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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 26 2007 : 11:57:17 PM
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This is the thread for discussion of the assigned reading for Week 11 (Symposium 210a-212c [pp. 104-106 in Great Dialogues of Plato]) as well as Lecture Six.
You're to post here at least twice between 8:00 a.m. on July 20 and 8:00 p.m. on July 30. The requirement to post at least twice is a minimum requirement. Post as often as you want. The thread for next week's discussion will go up at 8:00 a.m. on August 3 and will also be available for ten days -- till 8:00 p.m. August 13. Each week's discussion goes on for ten days, and the "weeks" will overlap. Making each week's thread available as soon as that week's quiz is available gives you a chance to post questions about the reading assignment and lecture before you have to take the quiz. After the quiz goes down, discussion will go on for another week.
Make sure you read everything everyone posts. In a conversation, people don't just talk to one another; they listen to one another too. Also, don't wait till the last day to post twice. We want a discussion, not everyone talking at once! |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 29 2007 : 2:38:12 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Last week, Kolby and I got a head start on this week's topic. I'm therefore going to start this thread off with a reprise of our exchange. It got started when I responded to a question Kolby had raised about something I said in Lecture Six:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Kolby Davis
In Lecture Six, you discuss how Diotima describes the way one teaches an initiate so that he or she will gain a knowledge of Beauty. And I thought this must mean that once a knowledge of Beauty and Good has been gained, a knowledge of Love would come simultaneously. I guess I just need a better understanding of what the "ladder," as Diotima describes it, achieves for a person once he or she has finished his or her initiation.
You know, Kolby, I think there might be an important question lurking about in here. Let me see if I can flush it out and pin it down....
First, I think you need to see that ladder as part of the imagery Diotima uses to describe the initiation. Once one has been fully initiated and has experienced the "higher revelations," the ladder isn't something that's going to be useful for still further revelations. Similarly, once one has emerged from the cave Sokrates speaks of in Republic VII, one is no longer benighted; one has risen to the level of the contemplation of the good, and so one has traveled the route needed to arrive at this point. Wondering about what the ladder achieves for someone who has finished his or her initiation would be like wondering what the route achieves for a person who has already traveled it. Both images are images of enlightenment, and once one is enlightened, the instrument of enlightenment has done its work. Anyway, that seems to me the most plausible way of thinking of that ladder and of that route in the context of these images.
But it's interesting, isn't it, that Sokrates makes use of an image, a likeness, in the Republic to explain the character of our "education and ignorance" (514a, 312)? In Republic VI, images were relegated to the lowest section of the divided line and correspond to mere conjecture, the lowest form of opinion. Similarly, in the Symposium, he has Diotima make use of an image to explain the character of the "initiation" one can undergo into those "higher mysteries." Wouldn't you like all this to be cashed in in such a way that we end up with a literal account?
But in the Republic, Sokrates never provides this, and his Diotima never provides it in the Symposium. So perhaps the question that's lurking about in here is this: what is the actual process of which these images are images? Perhaps Sokrates gives us something like a sketch of such an account in his description, in the passage that immediately follows the allegory of the cave, of the course of studies to be undertaken by those guardians who are to become consummate philosophers (521c-541b, 319-341), but despite all the details he goes into in that long passage, we have to grant, don't we, that at best this is a sketch?
If so, then to answer the question in detail about the actual ideal process of education can't be expected to be an easy matter. The account will be long and difficult to produce. Couldn't it, in fact, be the sort of thing one would have to reconcile oneself to seeing as the work of many generations? In other areas, we don't find this all that troublesome. In mathematics, for example, it's taken something like two and a half millennia to get where we are today. Why shouldn't we expect the science of pedagogy to take at least that long to achieve its goal?
Anyway, what do we know about this process already? Or maybe better: what do we know already about the way that Plato has Sokrates describe the process in the dialogues we have read? Also: how do the techniques that we've been working on mastering, such as the technique of elenkhos, fit into this picture? These are questions we could certainly get started on right away. What we know so far is that it appears that dialectic is part of the process and that the education of desire is a part of the process. For the description of dialectic, we need to rely heavily on the Republic -- Book VII contains the most detailed description we get anywhere in that work, and for the description of the education of desire, we need to rely on the Symposium -- where, unfortunately, we don't get any cashing in of the metaphors in Diotima's speech in a nice prosy description of the technique of the pedagogue who is skilled in erotics.
To this, Kolby replied as follows:
quote:
Tom, after your reply I think I see the connection between the two, please correct me if I'm wrong. In a way, it is the educational process both discuss, the cave passage and Diotima. I'm going to speak in the language of the Symposium passage simply because it is clearer to me. Now a student, or initiate, or unenlightened being (cave passage) is led to a knowledge of something, the source of the light in the case of the cave passage, by a teacher or trainer. Once this knowledge is gained, or the being is enlightened, he can then begin to teach others this knowledge, or bring them to the light. This is what I now see Socrates doing to those in the Symposium and the Republic; he uses these stories to try to help explain how he uses his dialogue and the purpose he thinks it serves, to enlighten or give knowledge to those who do not possess it. So the stories are one and the same, only the one speaks of enlightenment attained by means of dialectic while the other, Diotima, gives us knowledge of desire. I think I'm getting close, but I may be off in some -- or many! -- respects. Maybe just point out to me where I'm going wrong.
