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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 04 2007 : 3:21:33 PM
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This is the thread for discussion of the assigned reading for Week 12 (Symposium 212c-223d [pp. 106-117 in Great Dialogues of Plato]) as well as Lecture Seven.
You're to post here at least twice between 3:00 p.m. on August 4 and 3:00 a.m. on August 14. The requirement to post at least twice is a minimum requirement. Post as often as you want. If you have questions about this week's reading assignment and lecture ask them here before you 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
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 05 2007 : 4:35:18 PM
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AnnouncementA description of the final, along with a copy of the text I'll be asking you questions about on the test, is available now in the new "Exams" folder in the navigation bar. As I've already said just above, the test will become available at 8:00 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 10, and will remain available until 8:00 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 13. This represents a decision on my part to push the dates for the final back by three days from the dates and times I originally announced. That'll give you a bit more time to study for the test. I'm hoping you'll find that useful. |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 12:24:16 PM
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(THIS POST IS ONLY PARTIALLY A PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES!)
quote:
Originally posted by Jessica Yost
In this week's readings, what kind of love were Sokrates and Alkibiades talking about? I know Alkibiades was drunk, but was he in love with Socrates in a homosexual way, or in an admiring way? When they shared the bed and Alkibiades got excited about this, I was still trying to figure out what kind of love it was.
Alkibiades was hoping that Sokrates would have sex with him -- sex of some sort. That's why he found it so humiliating that that when he got up in the morning he had "no more slept with Socrates than if [he] had been with a father or an elder brother" (219c-d, 113). Surely the truth is that at this point, he admired Sokrates immensely, but he also wanted to gratify Sokrates (218c-d, 112). He wanted Sokrates to make love to him.
You do realize that in this case, Sokrates is supposed to be the lover (the erastes -- the one who's got the hots) and Alkibiades is supposed to be the beloved (the eromenos -- the beautiful one, the one who's driving the other one nuts).
Things are more complicated here than you seem to want to realize. Perhaps our own political correctness is getting in the way. Let me see how to put this.... In heterosexual sex as it was traditionally conceived, what do you think? Was one of the two partners the man -- i.e., the one who wanted to do the bedding -- and one the woman -- i.e., the one who wanted to get taken to bed?
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Paul Hodapp
Moderator
86 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 12:29:32 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Nearly final thoughts:
Is the Symposium an example of the sort of poetry that Plato would ban from the ideal city, and what is the significance of this question and one's answer to it? In Book 10 of the Republic, Plato disparages poetry because it is three times removed from reality. The philosopher deals with forms, somehow, which are the highest reality; the craftsperson makes physical objects resembling the forms, the next highest; and the poet imitates the physical imitation. And thus the poet should be banished as a competitor with philosophy who distracts from philosophy. If I recall correctly, in the Symposium, Diotima tells a story to Socrates and that story is picked up by another person who tells it to another person who tells it to us. Assuming that Diotima's story has something to do with reality, aren't we three times removed from reality in the end?
Is the Symposium an example of a stylistic exercise, like James Joyce's Ulysses, where the author tries to show off by imitating not even reality but different textual styles?
Finally, have we taught one another anything about what philosophy is?
[Edited to enhance readability -TT] |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 2:13:58 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Paul Hodapp
Nearly final thoughts:
Is the Symposium an example of poetry that Plato would ban from the Republic, and what is the significance of that question and that answer? In book 10 of the Republic, Plato disparages poetry because it is three times removed from reality. The philosopher deals with forms, somehow, which are the highest reality; the craftsperson makes physical objects resembling the forms, the next highest, and the poet imitates the physical imitation. And thus the poet should be banished as a competitor with philosophy who distracts from philosophy. If I recall correctly, in the Symposium, Diotima tells a story to Socrates and that story is picked up by another person who tells it to another person who tells it to us. Assuming that Diotima's has something to do with reality, aren't we three times removed from reality in the end?
Is the Symposium an example of a stylistic exercise, like Joyce's Ulysses, where the author tries to show off by imitating not even reality but different textual styles?
So. Have we taught one another anything about what philosophy is?
Paul, I'll be back to you about this a bit later. These are really interesting questions. But right now, Jessica and I need to finish our little exchange.... |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 2:19:38 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Jessica Yost
I did actually get that Alkibiades wanted to be "loved" by Sokrates. He seemed desperate and who better than Socrates to make love to?
