ever higher up the Ladder, but were he to forget some (or all) of the

things he has learnt hitherto in his ascent he would fall back to a lower rung.

Therefore, the lover must work even to retain his position on the Ladder by constantly

reproducing his knowledge of the divine; replacing those memories that are passing

away with ones that are just like it. Only then will the lover be able to claim truly to

know certain things about the divine in any meaningful sense, and so maintain a

stable position on the Ladder. A philosophical lover, however, would never be content

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to find a permanent home at any but the highest rung of the Ladder, so we must now

question how stable the lover’s position there really is.

In the highest mysteries the lover earns many privileges enjoyed nowhere else

on the Ladder. Here he can produce true virtue, can claim to be immortal, and even

earn the friendship of the gods. But what of his possession of knowledge? Here the

object of his knowledge is the unchanging and eternal truth, but, in contemplating

this, does the lover’s knowledge itself become eternal and unchanging? Given that

knowledge of the divine is what allows him to have his position at the top of the

Ladder, were his knowledge to take on such a character then it would seem that the

lover could find a permanent home in the presence of the divine. Unfortunately,

Socrates never indicates that this is the case, and given other descriptions of the

lover’s life at the top of the Ladder we have reasonably good evidence that the lover’s

knowledge here is as transient as ever. Consider the following three passages:

211d: And there [in the presence of divine beauty] in life … if anywhere

should a person live his life [biwto/n a0nqrw&pw|].

212a: Do you think it would be a poor life for a human being [a0nqrw&pou] to

look there and behold it [divine beauty].

212a: The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given birth to true

virtue and nourished it…and if any human being [a0nqrw&pwn] could become

immortal, it would be he.

Of interest to us here is the repeated use of the term ‘a!nqrwpov’, as it indicates that

the lover at the top of the Ladder has not somehow become a god, but is still very

much a human – though one conspicuously free from ignorance. From this we can

presume that he is still subject to all of the difficulties that attend human existence,

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including the necessity of reproducing knowledge. Intermediary beings, we should

remember, do have the potential to struggle after what they lack, and even raise

themselves all the way to the world of Being, but because the lover can never truly

escape deficiency he can only become like a god here, and never be wholly divine

himself. So although the lover at the top of the Ladder has transcended his ignorance,

he does not possess his knowledge eternally and unchangingly, but only through

reproduction.

We have now seen that the lover must still struggle to maintain his knowledge

at the top of the Ladder, so our next task it to determine how likely it is that he will be

able to reproduce his knowledge here for any significant amount of time. At the early

stages of his ascent the lover should be able to reproduce his knowledge with relative

ease, given that the lover here knows only of the importance of physical goods. But as

he moves up the Ladder the number of goods he gains knowledge of multiplies

dramatically, as does the complexity of his understanding of these goods, and at the

very top of the Ladder the lover must be aware of the relationship every end has to the

good life. Although an attentive lover may be able to reproduce this knowledge for

some amount of time, given the difficulty of mortal possession, it is inevitable that he

will soon forget some of the things he has learnt during his ascent, and so fall to a

lower rung of the Ladder.43 Two points should be noted here. First, in advancing this

argument I am not suggesting that the lover is prone to losing knowledge only at the

top of the Ladder, but merely that, given the complexity of his understanding of the

divine here, he will be more likely to forget something at this point. Second, I am also

not suggesting that, when he does fall, he will descend all the way to the bottom of the

43 For other commentators who advance this view see Ruby Blondell (2006: 176), Steven Lowenstam (1985: 95-7), John Miller (1978: 22), and Stanley Rosen (1987: 275-6).

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Ladder. If he did forget about all other goods bar that of physical health then he may

find himself once again at the bottom rung; but in the far more likely case that he

forgets only about a few goods he will only fall some of the way down the Ladder.

