Plato_Lecture2
Plato Lecture # 2
After the conventional praise
of ‘Eros’ by Phaedrus, and the self-serving propaganda speech of
Pausanias (homosexuality and Athens) – both predominantly normative, partial,
ideologically and personally biased - we get into different water with the
speeches of Eryximachus and Aristophanes. They offer
different models of love, expressed in two different media: discourse and myth.
Praise (encomium) is not absent but recedes into the background.
Eryximachus makes a particular effort to divert the waters of
love to his craft: medicine.
He is the first to present
love as a dynamic principle: “it directs everything that occurs” (186B.3). The
whole world is supposed to be ‘love’s labor.’ In fact Eryximachus
does little to justify his sweeping thesis, in spite of the fact that he runs
it through several topics: the body and, somewhat cursorily, through music, the
seasons, the movements of the stars, religion, and the
good.
His leading idea: in all of
these domains, in short: everywhere, opposites underlie phenomena he addresses.
Now those phenomena are in good order only when the opposites are brought into
harmony. What counts as harmony is determined by the type of phenomenon: it is
of one kind for the body (health), of a different kind for music (right rhythm
and harmony), and still different for the seasons (temperate climate) or for
the relations between humans and their gods (piety).
When the opposites are not
brought into harmony the phenomena will be in disorder. Love is the regulatory
principle, in fact a deity, that brings about order and
disorder in the phenomena. Good order is the doing of the good kind of love;
disorder is the doing of the bad kind of love. There are thus two species of
love: ‘bad-love’ and ‘good-love.’ One is regulating. The other is deregulating.
Note that the model consists
of two elements: on the one hand, there are the opposites. On the other hand
there is love that is a dynamic principle acting on opposites.
Good love binds the opposites into a well-ordered organization; bad love causes
imbalance and leads to badly ordered, perturbed organization.
Problems:
Eryximachus’
model of love loses the specificity of love, paying for the ubiquity
of Eryximach’ean ‘love’ the price
of saying very little about what love is for us.
Is love for us a general binding and
unbinding principle? What does that mean?
Where is beauty? Where is erotic
pleasure?
Why
is an additional principle like love necessary to explain ‘good’ and ‘bad’
order?
What
does it mean to be opposites?
Opposites: Normally we’d say: the organization, or more
generally the thing whose order is at stake, determines oppositeness: an excess
of one component damages its well functioning. When the same elements meet in
nature, and not in a body, they do not necessarily oppose each other. Is it not
more natural to think of pieces fitting together or not falling into a pattern
(organs) than to say that every form of organizedness
is an equilibrium of opposites brought about by love?
Love
as regulator: Who or what are the subjects and bearers of this love? Can the
opposites themselves be those bearers? Do they need, as it were, to fall in
love with each other, to reach harmony and equilibrium, and thus to overcome
their oppositeness? Why not think of a tyrannical principle that forces them
into harmony (Hobbes!), rather than of love. Is Eryximachus’
‘love’ a force that constrains something that
would roam freely were it not for being bound?
Eryximachus
adopts, analogizing, Pausanias’ moral distinction between the two kinds of
love. ‘Good’ love works towards concord between opposites, ‘bad’ love towards
discord. Love, as a consequence is presented as a regulating principle between
antagonistic principles (forces, drives). It can work in a harmonizing way, but
also in a way towards or even into discord. Why is ‘bad love’ the deregulating
factor? Why not simply hatred or quarrel, particularly as the
elements that are ‘out of order’ are said to be in opposition. If the
harmonizing power – love – falls away, do the opposites simply act out their
opposition? Eryximachus seems to work with two
concepts of the elements in opposition. According to one of them, the elements
are opposed and love is the external power that appeases them. According to the
other, the elements have a natural tendency to fall into harmony. But then ‘bad
love’ comes along and counteracts this natural tendency.
In
sum: the model of basic oppositions brought into harmony by something external
to the oppositions, and the idea that ‘bad love’ is a principle of discord in
the cosmos are not coherently developed by Eryximachus.
It
is also a bad idea of love because it leaves out the ideas of desire,
attachment, and the role of beauty. We do not recognize our love in Eryximachus’ ‘love.’ Ultimately, he simply introduces a new
concept of love, a concept that does not cover the phenomena we experience as
love.
Aristophanes:
Basic
ideas: Use of myth/story and irony as media. Articulates
fundamentals of the ‘Erotic’ in a tongue-in-cheek way. Central
model: erotic love is desire for a unity that is never achieved, but
nevertheless brings about unions of different kinds (191D). Introduces
the concept of desire.