And I replied with this:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Kolby Davis
Tom, after your reply I think I see the connection between the two, please correct me if I'm wrong. In a way, it is the educational process both discuss, the cave passage and Diotima.
Right. So it seems to me. Of course it's really Sokrates who's speaking in both these passages, isn't it? I mean he's the fellow who gives us the allegory of the cave in the Republic, and he's also the fellow who gives us the entire story he tells about his experience at the hands of Diotima in the Symposium. In the allegory of the cave, the focus is on the experience of the person making the ascent. In what Sokrates says Diotima told him about how the leader leads the initiate (i.e., in the first of the two long paragraphs on pp. 104-106 in Great Dialogues of Plato (210a-210d in the Stephanus numbering), the focus is on the activity of the leader in first providing the initiate with beauties to love and then weaning him or her away from them, but in each case, what's being described is some aspect of the ascent -- the climb upwards to the light in the allegory of of the cave, and the climb up the ladder in the description of the training of the initiate. The ascent is the image of educational progress, progress in the direction of the knowledge -- the experience of beholding the really real -- in which the ascent is said to culminates in each case. This much seems right.
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I'm going to speak in the language of the Symposium passage simply because it is clearer to me. Now a student, or initiate, or unenlightened being (cave passage) is led to a knowledge of something, the source of the light in the case of the cave passage, by a teacher or trainer. Once this knowledge is gained, or the being is enlightened, he can then begin to teach others this knowledge, or bring them to the light.
I think Sokrates is always at pains to say that the only way the teacher or trainer can "teach others the knowledge" that he or she has gained as a result of his or her own ascent is by helping is by helping those others to make the ascent themselves. If he or she simply says what he or she has seen, his or her "students" or "pupils" will be able to repeat that no doubt, but they'll be doing so on his or her authority. They won't have seen for themselves what the teacher or trainer has seen. So the pedagogic art cannot consist in knowing how to put sight into blind eyes (Republic 518c, 316) or in knowing how to let one's wisdom "run from the fuller amongst us to the emptier" (Symposium 175d, 74). Instead it has to be seen as the "periagogic art" -- the art of turning the soul around, "away from the world of becoming until it is able to endure the sight of being and of the most brilliant light of being: and this we say is the good..." (Republic 518c, 317).
So the most that the teacher or trainer can do for his or her students or pupils is, to use your second description, to "bring them to the light." Only so will they see for themselves.
Now that periagogic art -- the art of turning the entire soul around -- is an art that relies upon what? One can take hold of a person's body and bodily turn him or her around. How does one get hold of a soul? Answer: one must show it a beauty. The periagogic art is therefore founded in erotics. Only the person who understands the nature of eros knows how to capitalize on the desires of his or her students. One must begin where the student is. So if the student is drawn to great-looking boys or great-looking girls, then that's where one begins. One functions as a matchmaker (or procurer), fixing the student up, so to speak, with a person to whose bodily beauty he or she is drawn, and one then teaches the student to speak beautifully to such a person. All the while, the teacher tries to get his or her student to see that there are other great-looking boys or great-looking girls. What Diotima describes is likely to shock us, but her idea is that fidelity to one's beloved is a bad thing, that one must become equally attracted to others -- many others. Only so, will one cease to be attached to a particular great-looking body, and only so will one's progress in the arts of speech be advanced. Well, I won't redescribe the whole process, because I've already described it in detail in passage consisting of the three paragraphs the first of which begins with the words "So the candidate is to start his training..." on p. 2 of Lecture Six. Turning the soul around -- that means helping the young person fall out of love with everything in the world of becoming and begin to yearn for something better. The reward is the ascent to the truly beautiful thing -- the beautiful itself. In a way, one's progress is in what might be called an ever-increasing celibacy, but this is misleading. The erotic impulse remains as strong as ever, but is directed away from the things that seem beautiful at first to higher beauties, then still higher beauties, then higher beauties still, till suddenly....
quote:
This is what I now see Socrates doing to those in the Symposium and the Republic; he uses these stories to try to help explain how he uses his [own special kind of] dialogue and the purpose he thinks it serves, to enlighten or give knowledge to those who do not possess it [those who are still in the dark]. So the stories are one and the same, only the one speaks of enlightenment attained by means of dialectic while the other, [the one told by Diotima], gives us knowledge of desire [speaks of how this enlightenment can be produced: by the turning around of the soul by means of the gradual redirection of the student's erotic desires].