But regardless of the point from which he falls, or how far he descends, the lover

must quickly resume the difficult process of working his way back up the Ladder by

regaining his knowledge of the divine – though perhaps with a greater appreciation of

the necessity of reproduction. Given that the lover is now going over familiar

territory, he will most likely find his second ascent somewhat easier than his first, but

even if he regains his vision of the divine there are still no guarantees that he will

retain his position at the top of the Ladder. As R. S. Bluck (1958) argues, there is no

‘original’ fall in Plato, as there is in Christian mythology, so the person who makes

his way back to the heavens is always liable to fall again.44

Given the above discussion we can conclude that the lover’s ascent does not

end upon reaching the top rung of the Ladder. Indeed, because he can never overcome

his dual nature, the lover’s journey on the Ladder never really ends at all. Just as Eros

springs to life one moment only to die the next, so too is the lover constantly

oscillating up and down between the various rungs of the Ladder, developing his

knowledge at one moment, and losing it at another. Therefore, the best he can hope

for is that, whenever he falls, he will be able to regain his vision of the divine as

quickly as possible.

* * *

44 Aristotle takes a different position, as he argues that we cannot forget about those virtues that we engage in continually and habitually (N.E., 1140b26-29).

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Socrates and the Art of Love

To conclude this chapter I wish to consider briefly the implications of these

conclusions for how we are to understand Socrates’ own journey on the Ladder. It has

often been suggested that Socrates has reached the top of the Scala Amoris, and has

found a permanent home in the presence of the divine,45 but our analysis in the first

part of this section casts doubt on such a reading. Although we cannot deny the

possibility that Socrates has caught a glimpse of the divine at some point(s), given

that nature of mortal possession it does not seem possible to assign Socrates a position

at the top of the Ladder, as though his level of understanding were static. Instead,

because he is an intermediary being, we must conclude that he, like all lovers, is

constantly oscillating between the various rungs of the Ladder as he develops and

then loses knowledge of the divine.46

There are two immediate benefits of this reading: first, it is commensurate

with our analysis of Socratic Ignorance, where we concluded that Socrates can

confidently disavow knowledge given the deficiency of mortal possession; and

second, it has the benefit of reinforcing the parallels Socrates makes between himself

and Eros at the beginning of his encomium. Like the barefooted and resourceful

daimon, Socrates too is constantly shuttling back and forth between the worlds of

poverty and plenty. But from this conclusion comes an unexpected problem. From the

opening lines of the Symposium we are continually given reasons to think that

Socrates is an extraordinary individual, but if, like all lovers, he is constantly moving

back and forth between the various rungs of the Ladder, how are we to distinguish

45 See especially Michael Gagarin (1977: 28), Jonathan Lear (1999: 164), Steven Lowenstam (1985: 93), Martha Nussbaum (2007: 184), A. W. Price (1991: 49), and A. E. Taylor (1959: 232-3). 46 Ruby Blondell comes to a similar conclusion in her article ‘Where is Socrates on the “Ladder of Love”?’ (2006: 176).

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him from other people? I believe that the answer to this question is that Socrates has

the resources to ensure that his rational soul is never still, so that he is always in a

position to regain his knowledge of the divine when he falls down the Ladder. We

discussed the first of these resources, self-knowledge, and its effects, in Chapter 3, but

in what follows I wish to highlight yet another resource: his knowledge of ta erotika,

i.e., the ‘art of love’.

Near the beginning of the Symposium Socrates claims that the only thing he

knows is ta erotika (177d), and, as with most points of interpretation in the

Symposium, there is little agreement in the literature about how we ought to

understand this passage. Some look to this claim as evidence that Socrates has

reached the top of the Ladder,47 while others believe that it is simply another

formulation of Socrates’ claim ‘I know that I know not’.48 But perhaps the most

promising analysis is given by C. D. C. Reeve (2009: 294-5), who proposes that this

claim is a play on words. He suggests that Socrates is playing on the fact, as he does

elsewhere,49 that the noun ‘e0rwtika/’, ‘art of love’, is a near-homonym of the verb

‘e0rwta=n’,50 meaning ‘to ask questions’, and that the two words appear to be

etymologically linked. From this he suggests that the art of love is nothing more than

knowing how to ask questions, i.e., having an expertise in dialectic. Along similar

lines to arguments advanced in the previous chapter, Reeve then goes on to show

how, in dialectic, a lover can illuminate the particular deficiencies in his (or another’s)

understanding of what is good, and so trigger a desire to develop his knowledge.