Not so fast! I don't think you do get it. I don't think that Alkibiades wanted to make love to Sokrates. I think he wanted Sokrates to make love to him. Let's make sure we see eye to eye on this first. This may not seem to be a big deal to you, but the whole question about who is the erastes and who is the eromenos was just as important to the Greeks in general as is the question about who is the questioner and who is the answerer to Sokrates. |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 2:26:03 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
So was Alkibiades being selfish? Or did he want to know what it was like having a man like Sokrates make love to him? |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 2:29:57 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Neither one. He was being generous. Isn't it obvious that he wanted to give himself to Sokrates as a great big, beautiful present? |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 2:49:52 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Ha ha, I guess now it is! I think it is just so weird, I don't want to accept what was really going on. Did he need to be drunk to do it, and would Sokrates really accept his "gift"? |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 4:25:34 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
No. Sokrates refused to accept his gift, and not only that. He "laughed at [his] bloom, and insulted [him] in the point where [he] did think [he] was something," which is precisely why Alkibiades is now putting him on trial for "superimperiosity" -- i.e., hubris (219c, 113) [the Wikipedia article on hubris contains a pretty good explanation of what hubris was in ancient Greece].
As for whether Alkibiades needed to be drunk to even try to gratify Sokrates, what do you think? Do most women need to be drunk to "give in" -- to give themselves as exquisitely wrapped, soon-to-be unwrapped presents -- to the men who are interested in getting them into bed? I haven't done the necessary empirical research to be sure, but I seriously doubt it. Of course if the men are ugly enough, then maybe women do need to be drunk, but I dunno. Does that matter that much to women? Are women as big on having their men be gloriously beautiful as men are about having their women be total knock-outs? And when a woman is "on the prowl" for a great-looking hunk, then aren't the roles reversed, and isn't the man the one who is going to have to decide whether or not he's going to "give in" to the woman? Maybe what we usually have in mind when we talk about love really ought to be symmetrical (mutual, egalitarian), but maybe sex is best when it isn't -- or when the lovers "take turns" if each of them really is hot for the other one.
Could the Greeks have been on to something about this with their insistence on distinguishing between the erastes and the eromenos? What do you think? In our own society, homosexuals often pair up in such a way that one of the partners takes the active role while the other takes on the passive role, and lesbians frequently identify themselves as either "butch" or "femme." Maybe, if there really is anything ultimately significant about the erastes/eromenos distinction along the lines along which the Greeks clearly thought there was, we'd do well to adapt the terms "butch" and "femme" (or some other such pair of terms) and apply them right across the board to all kinds of pair-wise sexual partnerships or sexual episodes. What do you think about that? Our society tends to frown -- or used to tend to frown -- on this sort of role-reversal in heterosexual relationships, but it's really much commoner than one might suppose. I mean a relationship in which the woman is "butch" and the man is "femme," a relationship in which, as people used to put it, it's the woman who "wears the pants" -- or maybe even the strap-on. |
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Cameron Cowan
Journeyman
64 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 7:45:31 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
Alkibiades is offering himself as a present to Sokrates, but I think everyone is right, and if you think about how human attraction works it makes sense. I'm gay, so I understand what Alkibiades wants, but I will explain it to you as if it were straight.
Men want women, women want men. What does it take for a man to get a woman attracted to him so that she will consent for this man to make love to her? On the other end, what does it take for a woman to make herself attractive to a man to get made love to? Can someone be so compelling that you just want to give your body to him or to her as a present? In human mating habits, most of the business of getting to bed is talking either way. Believe it or not, the actual act is a culmination (presuming you meet each other in a club or bar and decide to go home together as a one night stand sorta thing) of all that talking you've been doing to make sure you make yourself worthy of your quarry's most prized possession, himself or herself. So keep in mind: Sokrates has been talking all night long, and it is the conversation that has been going on, back and forth, between him and Alkibiades since he arrived, that has prompted this. Does Alkibiades need to be drunk? No. Does he need Sokrates' compelling words? Yes, absolutely.
I know you guys will tear this apart, so have fun!
Oh yes, I almost forgot.... Paul's final question!
quote:
Finally, have we taught one another anything about what philosophy is?
