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Love and Beauty in Plato's Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

F. C. White
F. C. White
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania, Box 252C, G.P.O., Hobart, Tasmania, Australia 7001
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Abstract

It is a widely held view that according to the Symposium the ultimate or ‘primary’ object of love is the Form of Beauty. It is almost as widely held that the Form of Beauty is identical with that of the Good. In this paper I argue that both of these views are mistaken. In a first section I present a detailed analysis of Diotima's doctrine, emphasizing features of it which I judge to be often overlooked. In subsequent sections I examine the arguments for and against the claim that Beauty is the primary object of love, and I then do the same for the assertion that the Form of Beauty is identical with that of the Good.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 109 , November 1989 , pp. 149 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1989

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References

1 In this paper I make no attempt to draw distinctions between primary and ultimate objects. I take both to be those which, if forced to a choice, we prefer to others.

2 For scholars who hold this view, see Section II below, and footnote 7.

3 Instances of this view may be found in Brentlinger, J. (ed.), The Symposium of Plato (Amherst 1970) 22 ff.Google Scholar; Bury, R. G., The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge 1932) xlivGoogle Scholar; Cornford, F. M., ‘The doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposium’, The unwritten philosophy and other essays, ed. Guthrie, W. K. C. (Cambridge 1950) 72Google Scholar; Findlay, J. N., Plato, The written and unwritten doctrines (London 1974) 150Google Scholar; Grube, G. M. A., Plato's thought (London 1935) 105Google Scholar; Guthrie, W.K. C., A history of Greek philosophy iv (Cambridge 1975) 392Google Scholar; Hamilton, W., The Symposium (Harmondsworth 1951) 20 ff.Google Scholar; Macintyre, A., A short history of ethics (London 1967) 53Google Scholar; Raven, J. E., Plato's thought in the making (Cambridge 1965) 107Google Scholar; Taylor, A. E., Plato, the man and his work3 (London 1929) 231Google Scholar.

4 While to the best of my knowledge my arguments are not to be found elsewhere, my conclusions—though reached independently—coincide with some of those drawn by Neumann, H.AJPh lxxxvi (1965) 33–59Google Scholar and Santas, G. in The Greeks and the good life, ed. Depew, D. (Fullerton, California 1980) 33–68Google Scholar.

5 I write ‘Love’ with a capital ‘L’ while analysing Diotima's speech. After that I write ‘love’, except in those cases where the person of Eros is clearly referred to.

6 That Diotima has the purpose of Love in mind is clear from what she says at 205a1–3.

7 For descriptions of this kind see: Bury (n. 3) xliv, xlix; Cornford (n. 3) 72; Grote, G.Plato and the other companions of Sokrates iii (London 1985) 18Google Scholar; Grube (n. 3) 105, 116; Hamilton (n. 3) 23 ff.; Irwin, T.Plato's moral theory (Oxford 1977) 165Google Scholar; Maclntyre (n. 3) 52; Morgan, D. N.Love: Plato, the Bible and Freud (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1964) 36Google Scholar; Raven (n. 3) 107 ff; Teloh, H.The development of Plato's Metaphysics (University Park and London, 1981) 96Google Scholar.

8 In fact, in the first of these cases (201e) Socrates is explicitly giving his own view, and in the second (204d) Diotima qualifies her remark with ‘ὡς σύ φῇς’. I must confess that what in this section I am doing is attempting to put forward the reasons which I think lie behind the claim that Beauty is the primary object of love. Unfortunately, while this latter claim is frequently asserted as a conclusion, the arguments supporting it are not so well articulated. I hope that I do not appear to be accusing those with whom I disagree of advancing silly arguments.

9 Se Dover, K. J., Plato, Symposium (Cambridge 1980)Google Scholar note to 204d3.

10 On the Parmenidean influence see Solmsen, F.AJPh xcii (1971) 62–70Google Scholar; Teloh (n. 7) 89 ff.

11 On this supposed parallel see for example: Cornford (n. 3) 75–7; Guthrie (n. 3) 392; Hamilton (n. 3) 21, 24; Raven (n. 3) 107 ff.; Taylor (n. 3) 230 f.

12 On this point see, for example: Bury (n. 3) xlvii seqq.; Gould, T.Platonic love (London 1963) 99Google Scholar; Grote (n. 7) 10 ff.; Hamilton (n. 3) 21; Raven (n. 3) 109; Vlastos, G.Platonic studies (Princeton 1973) 19Google Scholar.

13 Several writers hold very strongly that mystical teachings are at stake. See, for example: Bury (n. 3) xlviii–1; Hamilton (n. 3) 211 ff.; Raven (n. 3) 116; Taylor (n. 3) esp. 231 f.

14 See, for example: Markus, R. A., in Plato ii ed. Vlastos, G. (New York 1970) 137Google Scholar, and Dover (n. 9) comment on 203d4. For more general views on this point see: Bury (n. 3), note on 201c; Guthrie (n. 3) 247, nn. 1, 2; Taylor (n. 3) 231.

15 Diotima is making more than the limited claim that love is not of the particular beautiful objects referred to in the immediate context—namely those objects in which procreation and generation are to take place. She is explicitly rejecting Socrates' general belief that love is of the beautiful: ὡς σύ οἴει, she says, referring to such claims as those made at 20Ie5 and 204d3.

16 Diotima spends a lot of time saying what happiness is, and it seems pretty certain that her intention in the long passage from 204e to 206a is to define it, doing so m terms of ‘good’ (and ending up with: ἔστίν ἄρα συλλήβδην … ὁ ἔρως τοῦ τό ἀγαθόν αὑτᾦ εναι άεί, 206a). Her remark that the happy are those in possession of the good and the beautiful comes (at 202c) before she gets down to her careful analysis, and in any event is not inconsistent with her definition, For if ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ are co-extensive, as they seem to be in Plato's mind, it follows that the happy are those who possess both the good and the beautiful, but nothing follows making ‘beautiful’ part of the definition of happiness.

17 Dover (n. 9) seems to imply this in his comment on 204d3

18 See Bury (n. 3) note on 201c.

19 On this see, for example: Crombie, I. M., An examination of Plato's doctrines i (London 1962) 204–6Google Scholar; Field, G. C., Plato and his contemporaries3 (London 1967) 102 ffGoogle Scholar.

It is worth noting here that while for Plato the properties of being good and being beautiful are not identical, nor consequently the expressions ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ in all contexts substitutable, it does not follow that the two properties are not co-extensive. To illustrate the point with a further example, Plato in Republic vi says that no one will have an adequate grasp of the just and the beautiful before he knows in what way they are good (ὅπῃ ποτέ ἀγαθά ἐστιν, 506a)—aclaim which makes sense only on the supposition that the properties of being good and beautiful are different. But their being different does not entail that there exist beautiful objects which are not good, or good objects which are not beautiful.

20 If my main thesis is correct, the Symposium cannot be thought to furnish the following moral theory (cf. Irwin [n. 7] 164 ff.). The primary object of love is Beauty, and the lover having attained to the vision of this is henceforth able to see why and how those lesser embodiments in men, laws, institutions and the like are beautiful. Further he will not cease to love those lower manifestations of Beauty; on the contrary, he will be more anxious than ever to bring them to birth, having now the full backing of reason for creating virtue in man and in their institutions. This theory cannot be found in the Symposium, because Beauty is not the primary object of love there. Moreover, given Diotima's views, there is no evident reason why a lover in communion with Beauty should want to create imperfect manifestations of it: on the contrary, when the lover comes to appreciate the contrast between the mortal and the divine, he discerns at once that the former is but trash.

21 I am most grateful for comments from the editor and referees of this journal.