Emend this last part of your post in the manner indicated, and I'd be in thoroughgoing agreement! Just remember: the teacher cannot give the student his or her knowledge. This is absolutely impossible. To know something is to have seen if for oneself. But of course, one must want to see what needs to be seen, and to begin with, one wants passionately to see something else! So how to redirect that desire. That's the central problem for the teacher. One doesn't kill it; one capitalizes upon it!
What this does, of course, is to import a strange and surprising sort of sex education (more precisely: sexual training) right into the heart of the curriculum described in Republic VII. Are we ready for this idea -- the idea, namely, that the naturally horny human beings who are the younger generation have to be helped by someone who has a profound understanding of horniness (i.e., a thoroughgoing grounding in erotics) to become horny for higher beauties and higher goods, and ultimately, for the beautiful and the good themselves? I believe that's what the teaching of Diotima suggests. Ordinarily, sex and philosophy aren't seen as having all that much to do with one another. But here....
So there it is: a bunch of stuff on this week's topic already. Join in and let's see if we can figure all of this out. |
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Cameron Cowan
Journeyman
64 Posts |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 08:22:25 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
Right out of the gate I would like to speak to the idea that the higher form of conversation that Diotima encourages Sokrates to achieve is pretty comparable to sex. As a conversationalist (to be which is something that requires both knowledge and thought), [I am convinced that] there is no better thing than a good, solid conversation on a subject that makes the hours melt away -- a conversation in which two minds come together so thoroughly that the participants feel completed by the conversation.
So what do humans seek? They seek to be completed. Humans can be completed physically when they have sex. Diotima calls us to fulfill ourselves in a higher way -- that is, not just to take care of our physical needs but to fulfill our soul needs through conversation and the pursuit of the intellectually beautiful thing. Just as guys chase after beautiful girls to "do" them, so should we budding philosophers chase after knowledge -- chase after knowledge and "do" it, and have a thought-orgasm of sorts.
Two questions, Cameron: (1) do you mean, in claiming that human beings seek to be completed, to reject Diotima's idea that "love is not for a half [one's other half; the reference is to Aristophanes' account of the nature of Eros], nor indeed the whole, unless that happens to be something good" -- i.e., to defend Aristophanes' account of Eros? If so, what are your grounds for doing this? How would you attempt to persuade Diotima that she is mistaken? And (2) with regard to your closing thought, what's the importance of an orgasm in connection with all this? Are you thinking of the orgasm as identical, somehow, with the event of begetting and giving birth in the beautiful? Do you think that Diotima is committed to such a view? |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 1:43:25 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Here's something else we might do well to talk about this week: those strange-seeming things Plato calls "forms" or "ideas."
Diotima tells us that once the initiate has climbed all the way up the ladder or love, he or she beholds "the beautiful itself," and this would seem to qualify as one of those forms or ideas. So the topic is not foreign to what she has to say about the education of desire in the passage we're committed to talking about this week.
You've also already read things that Sokrates himself has to say about these forms or ideas in the Republic -- first, in the context of the passage leading up to and including his discussion of the divided line in Book VI; second, in his allegory of the cave in Book VII; and third, in his discussion of dialectic toward the end of Book VII. These passages are in many ways much more suggestive about what the forms actually amount to than anything in the Symposium, and they make it plain that there are many more of them in addition to the beautiful itself.
So what are these things? Let's see if we can figure this out for ourselves instead of pestering Sokrates or Plato about it. They'd admire us a lot more if we could!
In an announcement Paul posted on July 9 titled "Grades -- Part I" (it's still there on the Announcements page; you can go look at it at your leisure), he said: "I have suggested that you might submit via e-mail added material based on Tom's explanations. Please identify any such submissions as extra credit." If we can get a good discussion going this week on the subject of the ideas or forms, that might be an especially good basis for work of the kind he's got in mind for additional extra credit applicable to your grade in Part I of the course.
So: we've got all sorts of good reasons to talk about this topic -- philosophical reasons and purely prudential reasons having to do with your grade!
What are these things -- these ideas or forms? This is a question that's exercised readers -- and no doubt hearers too -- of Plato right from the start. And it continues to exercise them. Whole books have been written on the subject in recent decades, and scholars are still struggling to understand. I've just come across a very nice piece on the first of the passages in the Republic mentioned above -- the passage on the divided line -- which perhaps we all ought to look at just to get an account of these matters into our heads. There are lots of other accounts, of course, but this one has the virtues of being handy (it's right here on the Internet), of being nicely argued and easy to read, and of being both plausible and thought-provoking. It's a piece by Peter Losin, a Senior Lecturer in University Honors at the University of Maryland, College Park, called "Plato's Analogy of the Divided Line." It's pretty recent scholarship, too, having been presented at the Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association a little less than nine years ago, in December 1988.
Let the discussion begin! |
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Cameron Cowan
Journeyman
64 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 4:17:44 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
To answer Tom's questions:
quote:
Two questions, Cameron: (1) do you mean, in claiming that human beings seek to be completed, to reject Diotima's idea that "love is not for a half..."