I don't think we have gotten anywhere. I used to have a fairly decent grasp of these works, but now I am more confused than ever, and I think there has been resistance to students' trying to figure things out for themselves based on the readings.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 8:24:04 PM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
quote:
Originally posted by Cameron Cowan
Alkibiades is offering himself as a present to Sokrates, but I think everyone is right, and if you think about how human attraction works it makes sense. I'm gay, so I understand what Alkibiades wants, but I will explain it to you as if it were straight.
Men want women, women want men. What does it take for a man to get a woman attracted to him so that she will consent for this man to make love to her? On the other end, what does it take for a woman to make herself attractive to a man to get made love to? Can someone be so compelling that you just want to give your body to him or to her as a present? In human mating habits, most of the business of getting to bed is talking either way. Believe it or not, the actual act is a culmination (presuming you meet each other in a club or bar and decide to go home together as a one night stand sorta thing) of all that talking you've been doing to make sure you make yourself worthy of your quarry's most prized possession, himself or herself. So keep in mind: Sokrates has been talking all night long, and it is the conversation that has been going on, back and forth, between him and Alkibiades since he arrived, that has prompted this. Does Alkibiades need to be drunk? No. Does he need Sokrates' compelling words? Yes, absolutely.
I know you guys will tear this apart, so have fun!
Tear this apart? Goodness me, no! I wouldn't touch it -- not coming from an authority such as you, Cameron. You obviously know all about these things. What can the rest of us do but learn from you? I'm certainly content to do just that.
quote:
Oh yes, I almost forgot.... Paul's final question!
quote:
Finally, have we taught one another anything about what philosophy is?
I don't think we have gotten anywhere. I used to have a fairly decent grasp of these works, but now I am more confused than ever....
Sounds like progress to me! Do you know Plato's Meno? Whether or not you do, you should. It's a really nice little dialogue -- one of Plato's very best. Anyway, in the middle of it (at 84a-b, 47), Sokrates is engaged in giving the man he's talking with, a man named "Menon," a demonstration of how, simply by asking questions elenctically, he can get a mere slave who has been taught no geometry whatsoever to see (by remembering things he became familiar with at a time when he had no body, Sokrates suggests!) various geometrical truths. At a certain point in the conversation, the "boy" -- the slave -- says in response to one of Sokrates' questions: "Indeed, Sokrates, on my word I don't know." And Sokrates says to Menon: "Now, Menon, do you notice how this boy is getting on in his remembering? ["Remembering" here is Sokrates' code-word-of-the-moment for education.] At first he did not know what line made the eight-foot space, and he does not know yet; but he thought he knew then, and boldly answered as if he did know, and did not think there was any doubt; now he thinks there is a doubt, and as he does not know, so he does not think he does know." And Menon says: "Quite true."
I'd say, Cameron, that you're definitely showing signs of "getting on in your remembering!"
quote:
...and I think there has been resistance to students' trying to figure things out for themselves based on the readings.
What say you, everyone? Is this last charge just? |
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Sokrates
Administrator
7341 Posts |
Posted - Aug 07 2007 : 8:27:49 PM
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Hello, everybody! I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I just couldn't tear myself away from the company of your politicians downtown. I love talking to politicians!
But I understand you have a couple of questions for me. Jessica, I'm going to answer your question first. I frankly just think it's easier than Kolby's, so I'm going to use it to warm up a bit, if you don't mind.
You asked if I ever felt the love of a woman or was ever even interested in women. I certainly was interested in women, really every bit as much as men, and I remain interested in both women and men today. Some of those politicians I was talking to are women. You're a woman. If I weren't interested in women, I wouldn't be talking to you!
But I sense that the interest I'm talking about is may not be the interest you were asking about. Were you wondering if I ever experienced the attractions and delights of a woman's body? If so, the answer is most definitely "yes"! I was married twice, to a woman named "Myrto" and then again to a woman named "Xanthippe," and I had three children -- regular, human children, you know -- three boys named "Lamprokles," "Sophroniskos" (named after my father, of course), and "Menexenos." But I think you know about my children -- I think Plato has me mention them right at the end of his Apology (41-e42a, 446). No, I know he does. I've not read that piece in many years, but I always liked it, and I always liked the way he ended it. They were still quite little when I died.
I also sense that you and your classmates assume that no one can be attracted to both men and women, but goodness me! That's a strange idea! Beautiful bodies -- what difference does it make whether they're the bodies of men or the bodies of women!
