Plato_Lecture1
I.
Thinking, Making,
Doing
A preliminary Observation:
To think
(large use): To use concepts, to use conceptual terms in order to articulate –
verbally or mentally - a discourse that elucidates an issue, tries to find out
something, or solve a problem, through thinking. Paradigmatic figure: the
philosopher.
Traditional philosophical
thinking: very comprehensive, abstract and concerned with ‘deep’ issues like
‘the meaning and nature of life;’ ‘what kinds of things there are’ and whether
those kinds exhibit an order (ontology); how we ought to live (ethics), and –
of course: love in our text.
To make: The
action of bringing about a work by using material as means. Main features:
Either let a purpose or end be given; then find the means to realize it and set
yourself to work in order to realize it. (Paradigmatic figure: craftsman,
engineer) Or: to have an understanding according to which something can be
brought about. Then set out to bring it about, whether or not the result serves
a purpose. (Paradigmatic figure: the scientist)
To do: to
perform an action as realizing a value or a virtue. Cognitively: to know the
motives, reasons, consequences of one’s actions. Normatively: to evaluate and
control one’s actions. Paradigmatic figures: the statesman, the saint, life
lived as ‘examined life,’ the democrat (ideal!).
Are the three attitudes
alternatives? Most activities involve all three. All three need to combine for
something to be carried out in the best possible way. But the three elements
have different weights in different kinds of social activities. We criticize an
artist for merely being a good craftsman, or an engineer or scientist for not
caring for the uses made of his work, and a thinker for not considering
conditions under which his proposals can be realized, or of not being
dispassionate enough and thinking with an ideological bias or trying to justify
unquestioned interests.
The philosopher’s voice: “Thought by itself moves nothing, but
only thought directed at an end, and dealing with action. . . .
He who makes something always
has some further end in view: the act of making is not an end in itself, it is only means and belongs to something else. Whereas a thing done is
an end in itself.” (
Highly
problematic distinction and definition of concepts ‘thinking,’ ‘making,’
‘doing.’
II. My Project in this
Course:
Show two samples of
philosophical thinking, going back to its founding fathers. Philosophy aspires
at being the representative of thinking in academia. Socrates – the one who did
not write – was Plato’s teacher; Plato was Aristotle’s teacher.
Two, or even three very different philosophical personae:
Socrates, the one of common origin who questions and argues. Plato,
the aristocrat who uses Socrates’ method to gain insight into eternal truths
and the good and orient his fellow citizens towards the right kind of life.
Aristotle, son of a doctor in the province, who wants to gain the most
comprehensive picture of nature, life, man and wants to guide us towards the
best possible realization of ourselves. Plato, the artistic
temperament. Aristotle, the scientific temperament.
III. The Symposium:
1. General:
“to
gather to drink together.” Plato makes it into a gathering for presentations
and discussions.
Choosing to
have “speeches in praise of ‘Eros’
lets the speeches be of the rhetorical genre of the encomium, i.e. of a speech meant to praise, normally a person. Does praise get in the way of truth? (fastforward to Agathon and Socrates’ questioning of
Agathon).
Philosophizing is here
performed in the form of drama: enacted on a scene, be it as exchange of
dialogue, be it as soliloquy of speech. The frame is not exploratory, but
laudatory. In addition, the participants compete for ‘best laudatory speech.’
Is that doing ‘thinking?’ Can one think ‘competitively?’ What is the
significance of presenting thinking in this form?
7 Speeches: Phaedrus,
Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima, Alcibiades. Opened,
interrupted, joined by dialogues: Apollodurus and friend .
The whole reported by Apollodurus who relates to his friend what he has been
told by a certain Aristodemus (173B.2), who was present but did not participate
in the debate. Both narrators pop up in the text from time to time to remind us
that we are reading something that is narrated, and to tell us anecdotal things
like Aristophanes’ hiccup. 1001 Nights!
Function of framing?
Speeches and dialogues
present very different ideas of love, or love in many different manifestations.
Are they ordered? Is there a thread? Sometimes the later ones offer
alternatives or supplements to the earlier one. Also some
criticism in the backward direction. Progress? Collection of internally unrelated attitudes towards love?
Obviously a
line of ascendance, at least towards Diotima’s speech. But, what does her speech do to the preceding ones?
How are the preceding speeches and exchanges related? What does it mean that
Alcibiades comes after her, telling his ‘platonic’ love story with Socrates,
and, in doing so, enacting it?
2. Speeches:
Phaedrus
presents love in the embellishing light of greatness, nobility, and as a device
that confers virtues. His picture of love is the idealized love in a society of
heroic values. An army made of lovers would be more courageous than other
armies (178E.4). Lovers are prepared to die for each other. Love guides lover
and beloved in giving them a sense of shame and pride. With those senses one
“acts well” (178D.2). His examples bare this out (Achilles, Alcestis). But also
the justification he offers to ground the greatness and dignity of ‘Eros’ He is the “first god designed” by
Earth. The most ancient is also the highest and most dignified.
Phaedrus, the beautiful young
man with whom Agathon is in love (and Socrates elsewhere), tells us what he
thinks one ought to say. He uses the scheme of the rhetorical genre ‘encomium.’
Also tries to be, as it were, ‘politically correct.’ Shows
that he has learned his lesson. But his picture is entirely normative,
and does not find much support in the facts. In addition, is the heroic ideal
really the best thing one can say about what or how love ought to be? Most of
the other speakers will carry the normative aspect elsewhere.
Phaedrus praise is therefore
partial, and partly off the mark. Write it off? He hits a truth. And he
articulates a possible manifestation of love.
Pausanias
exploits the weaknesses of Phaedrus’ speech. He also articulates a normative
ideal, some of it more what he would like it to be than what others
think. His strategy is to distinguish low and high love: Heavenly and Common
Aphrodite. The interesting core of his position is how he attributes aspects
and manifestations of love to the two sides.
Common Aphrodite
|
Heavenly Aphrodite
|
|
|
|
|
Of body |
Of soul |
|
Main object: intercourse,
physical intimacy |
Abstain from intimacy |
|
|
|
|
Each keeps his own and watches over his own |
Share everything |
|
Short-lived |
Stay together one’s whole
life |
|
|
|
|
For object: Yield quickly |
Resist, test the interest
of suitor |
|
To seduce or let oneself be
seduced by wealth or power |
To be motivated by genuine
affection |
|
Under conditions of ‘common
love’ it is shameful to be deceived |
If conditions of ‘heavenly
love’ are fulfilled, it is not shameful to be deceived |
Observations and problems:
Pausanias ideal is a relation
between an older man and an adolescent approaching adulthood that is not lived
as passion and physical intimacy, by someone who imposes restraint on himself
as concerns intimacy, preferably in
Women are not even considered
as lovers, only as objects of love. Law forbidding affairs
with young boys.
The most fascinating aspect
of Pausanias is the fact that he carves out a special normative ethics for his
preferred relation. Pausanias calls it “freedom.” Among the rules for what is
right and honorable in a homo-erotic relation:
Publicly declare your
interest is honorable.
Conquest (of what kind?) is
noble.
Attempt at conquest justifies
actions otherwise dishonorable such as servility and public self-humiliation
directed at the beloved.
Does love require and justify
a code of its own?
Pausanias is not very
explicit about what it is to give oneself to another man (183D.7). Would it not
mean that, for a noble man, it is right to engage in intimacy, but for someone
who is not noble that is not the case? I sense a self-licensing effort, hidden
behind the apparent ‘high’ moral stance.