I definitely think that Aristophanes is onto something with that statement. Saying that love is not for a half is like saying masturbation is better than sex. There is no comparison! Humanity needs to connect at the physical and soul level. Ayn Rand and theories like hers have tried desperately to remove the natural desire to come together with other humans and make us believe that we are strictly individual and that we don't need other people and we have no responsibility. This is categorically not true, and Diotima is trying to convince us of the same. She is trying to tell is that we can beget the beautiful by ourselves via the pursuit of knowledge, beautiful knowledge and appreciation beyond the physical, and I'm trying to say that we need both. People work better when more than just one of us are working a problem. Factories are more efficient, and so are the ways to the solutions to problems that afflict us.
quote:
(2) [W]ith regard to your closing thought, what's the importance of an orgasm in connection with all this?
An orgasm is the greatest pleasure a human can attain and this orgasm does not always have to be physical. Of course who is not going to enjoy the ecstasy of amazing sex? At the same time we can achieve this orgasm at the soul level when we have a conversation or an interaction with another human that brings us pleasure just like a physical stimulant.
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Are you thinking of the orgasm as identical, somehow, with the event of begetting and giving birth in the beautiful?
Yes, I think that is accurate. Each is equally pleasurable I think in its own way, the one being physical and the other being of the soul.
quote:
Do you think that Diotima is committed to such a view?
Yes.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
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Cameron Cowan
Journeyman
64 Posts |
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Megan Lusardi
Apprentice
32 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 7:03:18 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
I definitely think that Aristophanes is onto something with that statement. Saying that love is not for a half is like saying masturbation is better than sex. There is no comparison! Humanity needs to connect at the physical and soul level. Ayn Rand and theories like hers have tried desperately to remove the natural desire to come together with other humans and make us believe that we are strictly individual and that we don't need other people and we have no responsibility. This is categorically not true, and Diotima is trying to convince us of the same. She is trying to tell is that we can beget the beautiful by ourselves via the pursuit of knowledge, beautiful knowledge and appreciation beyond the physical, and I'm trying to say that we need both. People work better when more than just one of us are working a problem. Factories are more efficient, and so are the ways to the solutions to problems that afflict us.
Cameron, I completely agree with your claim that we humans need both physical and mental stimulation. They [sic] are both part of the human body, and hence they both need to be pleasured. It is also true that some people take more pleasure in the physical body and having sex with other people, but if one does that ALL the time and does not seek mental stimulation, one's life will not be as fulfilling as it could be. It would also be hard for someone who always takes pleasure only in the physical to appreciate what he or she achieves when he or she finishes the ascent up Diotima's "ladder." Diotima says, "[only] when he sees the beautiful with his mind, which alone can see it," will it be possible for the initiate "to give birth, not to likenesses of virtue, since he touches no likeness, but to realities, since he touches reality" [missing documentation]. What this means to me is that you cannot truly be thankful for something unless you have the knowledge of what it is. Do you think this is true -- that unless you know what you are striving for and you know exactly what it is and why you want it, you will not be able to truly appreciate it? |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 8:37:11 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
I definitely think that Aristophanes is onto something with that statement. Saying that love is not for a half is like saying masturbation is better than sex. There is no comparison! Humanity needs to connect at the physical and soul level. Ayn Rand and theories like hers have tried desperately to remove the natural desire to come together with other humans and make us believe that we are strictly individual and that we don't need other people and we have no responsibility. This is categorically not true, and Diotima is trying to convince us of the same. She is trying to tell is that we can beget the beautiful by ourselves via the pursuit of knowledge, beautiful knowledge and appreciation beyond the physical, and I'm trying to say that we need both. People work better when more than just one of us are working a problem. Factories are more efficient, and so are the ways to the solutions to problems that afflict us.
Cameron, two thoughts about this:
- Diotima nowhere suggests that people don't need to "connect" with other people at the various levels you speak of here, and she certainly never suggests that we don't have any responsibilities. She knows that men need to connect with women to have human offspring and she knows that they must be attracted to women -- and indeed to particular women, the ones they find beautiful -- to do it (206c-e, 101; cf. 208e, 103). She also thinks that the beauty of beautiful souls is to be preferred to the beauty of beautiful bodies by those who know what can come of the connections one can make with such souls in "such talks as will make young people better" (205b-c, 104; cf. 209a-e, 103-104). That she thinks that there are beauties even greater than human bodies and human souls doesn't mean that she denies that "Humanity needs to connect at the physical [level] and [at the level of the soul.]" Finally, she certainly never suggests that we can "beget the beautiful by ourselves." She never talks about begetting the beautiful at all. What she talks about is "begetting and birth in the beautiful" (206e, 101; my emphasis). She does suggest something that goes way beyond Aristophanes' claim, namely that what we always desire is the good. Note how you mangled what she says. She doesn't say that "love is not for a half..."; she says that "love is not for a half, nor indeed the whole, unless that happens to be something good" (205d-e, 101; my emphasis).