Speech_of_Aristophanes (.mov file)
(also: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/speech-of-aristophanes-plato-the-symposium-189d-191d/1686803497)
The
Myth is the principal means of articulation. Ideas need to be found by
interpreting a story. Our present being and present dispositions shaped by
‘love’ are supposed to have come about in the following way:
-
First phase: the three kinds of gendered beings and their modalities: purely
male, purely female, mixed male and female. Each being has 4 arms, four legs
and two faces. Genitals are also double. Each of the different kinds is
offspring from a planet: male from sun, female from earth, mixed from moon.
(Being round because one’s forebears are round pokes fun at analogizing
argument. But, interestingly, there may be an allusion to the idea that the
earth is also round!) Move like balls. (No intercourse and sexual reproduction
in phase 1. Arch-beings are gestated in the earth like cicadas.
Change
initiated by hubris of humans intending to attack the gods. Different
scenarios. Zeus forms plan to cut them in two, and to threaten them with
further division.
-
First
modification and second phase: Halving of humans. Head turned around. Skin
drawn over wound and refashioning of body. Upright gait. Decisive consequence
for the origin of love: longing for lost unity and wholeness (191A.6).
But that longing is not yet erotic longing, for it is as yet unrelated to
sexual union, still unproductive and un-reproductive. Genitals still at the
side away from the faces.
Further
changed are triggered by unproductive effort to grow together again. Humans
would die out. Zeus intervenes a second time. Then
-
Second
modification and third phase: Sexual organs are moved to front and put into
present places. Change of reproductive mode. Now “at the interior” and
requiring sexual union of male and female genitals, instead of ‘out of the
earth.’ Acting from a desire for wholeness and acting towards reproduction are
amalgamated into one act. They are real merely in the relation between male and
female, originally the mixed ‘whole’ being. Note the ironical distinction of
homoerotic and hetero-erotic lovemaking, also letting the two modes appear as
purely functional and biological differences without a difference in value
(against Pausanias). First recognition of lesbian orientation, also as
equal.
Ideas
about love expressed in the ‘genealogical’ mode of Aristophanes’ myth:
Different
gender orientations (homo-/hetero-) are equal. Each fulfills specific social
functions. For example: homosexuality generates politicians and “lovers of
love.” (Opposes preference for male homosexuality), heterosexuality generates offspring.
The
physical side of love is emphasized and recognized as worthy. ‘Eros’ is, among
other things, pleasure in sexual union, both physical and mental.
(Opposition to soul-love as better part of love in
preceding speeches).
‘Explanation’
and recognition of becoming stricken by love: we happen upon our lost other
half. Also explanation of ‘this is the one and only …’ (193C.5)
(Accounts
of what happens in lovers were so far missing or pointed to inadequate
motives).
Explanation of desire for fusion. Hypothesis that, if we could we’d
want to “melt together” as account of the deep bond between lovers. (Is
this tongue-in-cheek?).
In
my mind 2 major achievements in Aristophanes, (deeper in insight than Diotima’s position?): (1) desire in love is not originally
erotic. Its goal is restitution and return to lost completeness. Desire is
never satisfied in the act of sexual union; (2) erotic pleasure and its function in reproduction are add-ons. Explanation for
joy in pure desire even without satisfaction of erotic component, and essential
lack of fulfillment as features of love (192D.1)
Finally, the conclusion that praises love (193 C and
193 D). I read it as an ironical
statement. Concept of irony.
Medium:
the story is of course non-sense as historical account. But Aristophanes’
unlikely story carries more and better truths than the more discursive
speeches. It would be particularly interesting to explore in greater depth how
the theses are hung into the narrative, or how the narrative shows the theses.
Can
Aristophanes’ theses be accounted for when the absurd assumptions of the tale
are dropped? How would one go about doing that? Aristophanes’ myth catches some
of the major tensions of love, but still over-rationalizes them by offering a
mythical account. Does it make sense to think that erotic encounters and sexual
union express a desire for fusion? Is the ‘coup-de-foudre’
– ‘love at first sight’ – adequately understood as relying on memory, and not
just a sudden and unexplainable event? (Same for gender
orientation).
Comparing Eryximachus
and Aristophanes we see two models of love, that use
two very different basic ideas for their model. But also striking: Plato sets
up Eryximachus, the scientist as a confused and
confusing theoretician, and Aristophanes, the artist and playwright, as someone
whose wild phantasm is informed by a better understanding of love. Some bias!
Eryximachus, the scientist and craftsman, is a maker, and
his model will reflect and be constrained by the purpose of making. That end is
the understanding of illness and the orientation of healing. Bending love into
this interest distorts love. The playwright is a doer and, indirectly,
implicitly, unconsciously, a thinker. As a doer, the playwright is
concerned with the motives, reasons, consequences of people’s actions, but also
with the worthiness of and control over actions.
Another
playwright, but of tragedies. Also a follower of the sophists. Also
supposed to be the most beautiful man in the group.
