These reading questions were designed to assist you in following the arguments of Plato’s Symposium as you read the text. Your instructor may ask you to write down answers to some of them, or to come prepared to discuss some of them. They may also be used on the midterm and the final.
I.
General:
1. For each of the speeches and dialogues ask yourself, perhaps jotting down notes:
1 what does the speaker try to achieve
2 What reasons do the speakers offer in support of their goals?
3 Are there things said you disagree with? What are they? What is your opposing opinion?
2. What is the status of the speaker (age, profession, social status and rank, defender of ideology, gender, sexual orientation? Ask yourself how that status is reflected in things said and positions taken.
3. Note the personal relations between the participants (love, friendship, teacher-disciple, competitor, seducer-seduced). Again: Ask yourself how those relations get reflected in and contribute to the content of the speeches.
II.
Relating
to speeches and sections:
1. Introductory Dialogue:
Think about functions of the framing of the main part. What does a frame do in
a painting? Would the same apply here?
Why present the symposium (what does “symposium” mean?) from the two-fold
distance of remoteness on time and being transmitted from one to the other?
Determine the chain of transmissions: who told what to whom? Who is the “he”
who first told Apollodorus (174A.2)? In whose voice is the subsequent
speech ultimately told to the reader? Is the occasion of the walk to the city
also the situation in which the text is communicated to us?
What might be the significance of the fact that Apollodorus stylizes himself as
a ‘little Socrates?’
Why does Plato invite Aristodemus along?
What exactly are the purposes of the speaking activity the participants agree upon
(177A.8-177D.6)?
What is an “encomium” (214C.1)?
2.Phaedrus:
Phaedrus praises the god of love.
What does Phaedrus invoke as evidence for the Greatness of eros?
What is the ideal love as it appears through Phaedrus’ examples?
3.Pausanias:
What are the main goals and agendas of his speech? Does he speak to what love is?
Why does he split ‘love’ into two different origins?
How ought one to love, according to Pausanias?
What is a lover allowed to do in spite of the fact that the same comportment would
not be honorable or right outside of love?
Eryximachus:
What is Eryximachus out to show about the role of love in the art of medicine?
What is his basic model of the body and its functioning?
How does he back up his ideas?
Do you discover elements of love in your understanding that are missing from
Eryximachus’ account?
Aristophanes:
What is Aristophanes’ leading idea about love and its desires?
Try to figure out the ‘whole’ being, before division, perhaps by drawing it.
Where does his leading idea place sexual/erotic pleasure and reproduction?
At which point does sexual/erotic pleasure and reproduction enter into
Aristophanes’ picture?
Are there reasons to think that his myth articulates truths about love?
(What are those reasons? What are those truths?)
Try to make clear for yourself the different phases of his myth/story.
Does Aristophanes value male homosexuality as higher than heterosexuality
and female homosexuality? (Some of the other speeches do that.)
What are Aristophanes’ ideas about the bond between lovers?
Agathon:
Again: Agathon’s main ideas?
How does Agathon address ‘Eros’ and what does he ascribe to him?
Make a list of the qualities Agathon claims love possesses.
Do you find that ‘Eros’ is what Agathon says he is?
Reasons for thinking that Agathon hits it right – reasons for not being convinced?
What is the doubt Socrates expresses concerning Agathon’s speech?
Socrates
Questions Agathon:
Note the steps in Socrates argument: How does Socrates show that love is
neither beautiful nor good? (201E.8) Do you find problems in the argument?
What are they?
If Socrates is right, what does that mean for Agathon’s praise of love?
Diotima Questions Socrates:
Note Diotima’s reasons in favor of her thesis that Eros/Love is not a God.
Note Diotima’s ideas of what it is to be a ‘spirit’ – love is one of them.
Diotima’s Speech:
Think of some of the several goals of Diotima’s speech might have: Vis-à-vis
the other speeches; vis-à-vis Socrates’ prejudices and ignorance; vis-à-vis
the right conception and model of love; vis-à-vis how love ought to be practiced;
vis-à-vis the idea of beauty (end).
What does Diotima communicate through her myth of the birth of Eros?
What is it to be ‘in-between’ (204B.6)?
Always acccording to Diotima: what is the point of loving beautiful things (204D.4)?
Her widest definition of love (205D.2)?
Look for examples that illustrate that the thing pursued through love is “to give birth to beautiful things” (206B.9).
She also claims that immortality is a further purpose and cause accounting for
activities driven by love. What does the search for immortality explain?
Note the value hierarchy of fields, domains, objects lovingly pursued. Try to
make a ranked list. Why are some pursuits more worthy than others?
The ultimate goal of loving (211A ff.) – what is it ? Note some of its characters.
Try to determine the organization of Diotima’s speech. (Some divisions are
pretty clearly marked. I have divided her speech into ca. 7 greater sections.).
For each of the subdivisions: What has Diotima been trying to show?
Alcibiades Entrance and Speech:
Why might Alcibiades be saying all those outrageous things against Socrates (213D & 215B.10), declaring at the same time that he – Alcibiades – is in love with Socrates?
Who is Silenius (215B), and what does Alcibiades say about Socrates when he compares
him first to Siloenius, then to Marsyas (215B.6). Look these names up.
Which two main things did Socrates do to Alcibiades (215E.8 & 218A.4; 219C.6)?
What is the point of Socrates’ refusal to give in to Alcibiades’ seduction?