- Of course she does suggest something else, which I'd have thought might have been what you found disagreeable, were it not for this remark of yours in your first message in this thread: "we budding philosophers [should] chase after knowledge -- chase after knowledge and "do" it, and have a thought-orgasm of sorts" (message posted yesterday, July 30, at 5:46 p.m.), namely that there are beauties even greater than people -- beautiful things far more beautiful than beautiful bodies or beautiful souls, and I suppose that that view might lead one to think that she believes that people ought in the end to have nothing to do with one another. But this would be a huge mistake. Just as Sokrates argues in Republic VII that those who complete the ascent that takes them up out of the cave and emerge in the place where they can behold the real realities (the forms) and study them in the light of the sun (the good) must be compelled by considerations of justice to return to the cave and go back down (519d-521b, 318-319), and that means accept the responsibilities that they have to their fellow human beings, so Diotima suggests that those who complete the ascent up the ladder of love will then, and only then, be in a position to give birth to genuine virtue -- first of all, of course, their own (212a, 106) and, when they have nourished that and brought it up to full maturity (ibid.), be in a position to beget "many other beautiful works and all kinds of virtue" (209d-e, 104). And plainly, she thinks of this is as the culminating, all-important part of the answer that she gives in the long passage that runs from 204c to 209e (i.e., from the bottom of p. 99 to the middle of p. 104 in Great Dialogues of Plato) to Sokrates' question about what use Eros is to humanity ("what use is he to mankind?" [204c, 100]).
You know, Cameron, you're full of interesting ideas, and I often find myself resonating with many of them in just the way Megan has just shown she does too, but you're not yet reading carefully and well, and you're being altogether too lax when it comes to making sure you've got genuine grounds for your claims. Look at the trouble I've gone to to nail down the claims I've made here with precise textual references. This, at a minimum, is what everyone who wants to talk responsibly about this kind of material has to learn to do. Stop giving yourself a pass on this! You're capable of a whole lot more.
quote:
Originally posted by you:
quote:
Originally posted by me:
(2) [W]ith regard to your closing thought, what's the importance of an orgasm in connection with all this?
An orgasm is the greatest pleasure a human can attain and this orgasm does not always have to be physical. Of course who is not going to enjoy the ecstasy of amazing sex? At the same time we can achieve this orgasm at the soul level when we have a conversation or an interaction with another human that brings us pleasure just like a physical stimulant.
OK. What does pleasure have to do with all this? Do you take pleasure to be the good?
quote:
Originally posted by you:
quote:
Originally posted by me:
Are you thinking of the orgasm as identical, somehow, with the event of begetting and giving birth in the beautiful?
Yes, I think that is accurate. Each is equally pleasurable I think in its own way, the one being physical and the other being of the soul.
Oh, Cameron! What an argument! Q: Are sugar and salt the very same thing? A: Yes, I think that is accurate. Each is equally white and edible in its own way, I think, the one being good in coffee, the other being good in tomato juice.
quote:
Originally posted by you:
quote:
Originally posted by me:
Do you think that Diotima is committed to such a view?
Yes.
Do you have any reasons for thinking that she is? Do you have any evidence for this claim? Or are you, like our current president, a devotee of the gut feeling? Philosophizing is not, you know, doing a gut check. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 8:52:47 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
In order that I might get the idea of the forms into my mind, I decided to think of them this way: they are the various concepts of the Republic, the basic concepts that make up Plato's theory. Just as our government has basic concepts and forms that make it up, so does Plato's philosophy.
Oooh. Bad decision. Almost nothing could be farther from the truth -- whatever, exactly, the truth might be. It's not easy to say just what Plato (or Plato's Sokrates) means by the terms "forms" and "ideas," but this is a complete non-starter as a hypothesis. It doesn't square with any of the things Plato has Sokrates say about these strange entities.
quote:
More generally, I think that if we began to break down our society into its basic forms and our very thoughts and opinions down to their basic forms (think Socratic conversation) we would get to the root of things faster and realize how many of our problems are due to bad thoughts and bad attitudes.
I suppose you could be right about this, but if you are, it's completely beside the point. It couldn't conceivably be part of a plausible answer to the question of what Plato's Sokrates could be talking about when he speaks of ideas or forms -- i.e., such things as the beautiful itself or the just itself or the good itself or the triangular itself or the human being itself. They're not among the basic forms of our society, and they're not about the basic forms of our thoughts and our opinions.
So, once again -- or maybe for the first time -- back to the texts! You need to answer this sort of question by reading and thinking about the texts, not by making decisions, and not by asking yourself what you or people generally mean by the terms that are up for discussion. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Jul 31 2007 : 9:13:00 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Megan, I'm going to restrict myself to commenting on just one of the things you say in the message you posted just a little while ago:
quote:
Originally posted by Megan Lusardi
Diotima says, "[only] when he sees the beautiful with his mind, which alone can see it," will it be possible for the initiate "to give birth, not to likenesses of virtue, since he touches no likeness, but to realities, since he touches reality" [missing documentation]. What this means to me is that you cannot truly be thankful for something unless you have the knowledge of what it is.