Now I'm sure you understand that there were plenty of people -- both men and women -- in the Greece in my day who were attracted only to women, and plenty -- both men and women -- who were attracted only to men, but there were plenty more -- both men and women -- who were attracted to both. Alkibiades was one of these. When he got older, he was constantly getting himself in trouble chasing both men and women, including other men's wives! Isn't this the way it is today?
In any case, I was attracted to both, and not only physically. Xenophon has me quoting with approval a remark of Aspasia's (in Memorabilia, 2.6) -- she was Perikles' common-law wife towards the end of his life, a woman I always enjoyed talking to -- and he also has a sketch of a very interesting conversation I had once with Theodote (in Memorabilia, 3.11). I spoke with women whenever I got a chance -- which wasn't all that often, you know, at least if the women were respectable! In the Athens of my day, the wives and daughters of citizens were pretty much inaccessible to men other than the members of their families. I'm sure you know all this. And what about Diotima? Now there was a woman! You do believe all that stuff Plato has me say about her in his Symposium, don't you? I certainly felt her love. She cared about me intensely -- I have no idea why -- enough to help me get my sea legs in philosophy and erotics.
Does all this satisfy your curiosity? Or is there more still that you want to know?
Kolby, you asked, I think, if I meant to suggest in Plato's Symposium if immortality "in the literal sense" is something possible for human beings -- specifically for the good. If you look carefully at the text, you'll see that I said that she told me that it will be granted to a man to be immortal, if any man ever is, only if he rises to the level at which he can behold beauty in perfect simplicity, contemplating it, abiding with it, seeing it with his mind, and giving birth in it not to likenesses of virtue but to realities. And I said there too that I was convinced by the things Diotima said. This is a rather more conservative claim than the claim that immortality "in the literal sense" is really possible for the good. Diotima never told me that. Perhaps we should examine the claim for ourselves. Let me ask you first -- even though this was a question you asked last week, I'm sure Tom and the rest won't mind if we discuss it this week -- what do you mean, precisely by "immortality 'in the literal sense.'" Before we tackle the question whether this is really possible for people, or at least for the good, we certainly need to know what it is. So what is it, precisely, that you're asking about here, Kolby? Just be so kind as to tell me that. |
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Cameron Cowan
Journeyman
64 Posts |
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Jessica Yost
Apprentice
48 Posts |
Posted - Aug 08 2007 : 07:19:48 AM
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| That's all I needed, Sokrates. Thanks! |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 08 2007 : 09:54:20 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
[NOTE: this is a reply to a message Jessica posted at the very end of last week's thread, a message that was part of an ongoing conversation the two of us have been having that was stimulated by the following message, posted by Jessica at 7:12 yesterday morning: "Diotima says 'love is love of the beautiful.' I don't understand why it can't be love is beautiful, because it is. Why does it have to be of something? Is there such thing as a "bad" love in Diotima's eyes? Has she ever mentioned anything like that? Or would it be the love of the bad? I am just trying to figure out her definition of love." I want to continue the discussion this week in this thread, because it's not easy to think of anything more important to figure out about the Symposium than the answer to Jessica's final question here: "What is Diotima's definition of love?" Her post, quoted just below, is an answer to the following question, posted by me at 9:36 yesterday morning: "...if love isn't the love of the beautiful, what the heck is it? Do you remember what Diotima says about this?"]
quote:
Originally posted by Jessica Yost
Well, I found this: "It is of engendering and begetting upon the beautiful" (206e). But I don't understand what this means. She goes on to say: "Because this is something ever-existent and immortal in our mortal life." Is she saying love is always around no matter what life someone is living? Even if we think love is not there, it is?
No, that isn't what she's saying, but you certainly have found one of the passages we're going to have to understand in order to figure out what she means when she says the thing that you said you didn't understand. So let's focus on that first to make sure that we don't lose track of it: "[Love] is of engendering and begetting upon the beautiful."
Notice first of all that this still clearly presupposes that love is always love of something. Where do you stand on this now? You expressed doubts about this before ("Why does it have to be of something?"), and I don't know if those doubts have been resolved.
Notice, second, the context in which this remark occurs:
quote:
“‘[Y]ou are wrong, Socrates, in supposing that love is of the beautiful.’
“‘What then is it?’
“‘It is of engendering and begetting upon the beautiful.’
“‘Be it so,’ I said.