Agathon’s main claim: I am praising the God ‘Eros’ by, before
all, saying what he is and, secondarily, saying what he gives us. Then Agathon throws around a huge number of value terms of
praise: ‘Eros’ is the happiest, the most beautiful, the
best. Young (meant as praise), delicate, dwells in the softest, possesses fluid
supple shape, good looks, exquisite coloring of skin, settles where the
atmosphere is flowery and fragrant.
Moral character, probably
meant to exhibit ‘Eros’’ gifts: ‘Eros’ does not suffer or inflict injustice,
promotes moderation, the most brave, seems to produce the best of everything,
(poets, artisans, animals, …). Agathon
ends with a list of everything that counts as good and claims that this is the
doing of ‘Eros.’
Agathon’s success is palpable in the applause. Agathon spoke well. But did he praise the God? In one sense
he did: He mentions good things, and attributes them to ‘Eros.’ Agathon praises merely in the sense of saying something
good about ‘Eros.’
In his questioning of Agathon, Socrates requests more: “I thought you should
tell the truth about whatever you praise” (198D.4). Question: Why should
adequate praise depend on truth of things said in praise?
Truthfulness? Rather: Agathon and
Socrates operate with two different ideas about praise.
Idea # 1 (Agathon):
To adequately praise is to successfully praise. To praise successfully is to
get the addressees of praise to think highly of the one who is the object of
praise. Background: either there is no such thing as truth – or: truth does not
matter for positive opinion about object. (the
Sophists).
Idea # 2 (Socrates): Praise
serves the purpose of making us rely on or want to emulate the being who is the
object of praise. We are justified in relying or emulating only if what the one
who is the object indeed has the qualities for which he is being praised.
Otherwise the praise is empty and even dangerous. We may be relying on someone
who ought not to be trusted. Or emulate someone and thereby emulating qualities
that are not praise- worthy.
In his questioning Socrates
brings into the open that the sophistic model practiced by Agathon
replaces praiseworthiness with persuasion. Agathon
has practiced empty praise. He just grabs worthy qualities and claims them for
‘Eros’ without in the least showing that ‘Eros’ does indeed have them. Note
that by the same token all of the preceding speeches – Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus and Aristophanes suffer from the same
shortcoming. They attribute to ‘Eros’ things ‘Eros’ does not have. Phaedrus and
Pausanias have worked with a normative idea of what ‘Eros’ should be, praising
‘Eros’ for that, but did not show that ‘Eros’ in fact was what they said he should
be. Love as we know it is not what Phaedrus and Pausanias say it should be.
Eryximachus and Aristophanes, the other two, have
worked with factual assumptions about love that are either assumption about
something else (Eryximachus) or are invented and
absurd (Aristophanes). (I think Aristophanes needs special discussion, because
he reveals truths through telling an untruth). In sum: Socrates implicitly
rejects all the preceding speeches for a special reason, and introduces a new
constraint on praise: Praise must be based on truths on the subject matter
supporting the praise. (This is not to say that the other speeches have said
nothing valuable about love).
Problem:
Socrates’ alleged ‘proof’
that ‘Eros’ is neither beautiful nor good. The proof turns on the fact that
love desires, and that a desire does not have what is desired. Conclusion:
“love needs beauty, and has not got beauty at all” (201B.4) This
apparently demonstrates that Agathon has ascribed to
‘Eros’ what ‘Eros’ is not and does not have.
Check Argument
PREMISES
|
|
|
love is love of something |
(a) to love is for someone
to love something (b) love is the relation of
someone loving something |
|
love desires what/whom it
loves |
(a) someone who loves
desires the something he loves (b) the relation of love
desires the something it loves |
|
to desire is to need what
one desires |
to desire is to need what
one desires |
|
to need something is not to
have it |
to need something is not to
have it |
|
love is love of beautiful
things |
(a) someone who loves
always loves something beautiful (b) the relation of love is
the relation of someone to something that is beautiful (b’)
the relation of love always loves something beautiful. |
|
|
|
CONCLUSIONS
|
|
|
● “love has got no
beauty” (201B.6) (understood as: love does
not qualify as beautiful) |
(a) someone who loves does
not have the beauty of the something he loves (b) the relation of love
does not have the beauty of the something it loves (b’’) Problem -? -the
relation of love has beauty/the relation of love does not have beauty? (understood
as: love does/does not qualify as beautiful). |
|
|
|
Two problems in argument:
(1) Equivocation! Where is
it? What are the consequences of the equivocation?
(2) Criterion for ‘being
beautiful. Under which conditions would the relation of love, or the desire of
the lover for the beauty of the beloved itself be beautiful? Does the lover
lack beauty because he needs the beauty of the beloved?
Socrates beats the sophist Agathon at his own game!