47 See especially Michael Gagarin (1977: 28). 48 See Steven Lowenstam (1985: 88-9) and Andrea Nightingale (1993: 129). 49 See Socrates’ discussion of heroes in the Cratylus (398c-e). 50 This is particularly true of the first person singular active perfect indicative form of the verb, ‘h0rw&thka’.

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I believe that this reading is fundamentally correct, and given what we have

learnt about dialectic, we can immediately see how important this expertise is for a

person who is always prone to falling back into ignorance. With self-knowledge,

Socrates is always aware of the temporal finitude of his knowledge, and so is in a

better position than most to ensure that his knowledge is constantly being replaced as

it passes away. But when he inevitably forgets some of the things that he has learnt,

his skill in dialectic ensures that he will be able to efficiently identify which parts of

his knowledge have degraded, attain a moment of aporia, and so trigger a desire to

regain this knowledge. In doing this Socrates can ensure that, when he does fall down

the Ladder, he will not linger in his ignorance for long, but quickly regain his

knowledge, and so direct his eros once again towards the production of the truly good.

With the resources of self-knowledge and ta erotika Socrates can ensure that, if ever

he ever loses his way on the path to the divine, as on his journey to Agathon’s house,

he has the resources to find his way there eventually.

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Conclusion

At the conclusion of his speech in the Symposium Socrates declares: “I praise the

power and courage of Love [eros] as far as I am able” (Smp, 212b-c). But

immediately after this he adds the following: “Consider this speech, Phaedrus, if you

wish, a speech in praise [e0gkw&mion] of Love. Or if not, call it whatever and however

you please to call it” (Smp, 212c). Prima facie, it seems odd that Socrates would

explicitly praise eros, and then in the next breath raise doubts about whether his

speech will actually be considered an encomium or not. However, given what we have

learnt previously about eros we can see the cause of Socrates’ hesitation.

In the first part of this thesis I explored the nature of erotic desire, and, in

contrast with the overwhelming majority of commentators, who claim that eros is a

rational desire, I concluded that eros is an appetitive desire that immediately responds

to any and every beautiful object by furiously pursuing whatever goods these objects

reflect. The benefit of such a reading is that it accounts for a broad range of comments

that Socrates offers regarding erotic desire in many of Plato’s Middle Period

dialogues. In Book IX of the Republic Socrates focuses on the problematic nature of

eros, and describes it as a ‘mindless drone’, which, when nurtured on material

pleasures, is fully capable of causing lovers to become tyrants (9.573a-b); people who

have no control over the direction of their becoming, and mindlessly satisfy any whim

they feel. We are reminded of these dangers in the Phaedrus, both in Lysias’

description of the bad lover at the beginning of the dialogue, and also in Socrates’

palinode itself (251a-d, 253c-254e). But unlike the Republic, the mood of Socrates’

discussion of eros in the Phaedrus is generally positive, and his negative comments

are overshadowed by his praise of erotic desire as essential for raising lovers back

towards divinity. The central role that eros plays in a lover’s ascent is the focus of

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Socrates’ overwhelmingly positive discussion of eros in the Symposium, where, as we

saw above, he cannot praise eros enough for its power and courage. As I argued in

Chapter 2, eros alone has the force to ensure that lovers are continually focused on the

production and reproduction of the good, and, because it is an immediate desire, it is

never intimidated by the numerous barriers that stand between the lover and divinity,

but will spring to life with all of its force when properly stimulated, and continually

push the lover towards the production of virtue. Socrates has good reason to praise

eros, then, but his praise must be tempered because, even here, he is aware that eros is

a potentially dangerous desire. Because it is a mindless drone – qua immediate desire

– it cannot direct itself, and so is equally capable of leading lovers to deficiency, as

well as divinity. Therefore, his encomium cannot be like that of Phaedrus’, nor

Agathon’s, in which eros is praised as a wholly beneficial force that cannot but lead

lovers towards virtue. As we saw in Chapter 2, the only way that lovers can safely

incorporate eros into their quest for self-transcendence is through the guidance of

reason. Reason must seek out beautiful objects that reflect the goods lovers

understand as valuable in order to marry eros’ force with its own, and whip eros into

line whenever it pulls lovers towards any ends that lie outside of this understanding.