First, I assume that what you mean by "What this means to me" is "What I think this remark of Diotima's actually means." If this isn't what you mean by this phrase, then tell me: why should we care what this passage means to you?
In any case, where in this passage, or in the context in which this passage occurs, is there anything that suggests that Diotima sees knowledge of what a thing is as a condition of the possibility of our being thankful for it -- truly thankful or sort of thankful or thankful in any other way or degree? What argument or evidence can you give to support your idea that she's even thinking about the conditions of the possibility of thankfulness, gratefulness, gratitude, appreciation, or anything even vaguely like that? Impressions are a dime a dozen, you know -- if they're worth anything at all. |
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Emily Holland
Apprentice
26 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 1:08:21 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Megan Lusardi
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
I definitely think that Aristophanes is onto something with that statement. Saying that love is not for a half is like saying masturbation is better than sex. There is no comparison! Humanity needs to connect at the physical and soul level. Ayn Rand and theories like hers have tried desperately to remove the natural desire to come together with other humans and make us believe that we are strictly individual and that we don't need other people and we have no responsibility. This is categorically not true, and Diotima is trying to convince us of the same. She is trying to tell is that we can beget the beautiful by ourselves via the pursuit of knowledge, beautiful knowledge and appreciation beyond the physical, and I'm trying to say that we need both. People work better when more than just one of us are working a problem. Factories are more efficient, and so are the ways to the solutions to problems that afflict us.
Cameron, I completely agree with your claim that we humans need both physical and mental stimulation. They [sic] are both part of the human body, and hence they both need to be pleasured. It is also true that some people take more pleasure in the physical body and having sex with other people, but if one does that ALL the time and does not seek mental stimulation, one's life will not be as fulfilling as it could be. It would also be hard for someone who always takes pleasure only in the physical to appreciate what he or she achieves when he or she finishes the ascent up Diotima's "ladder." Diotima says, "[only] when he sees the beautiful with his mind, which alone can see it," will it be possible for the initiate "to give birth, not to likenesses of virtue, since he touches no likeness, but to realities, since he touches reality" [missing documentation]. What this means to me is that you cannot truly be thankful for something unless you have the knowledge of what it is. Do you think this is true -- that unless you know what you are striving for and you know exactly what it is and why you want it, you will not be able to truly appreciate it?
I agree, in relationships you have to have both physical and mental stimulation in order for the relationship to work. If a relationship is all about the physical side, it will not work. You have to mentally be involved too. The same is true of mental stimulation, I feel that without showing physical connection, it will be really hard to share the way you feel about the person. |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 2:07:22 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Holland
I agree, in relationships you have to have both physical and mental stimulation in order for the relationship to work. If a relationship is all about the physical side, it will not work. You have to mentally be involved too. The same is true of mental stimulation, I feel that without showing physical connection, it will be really hard to share the way you feel about the person.
I agree with what you agree with. Do you think if a couple only has a physical relationship, it could still work? I know a couple who are like this and it has completely thrown me off the whole relationship thing. They have been dating about a year and they don't talk to each other. Neither one of them knows how the other feels; they don't know any deep, dark secrets, and they don't hang out and just have a good time. It's all about the physical connection. I am just confused because it works for them.
I am like you Emily, I need both physical and mental. If I don't have both, there is no way I could connect with someone and have a true relationship. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 2:21:20 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Holland
I agree, in relationships you have to have both physical and mental stimulation in order for the relationship to work. If a relationship is all about the physical side, it will not work. You have to mentally be involved too. The same is true of mental stimulation, I feel that without showing physical connection, it will be really hard to share the way you feel about the person.
Emily, how does this contribute to our discussion of the Symposium, the specific topic of Diotima's account of what she calls the "higher revelations" and the education of desire, the conception of education we find in both the Republic and the Symposium, the concept of forms or ideas, or anything else that pertains either to the topic of this week's discussion or the subject-matter of this course? Could you clarify that for us? If so, by all means do it. If not, I'm not going to give you credit for this or any further messages in which log in, quote something somebody else has said, say you agree, and then tell us what you "feel" about relationships and what makes them work or fail to work or else what you want or about what "most people" want or about the similarities and differences between the way you react to something and the way "most people" react. I think I've been cutting you too much slack on this for way too long. Apart from your reply to Lexi on elenkhos and the one passing reference you made to Diotima on July 24, this is just about all we've been getting from you for the past three weeks. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 2:26:31 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Jessica, see the reply I just made to Emily's last post -- the reply just above. The same goes for you. No credit -- unless you can explain its relevance to what we're supposed to be doing here -- for this or for any further messages in which log in, quote something somebody else has said, say you agree, and then tell us about what you need or what your friends seem to need and so on. We need to buckle down and talk about the content of the texts and lectures, the questions that are raised in and by them, genuine philosophical issues, philosophy itself -- in short, the content of the course. |
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Emily Holland
Apprentice
26 Posts |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 3:44:39 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Holland
"Next he must believe beauty in souls to be more precious than beauty in the body; so that if anyone is decent in soul, even if it has little bloom, it should be enough for him to love and care for" (104). This should be the way that people are attracted to one another, instead of just looking at the outside. People today are so materialistic and don't wait to find out what is on the inside.
