Eros, the Socratic Spirit: Inside and Outside the Symposium (2024)

1. The Upward Path

Several of Plato’s dialogues begin with a journey. That is not strictly true of the Symposium, since here the dialogue starts1 with a conversation between Apollodorus and a group of friends which forms the frame within which Apollodorus tells his story, although we never recall that frame at the end.2 For most of the dialogue Apollodorus is the unobserved narrator. But where, we might ask, does the conversation take place? Where are Apollodorus and his friends when he tells the tale?

There is no indication at the start of the dialogue of where the conversation takes place. We come in in the middle; the others have clearly just asked Apollodorus about the famous drinking party that Socrates once attended, and the first thing we get is Apollodorus’ reply, ‘What you’re asking me about is something I seem to be hardly unpractised at.’3 In fact he had just had to go through the same story two days previously. However, we still do not know what the occasion of the present conversation is. Are Apollodorus and his companions walking together, as Apollodorus and Glaucon were on the last time he told the tale? Perhaps not, for Apollodorus dissociates himself from his listeners, who do not share his fanatical devotion to philosophy but are, he suggests, wealthy and materialistic men whose concerns he finds unproductive.4 As the tale progresses it becomes apparent that the pursuit of philosophy is a kind of journey along a road; but it seems plain that Apollodorus’ present listeners are not on that road as yet. Apollodorus had himself only recently found the route, when he became a follower of Socrates:

To follow Socrates is to take a journey on the road of philosophy, and Apollodorus had found that road and begun his journey on it less than three years ago.

It makes a difference, then, whether the listeners to Apollodorus’ tale are, like Apollodorus, travellers on a philosophical journey. Today’s listeners apparently are not. But Glaucon, to whom the tale was told before, did not lag so very far behind. Glaucon had called out from behind Apollodorus on the road up to the city,5 and Apollodorus had stopped and waited for him. Glaucon’s position behind Apollodorus on the road to the city matches his backward state with regard to knowledge of the truth; previously he had heard an account of the famous party that was so garbled as to be unintelligible; he had heard it from someone else, who had heard it from Phoenix the son of Philip.6 Apollodorus points out that Phoenix had originaly heard it from Aristodemus, the same Ari-stodemus who had been the source of Apollodorus’ own knowledge of the story. Hence the version Glaucon had heard before had been at third hand and far from clear.7 Glaucon is trying to get closer to the truth. By listening to Apollodorus he can get one step nearer to the original, since Apollodorus’ version is only at second hand, although Glaucon had been hoping that it would be a first-hand account. He had been under the impression that Apollodorus had himself been at the party and could narrate it from his own experience. Apollodorus can further Glaucon’s pursuit of the truth by taking him through the conversation.

Two features emerge from the discussion in these opening pages of the dialogue. Apollodorus points out how long ago the party in question took place. Glaucon had supposed that Apollodorus had been present, but that would be impossible, since it had been years ago when he and Glaucon were both still boys,8 and Agathon had won the prize for his first tragedy. By remarking so clearly on the time elapsed between the original party and the present time, Apollodorus also establishes a sequence of priority for the followers of Socrates. He emphasizes the fact that Aristodemus, who was already a devoted follower of Socrates when the party took place, has clocked up many more years of service than he has himself. Since it was Aristodemus who told the tale to Apollodorus we may suppose that he is still around, or at least was until recently.9 So Apollodorus is tagging along considerably behind Aristodemus as a follower of Socrates and a devotee of philosophy. He must have started his philosophical pilgrimage some ten or twenty years behind.

But there are others still further behind, among them Glaucon, who is the first to ask Apollodorus to narrate the tale. Apollodorus was leaving his home district of Phaleron to travel to the city of Athens when Glaucon hailed him from behind. The journey from his home to the city matches his departure from his old, non-philosophical lifestyle to the new Socratic life. We are made aware that Phaleron is his original home by the pompous greeting of his friend: ‘Hail, thou man of Phaleron, Apollodorus, wilt thou not wait?’10 and Apollodorus himself says that he was coming from his home. Why is he leaving his home to go to the city? The city of Athens is, of course, the characteristic haunt of Socrates, and as a convert to the Socratic way of life Apollodorus will make the journey from the port that was his home to the city that is Socrates’ home. The narrative concerning Socrates which Apollodorus proceeds to relate takes place almost entirely within the confines of the city.11

Other Platonic dialogues also start with travellers on the road from A to B. Most notable is the Republic, where Socrates and Glaucon are making a very similar journey from Athens’ other port, the Peiraeus, up to the city when they are waylaid from behind by Polemarchus and a whole group of others. But there, unlike in the Symposium, they do not go on together to the city, but persuade Socrates to stay behind with them in the port. Many have seen in this the correlate of the philosopher kings, forcibly detained in the lower world to govern the routine day-to-day life of the city, rather than spending their time in contemplation of the truth of perfect reality. In the port, the centre of commerce and trade, Socrates concerns himself with the practicalities of politics and social theory; up in the city he pursues the vision of truth and reality that the philosophers achieve when they make their way up out of the cave. Hence it is significant that the Symposium starts with a journey up to the city, and that its account of the love of truth and beauty takes place in Agathon’s house within the confines of the city of Athens.