Socrates praises eros for the motivational role it has in a lover’s ascent, but he is

careful to recommend reason alone for a directive role here. But, as discussed in

Chapter 3, lovers must continually work at developing their knowledge of what is

good if they are to ensure that reason directs eros aright, so that it is focused on the

production of the truly good life, rather than a deficient image of it. Because my

description of erotic desire accounts for both Socrates’ positive and negative

comments regarding eros in Plato’s Middle Period dialogues, and is commensurate

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with his description of the interactions between reason and appetite, I believe that I

have made the best argument for a theory of love in Plato’s philosophy.

In the second part of this thesis I used what was learnt about the nature of

erotic desire, and the role both it and reason play in a lover’s ascent, in Part I in order

to give a reading of the Scala Amoris passage. Here I worked my way through some

of the most contentious points of interpretation in the literature, and explored: i) the

lover’s activities on each rung of the Ladder; ii) the steps he takes to move from one

rung to the next; iii) the nature of his relationship to the previous objects of his

concern as he ascends; and iv) the shape of the lover’s life at the top of the Ladder.

But in addition to coming to a more complete understanding of the Scala Amoris

passage, many of the conclusions I advanced here have important implications for our

understanding of Plato’s wider philosophical project. I believe three points are worthy

of particular note.

First, in contrast to the commonly advanced idea that, for Plato, the quest for

self-transcendence is a wholly rational exercise, or one in which people increasingly

free themselves from the influence of appetitive desires, I showed that appetite is an

essential part of people’s activities at every point in their ascent. This suggests that

only those who have incorporated immediacy into their projects, rather than those

who have distanced themselves from it, can hope to produce true virtue. Second, I

demonstrated that a philosophical life is not mutually exclusive with a concern for

objects and events in this world. Philosophical development, I argued, is not an

activity in which we turn our attention away from the world of becoming; instead, it is

one in which we come to understand the true significance of all of those things in the

world that concern us, from things as basic as food and pleasure, to more complex

ideas such as justice and friendship, as we come to understand the relationship that

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each of these things have to the good life. Third, we also gained some important

insights into the role the Other has in a lover’s philosophical development. I

suggested that, far from being merely a passive object of a lover’s affections, the best

companion a person can find for his journey to the divine is another lover of wisdom

who is also working to possess the good life. Two such people can combine their

efforts, and struggle together to develop their knowledge of what is good, and produce

(and preserve) true virtue for themselves. Plato’s theory, then, seems to recommend a

dramatic shift away from the conventions of the pederastic relationships common at

the time he wrote, and appears to recommend the elimination of passivity from

relationships altogether. Each of these conclusions undermine common assumptions

about various issues in Plato’s philosophy, but, unfortunately, a further examination

of these issues must be left for another time.

To conclude this thesis I wish to suggest the utility of the analysis I have given

by beginning to show how it can be used to clarify Socrates’ claims in specific

passages in the dialogues, and I will do this by giving an outline of a reading of a

hitherto unexamined part of Socrates’ encomium: his discussion of immortality that

immediately proceeds the Scala Amoris passage (208c-209e). Commentators certainly

face considerable difficulties when reconstructing Socrates’ account of immortality

here. His comments on this issue, as at all points in his encomium, are notoriously

vague, but where for other topics we could look to Socrates’ discussions in other

dialogues to clarify his comments in the Symposium, our ability to do this in respect to

immortality is restricted to a great extent. Although immortality is a central idea in

Plato’s Middle Period metaphysics, and is discussed in some way in all dialogues of

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this period (and also later in the Laws),1 his presentation of immortality in the

Symposium is dramatically different to that in any other dialogue. The peculiarity of

his account in the Symposium has led most commentators to believe either: i) that the

Symposium ought to be dated closer to the Gorgias, and that Plato only reached his

‘mature’ position on immortality later in the Phaedo; ii) that Plato revised his opinion

on immortality after the Phaedo in the Symposium, only to return to his original

position later in the Republic and other dialogues;2 or iii) that the discussion of

immortality in the Symposium is unique because it alone considers the immortality of

embodied souls in all of their particularity, while other dialogues focus on the

indestructibility of the divine part of the soul, considered in abstraction from its

particularity.3 Regardless of one’s interpretation, it is difficult to determine which

comments in other dialogues will be useful for understanding Socrates’ claims in the

Symposium. However, in light of what we have learnt hitherto in this thesis, it will be

possible to glean some important insights into Socrates’ sparse claims regarding

immortality in his encomium.