Hmm. But the passage you've just quoted, Emily, doesn't suggest that we should avoid "just looking at the outside" [emphasis added]. It actually suggests that once we're capable of rising above the level at which we care about the beauty of bodies, we should look only at what's "on the inside." Here Diotima is no longer talking about a form of eros that requires any physical connection at all.
quote:
We should see one another "not as a face or hands....but being by itself with itself always in simplicity" (105).
This passage doesn't have to do with people at all. No person ever shows himself or herself to anyone in this way, so it'd be quite impossible for us to see one another in this way. Look again at the passage (210e-211e, 105-106) from which you've quoted these words. It's a passage in which Diotima is describing a Platonic form, an eternal archetype, not a person -- the beautiful itself.
quote:
Getting time to understand one another and look at the simple side of life would make everyone happier. I'm not just talking about a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, but also friendship.
And the bearing of these remarks on the Symposium or on what Diotima has to say about eros is...?
quote:
By finding out what is on the inside, we would be able to eliminate the "clicks" that make everyone so unhappy.
What does the word "clicks" mean here? I've never heard this expression used in this context before. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Aug 01 2007 : 4:03:49 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Holland
I would appreciate it if you would e-mail me [any criticism you have regarding my posts] instead of posting it in the discussion forum.
Why, Emily? Why shouldn't we be willing to share our criticisms of one another's work in public? I certainly don't think you should have e-mailed me this criticism of my critical comments instead of posting it right here in the forum. I think this is a perfectly appropriate place for you to criticize what I've done. Wouldn't you say that public criticism of one another's public statements and public actions is what the Sokratic method is all about? I'm asking these questions in all seriousness. You know, it's not because I don't think highly of you that I said what I said in my recent post. It's because I do have a high regard for you and for what I feel confident you can do that I made the comments that I made. And the same goes for everyone else in the class whose work I've criticized here in the forum in one way or another. |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 02 2007 : 08:03:13 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
It might be the Socrates way, but we are trying, and this course is obviously not easy to understand. So when I post my postings, I already feel on edge because I am trying to understand what is going on. Usually criticism is okay, but when we're already shaky about the situation it doesn't help to be told that we're wrong and that what were saying has nothing to do with the conversation and readings. I think this is a case when I would have liked an e-mail. |
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Emily Holland
Apprentice
26 Posts |
Posted - Aug 02 2007 : 09:52:49 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Tom Trelogan
quote:
Originally posted by Emily Holland
"Next he must believe beauty in souls to be more precious than beauty in the body; so that if anyone is decent in soul, even if it has little bloom, it should be enough for him to love and care for" (104). This should be the way that people are attracted to one another, instead of just looking at the outside. People today are so materialistic and don't wait to find out what is on the inside.
Hmm. But the passage you've just quoted, Emily, doesn't suggest that we should avoid "just looking at the outside" [emphasis added]. It actually suggests that once we're capable of rising above the level at which we care about the beauty of bodies, we should look only at what's "on the inside." Here Diotima is no longer talking about a form of eros that requires any physical connection at all.
quote:
We should see one another "not as a face or hands....but being by itself with itself always in simplicity" (105).
This passage doesn't have to do with people at all. No person ever shows himself or herself to anyone in this way, so it'd be quite impossible for us to see one another in this way. Look again at the passage (210e-211e, 105-106) from which you've quoted these words. It's a passage in which Diotima is describing a Platonic form, an eternal archetype, not a person -- the beautiful itself.
quote:
Getting time to understand one another and look at the simple side of life would make everyone happier. I'm not just talking about a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, but also friendship.
And the bearing of these remarks on the Symposium or on what Diotima has to say about eros is...?
quote:
By finding out what is on the inside, we would be able to eliminate the "clicks" that make everyone so unhappy.
What does the word "clicks" mean here? I've never heard this expression used in this context before.
Well I guess for the first part, I meant that we should learn how to look at people like this. And isn't Diotima relating to the way we should see people's beauty when she talks about seeing one another? I mean when I was reading it, that's how it appeared to me.