“‘To be sure it is,’ she went on; ‘and how of engendering? Because this is something ever-existent and immortal in our mortal life. [207a] From what has been admitted, we needs must yearn for immortality no less than for good, since love loves good to be one's own for ever. And hence it necessarily follows that love is of immortality.’” (from the Harold N. Fowler translation, available online at the Perseus Project)
Here's the very same passage again, in the Rouse translation, which I always find more readable:
quote:
'Finally, Socrates, love is not for the beautiful, as you think.'
'Why not?'
'It is for begetting and birth in the beautiful.'
'Oh, indeed?' said I.
'Yes indeed,' said she.
'Then why for begetting?'
'Because begetting is, for the mortal, something everlasting and immortal. But one must desire immortality along with the good, according to what has been agreed, if love is love of having the good for oneself always. It is necessary then from this argument that love is for immortality also.' (Rouse, Great Dialogues of Plato 103; paragraphing added)
This passage connects the claim that love is the love of engendering and begetting upon the beautiful (or as Rouse puts it, that it's for begetting and birth in the beautiful) with two other claims: that love is also the desire for immortality and that it is the desire to have the good for oneself always, and it doesn't just jumble them together, it speaks of an argument in which they are connected to one another -- presumably in some very definite way. Our task is to figure out what that argument is and exactly how it's supposed to go. But this is the way it always goes in the study of a philosophical text. One eventually has to stop just reading for the bottom line and identify and think about the arguments.
So here's what we've got so far (this is not yet the argument we're looking for, but a simple list of some of the assertions that are on the table -- including one that was on the table but that now has been taken off the table): Eros -- the desire we know best as sexual desire -- is the desire for the beautiful.- Eros -- the desire we know best as sexual desire -- is the desire to engender and beget upon the beautiful.
- Eros -- the desire we know best as sexual desire -- is the desire to have the good for oneself always.
- Eros -- the desire we know best as sexual desire -- is the desire for immortality.
I think the next thing for us to do is to look at the still larger context of these remarks of Diotima's -- the whole passage that runs from the allusion to Aristophanes speech (at the very beginning of 205e, i.e., the very top of page 101 in Great Dialogues of Plato) to the end of the passage quoted in two different translations just above (i.e., to the middle of 207a, the very top of page 102 in Great Dialogues of Plato). Here the whole thing is in the translation you're working with, the Fowler translation:
quote:
[205e] “‘And certainly there runs a story,’ she continued, ‘that all who go seeking their other half are in love; though by my account love is neither for half nor for whole, unless, of course, my dear sir, this happens to be something good. For men are prepared to have their own feet and hands cut off if they feel these belongings to be harmful. The fact is, I suppose, that each person does not cherish his belongings except where a man calls the good his own property and the bad another's; [206a] since what men love is simply and solely the good. Or is your view otherwise?’
“‘Faith, no,’ I said.
“‘Then we may state unreservedly that men love the good?’
“‘Yes,’ I said.
“‘Well now, must we not extend it to this, that they love the good to be theirs?’
“‘We must.’
“‘And do they love it to be not merely theirs but theirs always?’
“‘Include that also.’
“‘Briefly then,’ said she, ‘love loves the good to be one's own for ever.’
“‘That is the very truth,’ I said. [206b] “‘Now if love is always for this,’ she proceeded, ‘what is the method of those who pursue it, and what is the behavior whose eagerness and straining are to be termed love? What actually is this effort? Can you tell me?’
“‘Ah, Diotima,’ I said; ‘in that case I should hardly be admiring you and your wisdom, and sitting at your feet to be enlightened on just these questions.’
“‘Well, I will tell you,’ said she; ‘it is begetting on a beautiful thing by means of both the body and the soul.’
“‘It wants some divination to make out what you mean,’ I said; ‘I do not understand.’ [206c] “‘Let me put it more clearly,’ she said. ‘All men are pregnant, Socrates, both in body and in soul: on reaching a certain age our nature yearns to beget. This it cannot do upon an ugly person, but only on the beautiful: the conjunction of man and woman is a begetting for both.* It is a divine affair, this engendering and bringing to birth, an immortal element in the creature that is mortal; and it cannot occur in the discordant. [206d] The ugly is discordant with whatever is divine, whereas the beautiful is accordant. Thus Beauty presides over birth as Fate and Lady of Travail; and hence it is that when the pregnant approaches the beautiful it becomes not only gracious but so exhilarate, that it flows over with begetting and bringing forth; though when it meets the ugly it coils itself close in a sullen dismay: rebuffed and repressed, it brings not forth, but goes in labor with the burden of its young. Therefore when a person is big and teeming-ripe [206e] he feels himself in a sore flutter for the beautiful, because its possessor can relieve him of his heavy pangs. For you are wrong, Socrates, in supposing that love is of the beautiful.’