My thesis may help to determine the kind of immortality that Socrates is

recommending in this passage in the following way. Consider the first group of

people he claims to have achieved immortality: Alcestis, Codrus, and Achilles (208d). 1 For his most extended discussions of immortality in other dialogues see his proofs for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo (70c-84c), his comments on immortality in general in Book X of the Republic (10.610a-10.611d), as well as the ‘Myth of Er’ passage at the end of the dialogue (10.614b-10.621b), his proof for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedrus (245c-246a), his comments on immortality in the Timaeus (41a-d), and also his discussions of immortality in the Laws (4.721c, 12.967d), particularly his discussion of the motion of souls in Book X. 2 See especially Reginald Hackforth (1950). 3 See especially R. E. Allen (1991: 72), W. K. C. Guthrie (1986: 391), and J. V. Luce (1952). It should also be noted that, whereas the commentators in the first two groups consider Plato’s account of immortality as presented in the Symposium to be different to those presented in other dialogues, all the commentators in this group believe that the accounts are commensurate, though, as noted, the discussion here approaches the issue from a unique perspective.

180

What is immediately apparent from these examples is that death is still very much on

the cards for those who are said to have attained immortality.4 But noticeably absent

from Socrates’ discussion is any reference to Alcestis’ return from death, or to the

persistence of Achilles’ soul in the afterlife.5 Socrates is obviously trying to dissociate

his own account of immortality here from that given by the poets, for whom

immortality concerns the persistence of the ‘self’ in its brute existence in either this

world or the next – what is often called ‘personal immortality’. Moreover, he seems to

be distancing himself from his discussions of immortality in other dialogues, which

are cast in terms of the fate of embodied and disembodied souls. In the Symposium he

makes no reference to either the separability of the soul from the body, or to any

mode of existence besides the one enjoyed in life. Socrates here shifts the focus of his

discussion dramatically, and seems to be suggesting that the lover can achieve some

amount of immortality in this world.6 Prima facie, this idea seems quite confusing,

given that the lover here cannot escape death, but, when we note the origins of the

lover’s desire for immortality, Socrates’ position becomes clearer. Lovers, Socrates

tells us, work for immortality because eros is a desire that aims at possessing the good

4 Death is the central motif in each of the stories we have of these figures – or, at least, one of the central motifs in the case of Achilles. The stories of Alcestis and Codrus focus specifically on the hand they took in their own deaths, and, as Phaedrus points out in his own encomium (179e-180a), death lingered over all of Achilles’ heroic deeds, as he chose his path with the full appreciation that it would lead to his own demise. 5 By contrast, these are the parts of the stories of both Alcestis and Achilles on which Phaedrus focuses in his own encomium (179b-180a). 6 One need not think from this that Socrates’ account of immortality in the Symposium is in any way at odds with his discussions of immortality in other dialogues. Most likely, all that has occurred here is a shift in emphasis. In other dialogues Socrates attempts to demonstrate something about the persistence of the soul, whereas here he is highlighting the strength of the lover’s desire to possess the good, both in life, and after his death.

181

forever [a0ei/] (Smp, 205a, 206a).7 But eros, let us remember, is a desire for self-

transcendence, so rather than sentimentally cling to something because it is ‘his own’,

a lover will desire to dispose of this possession the moment he recognises its

deficiency. This prioritization of the good, I suggest, is the mindset through which the

lover approaches the problem of gaining immortality. Death ensures that the lover

cannot continue on in the world exactly as he is, but neither is mortal existence worth

preserving forever, because, as we learnt in our discussions of intermediacy, it is

always defined by deficiency in some way. Far from striving for personal

immortality, it is far more likely that the lover here will work solely to preserve those

parts of himself that he understands as good. This, I suggest, is the immortality for

which the lover strives: the eternal continuation of the things he values.8

I also believe that my analysis of erotic desire can help to determine how the

lover achieves his goal of attaining immortality. There is one promising reading in the

literature in which it is argued that the lover becomes immortal by creating things

external to him that will outlast him (be they children, fame, or logoi) that act as

memorials for the lover after he dies. 9 Of course, given that the lover prioritises the