When I spoke of eliminating the "click" problem (I may be spelling it incorrectly) I meant to refer to the way people are judged in school by the way they look and act, throwing them into groups ranked from "popular" to "nerds." If we did take the time to find out what's on the inside, we could go some of the way towards eliminating the "clicks," [which would be a good thing to do,] for these are a leading cause of suicide and depression among teens today. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1374 Posts |
Posted - Aug 02 2007 : 10:38:35 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
(...also, Emily, you posted your most recent message while I was busy working on this one, so of course I wasn't referring to that message here. I'll post a reply to it as soon as we've finished with talking about this question.)
Emily and Jessica, you both clearly think I was telling you something about the remarks you've been posting or about what you've been saying or doing in the context of those remarks. I wasn't. If you look carefully, you'll see that I was asking each of you something. What I asked you, Emily, was this:
quote:
[H]ow does this contribute to our discussion of the Symposium, the specific topic of Diotima's account of what she calls the "higher revelations" and the education of desire, the conception of education we find in both the Republic and the Symposium, the concept of forms or ideas, or anything else that pertains either to the topic of this week's discussion or the subject-matter of this course? Could you clarify that for us?
I said that if you could, you really should. And Jessica, what I said to you was this:
quote:
See the reply I just made to Emily's last post -- the reply just above. The same goes for you. No credit -- unless you can explain its relevance to what we're supposed to be doing here -- for this or for any further messages in which log in, quote something somebody else has said, say you agree, and then tell us about what you need or what your friends seem to need and so on.
And of course implicit in that is the very same question: what's the relevance of the content of what was then your most recent post to what we're supposed to be doing here in the forum? You really haven't either one of you answered that question -- unless what you have said constitutes an answer -- namely, an answer to the effect that the messages in question really weren't substantive contributions to our discussion. But if that's true, then it's you who have judged that what you were saying has nothing to do with the conversation and readings.
Have the two of you started looking yet at the materials for next week's discussions? Everyone -- and this is really a remark I want to address to everyone in the cousre -- ought always to be about a week ahead in the readings and in looking over the Lectures so that when it's time for the quizzes, you're completely squared away, and when it's time for a particular week's discussion, you're on top of the material, all ready to go.
If you have, you've seen the links in Lecture Seven to the two dialogues that bear Alkibiades' name: Alicibiades I and Alcibiades II. Neither dialogue is an assigned reading, but they're really interesting supplements to part of the Symposium that describes his. And Jessica, I remember from way back in the first part of the course your being enterprising and looking at that speech of Lusias' (or Lysias] in which he prosecuted those who had murdered his brother, Polemarkhos. These are short little dialogues, no longer than that speech. Anyhow, I really recommend a look, in the context of our present discussion, at Alkibiades I, especially the passage at 112e-113c:
quote:
[112e]Socrates: There again, Alcibiades, do you see how unfairly you speak?
Alcibiades: In what?
Socrates: In stating that I say so.
Alcibiades: Why, do you not say that l do not know about the just and unjust?
Socrates: Not at all.
Alcibiades: Well, do I say it?
Socrates: Yes.
Alcibiades: How, pray?
Socrates: I will show you, in the following way. If I ask you which is the greater number, one or two, you will answer “two”?
Alcibiades: Yes, I shall.
Socrates: How much greater?
Alcibiades: By one.
Socrates: Then which of us says that two are one more than one?
Alcibiades: I.
Socrates: And I was asking, and you were answering?
Alcibiades: Yes.
[113a] Socrates: Then is it I, the questioner, or you the answerer, that are found to be speaking about these things?
Alcibiades: I.
Socrates: And what if I ask what are the letters in “Socrates,” and you tell me? Which will be the speaker?
Alcibiades: I.
Socrates: Come then, tell me, as a principle, when we have question and answer, which is the speaker--the questioner, or the answerer?
Alcibiades: The answerer, I should say, Socrates.
[113b] Socrates: And throughout the argument so far, I was the questioner?
Alcibiades: Yes.
Socrates: And you the answerer?
Alcibiades: Quite so.
Socrates: Well then, which of us has spoken what has been said?
Alcibiades: Apparently, Socrates, from what we have admitted, it was I.
Socrates: And it was said that Alcibiades, the fair son of Cleinias, did not know about just and unjust, but thought he did, and intended to go to the Assembly as adviser to the Athenians on what he knows nothing about; is not that so?
[113c] Alcibiades: Apparently.
Socrates: Then, to quote Euripides, the result is, Alcibiades, that you may be said to have
quote:
heard it from yourself, not me, (Eur. Hipp. 352)
and it is not I who say it, but you, and you tax me with it in vain.
One of the skills I said in the syllabus we'd be working on in the second half of the course is skill in "reading not just for content but for clarity about the speech acts being performed by the characters -- and maybe even the author -- of a Platonic-style dialogue." It seems to me that this is relevant to what we're talking about here. There's a real difference between saying things (telling people things) and asking questions, and this is a difference that makes all the difference for what you, Jessica, have called "the Socrates way." Our little exchange here makes it plain that we've also got to have an eye out for this in these discussions of ours here right on the forum. |
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Week 11: The Education of Desire
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