“‘What then is it?’
“‘It is of engendering and begetting upon the beautiful.’
“‘Be it so,’ I said.
“‘To be sure it is,’ she went on; ‘and how of engendering? Because this is something ever-existent and immortal in our mortal life. [207a] From what has been admitted, we needs must yearn for immortality no less than for good, since love loves good to be one's own for ever. And hence it necessarily follows that love is of immortality.’” (from the Harold N. Fowler translation, available online at the Perseus Project)
Now the next question is: Are there any more claims made here that we need to add to our list of assertions? And the next question after that is this: How, exactly, is the argument of which Diotima speaks here supposed to go? Which of the statements in our list (or in an expanded list, if the list needs to be expanded further) are premises? Which is the conclusion? And finally, what's the significance of having arrived at this conclusion?
_____________
*This clause -- "the conjunction of man and woman is a begetting for both" -- has been added here by Fowler. It's not a translation of anything that's in the Greek text. He's added it, he explains in a footnote, because he thinks: "The argument requires the application of “begetting” and other such terms indifferently to either sex." Indeed, the argument does require this, but it doesn't require that we apply the word "begetting" in this context to both sexes. In fact it seems to me, and I've argued for this position here in the discussion forum (in a message posted at 10:44 a.m. on July 26, third page of the thread for Week 10), that in this context, the term applies only to the lover (here the man) and not to the lover's beloved (here the woman), and that we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the picture of sexual reproduction that we have here is that it's always an act of fathering -- a picture massively different from our own, but one that's plainly implicit in the text. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Aug 08 2007 : 11:21:09 AM
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OK, Jessica. Since you're obviously not in a position to reply right away, I'm going to go on to your next pair of questions (the next two questions you asked in your original post) and answer those. They're easy to answer, unlike your basic question about just how Diotima defines love, and so by answering them, I hope to be able to clear the decks to concentrate on the questions I've posed in my previous long post. Your next two questions were these:
quote:
Is there such thing as a "bad" love in Diotima's eyes? Has she ever mentioned anything like that?
The answers are: "No," and "Yes, at 202b 97." Diotima's view is that love -- eros -- is always in the great in-between, between being beautiful and being ugly, between being good and being bad. This means that love is never good, bad, beautiful, or ugly. I've discussed this at some length in Lecture Five, pp. 2-3. The next five sections, which take you almost to the bottom of p. 5, are all also relevant to this point.
OK. Back to my big, long post and the questions it contains. The last time I posted something having approximately this level of complexity during the course of this conversation, you responded by saying "Well! That is a lot to take in!" and of course you're right. It is a lot to take in. So take your time and take it all in. Then let me know what you think. |
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Kerrie Schafer
Apprentice
22 Posts |
Posted - Aug 09 2007 : 12:11:34 AM
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(THIS POST NOT PART OF THE CONVERSATION WITH PLATO AND SOKRATES)
After I finished reading the Symposium and Lecture Seven, I began to think about all the events that occured and the order in which they occurred. Taking into consideration the timing of Alcibiades' entry into the conversation, I am thinking that the love that Alcibiades and Socrates have for one another could contribute to the meaning of Eros and what Diotima has shared about Eros. It just seems too ironic [do you mean: too good to be true? too much of a coincidence to be anything that really could have happened? -TT] that after all this discussion about love during the whole story, Alcibiades comes walking into the party just when he does with love for Socrates, and with Socrates showing him some love back. After those two have said there bit about each other, Tom, you say:
quote:
WE ARE LEFT, THEN, WITH THIS IMAGE OF THAT MAN—the utterly ordinary and yet utterly extraordinary Sokrates: nothing special on the outside at all, astonishing on the inside, ready at every moment for the next conversation—right up to the time of his death.
Which is obviously true. So therefore, I am not sure if the connection I am making is a valid one. In general, I am trying to put the ending events together with the beginning events. Is the ending just a continuation of the conversation in the beginning? Is the timing of Alcibiades' arrival purposeful or random?
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
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Tara Adler
Apprentice
24 Posts |
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Week 12: That Man
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