good over all things, he will not be interested in being remembered ‘warts and all’; 7 As M. Dyson (1986: 35) and Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 81) point out, the term ‘a0ei/’ is somewhat ambiguous in this context. After all, ‘forever’ is commonly used in erotic discourse to mean merely ‘throughout one’s life’, as in many love stories two parties make an earnest commitment to be ‘together always’, with the full appreciation that death will ultimately sunder one from the other. However, I believe that Sheffield and Dyson are correct to suggest that we should read the term in the stronger sense of ‘for all time’, as the examples that Socrates uses of those who have attained immortality clearly indicate that immortality concerns the persistence of (some part of) lovers after their deaths. 8 In turning to the Phaedo, it is apparent that this is Socrates’ own mindset in the face of his death. He says to those present: “If you will take my advice, you will give but little thought to Socrates, but much more to the truth” (Phd, 91b). For Socrates, what is important is not that he lives forever in all of his particularity – i.e., as ‘Socrates’ –, but that that which he values most, a concern for the truth, continues on after he dies. 9 See especially M. Dyson (1986: 66), Gabriel Lear (2006: 109), and Frisbee Sheffield (2006: 107).

182

instead, the lover’s goal is to preserve the memory of his virtue.10 On this reading, it is

precisely in his being remembered as having possessed virtue that the lover gains

immortality. Although I believe this reading is on the right track, in light of my

analysis of erotic desire, we can see that it is not yet sufficiently fleshed out to explain

the connection between the memory of the lover’s virtue, and his attaining

immortality. In life, as I argued in Chapter 2, people cannot rest on the memory of

their previous achievements if they wish to possess the good throughout their lives, as

possession only comes through continual production. Of course, the lover cannot

utilise the same method to possess the good as he did in life – i.e., by seeking out

beautiful objects in order to trigger an erotic desire for virtue –, as death puts an end

to his ability to act in the world. However, death does not necessarily prevent the

lover from having some ability to affect the world. In life, the lover can ensure that

others will be motivated to undertake particular courses of actions after his death. If

possession comes through production, then it is necessary that the lover ensures that

the good he values is still being produced after his death, and this, I suggest, is the

reason why he creates things like children, fame, and logoi. Through continuing his

family name, becoming famous, or writing things down, the lover is able to preserve

the memory of his own virtue long after he has died, and this memory, in turn, can

inspire others to struggle after the goods that he himself values. For example, through

the memory of her virtues, Alcestis, was able to inspire others to care for their

families, and, having won immortal fame, Achilles can instill in others a desire for

glory millennia after he has died. Through these various media, lovers of all varieties

can affect the production and reproduction of those things they understand as most

10 Such a reading is further supported by the passage quoted above from the Phaedo, as Socrates cares little of what people think of ‘Socrates’ when he dies; his only concern is that they continue to remember his love of the truth.

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essential to them long after they own deaths, and so, in a way, fulfill their erotic desire

to possess them forever.11

What I have offered here is but a broad brush stroke picture of Socrates’

discussion of immortality in his encomium in the Symposium, and hopefully I have

shown that my analysis in this thesis is useful for working through the ambiguities

that riddle this passage. Although I believe that the theoretical framework established

in this paper will be useful for examining yet other passages, I will have to leave this

examination for others.

11 Clearly, the labels ‘lover of bodies’, ‘lover of honour’, and ‘lover of souls’ are used by Socrates differently in his discussion of immortality than in the Scala Amoris passage. In the latter, a ‘lover of bodies’, for example, will seek out beautiful objects that reflect physical goods in order to trigger an erotic desire for this virtue, while in the former they produce physical children to preserve the memory of their virtue. In his discussion of immortality, then, the term ‘lover of x’ does not refer to the kinds of things such people value, but the medium through which they hope to preserve the memory of the goods they understand as essential to the good life. It should also be noted here that the same medium can be used to preserve the memory of many different virtue. For example, through their actions in the Trojan War, Achilles, Odysseus, Nestor, and Diomedes were all able to inspire other to pursue all different kinds of virtues. Also, the memory of the same virtue can be preserved through many different media. For example, where Nestor was able to instill in others a desire for wisdom through is deeds in war, Plato did so through his writings.

184

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