Before Apollodorus became a follower of Socrates he had not known where he was heading, but now he is on his way up to the city where Socratic philosophy belongs. It is an uphill journey12 and the motif of ascent in this journey coincides with the motif of ascent in Diotima’s speech at the symposium itself. In that speech the philosophical lover makes progress towards a vision of true beauty, and that progress is spoken of as an upward journey. Diotima introduces the metaphor of travel at 210a:

A little later, as she describes the ultimate achievement, Diotima goes on (21oe):

Thus far it is clear that Diotima describes education in erotics as a journey, a progress from A to B. But is it an upward journey? The motif of ascent begins at 211b when Diotima sums up the progress of the lover towards the goal of perfect beauty:

The word used for ‘going up’ in this passage is basically the same as the one Apollodorus used to refer to the fact that he was going up from Phaleron to the city, when he began his tale.13 His ascent from ordinary life to Socratic philosophy, which matches his ascent from his coastal home-district to Athens, is also a step on the upward path of erotics in which he, as a follower of Socrates, is now serving as a guide.

2. Guides and Leaders

Apollodorus is ahead of Glaucon on the road to Athens, and in taking him on with him, and recounting the tale of the famous party, he acts as his guide for the journey to the city and as his guide in philosophy. But for both kinds of journey Apollodorus is not the only guide we meet in the dialogue.

Apollodorus’ story is based on Aristodemus’ memory of the occasion, and in that sense Aristodemus was Apollodorus’ guide. Aristodemus’ story starts with a journey; he tells how he met Socrates bathed and dressed for a party,14 and how Socrates persuaded him to come along to the party too. Thus Socrates is taking Aristodemus to the party, and becomes Aristodemus’ guide. At 174b2 Aristodemus submits to Socrates’ guidance by agreeing to do whatever Socrates tells him to do. Thus it appears that while Aristodemus is the authority to whom Apollodorus looks for guidance, Socrates is the guide to whom Aristodemus owes allegiance.

Now, however, an odd reversal takes place. Whereas Socrates had set out to take Aristodemus to the party, Aristodemus shortly finds himself ahead. Guide and follower have changed places, as Socrates lags behind and eventually comes to a standstill in someone’s porch. Aristodemus turns up at Agathon’s house first and alone. The point of this absurd episode is not merely to illustrate Socrates’ eccentric habits, although that aspect is also significant, as I hope to show. But it also marks out the fact that on this particular occasion Aristodemus is actually more Socratic than Socrates. Socrates, on this occasion, though never elsewhere, has bathed and dressed in his best clothes and party shoes. Aristodemus, by contrast, is not dressed or washed for a party since he had not expected to go to one, and, as always, he is barefoot.15 Aristodemus was a lover of Socrates, so Apollodorus tells us, and doubtless that explains why he adopts Socrates’ ascetic lifestyle; but Socrates on this occasion is professing to be a lover of Agathon,16 and hence is following Agathon in dress and lifestyle. This explains why Socrates appears in the suave and elegant image that Agathon will shortly ascribe to the god Eros in his speech at the party. Just for now Socrates is posing as a follower of that Eros, the Eros that is Agathon’s love. Once we come to Socrates’ own speech we shall discover that that image of love does not lead to the truth. The one that is a true guide in philosophy is a much more rugged image, and that is why Aristodemus, who on this occasion retains the rugged Socratic mould, temporarily overtakes the uncharacteristically refined Socrates on the road. Socrates is not dressed aright for making good progress on the path to truth.

Apollodorus takes Glaucon up to Athens, and Socrates takes Aristodemus to Agathon’s. Further guides turn up in other sections of the dialogue. Most memorable is perhaps the entrance of Alcibiades towards the end of the party, drunk and with his ivy wreaths so fallen over his eyes that he cannot really see, and certainly cannot see Socrates. The first words the assembled company hear from Alcibiades are the demand that he ‘be taken to Agathon’.17 He is led by the servants in his blind and wandering state to a place alongside Agathon. But we are left to wonder whether that was the right place for him to go. He had asked to be led there only because he was unaware of the presence of Socrates, who, it transpires, is the real object of his desire.

Alcibiades needed a guide to lead him to his beloved. The task of leading men to their proper objects of love is one of the roles assigned to the god Eros in virtually all the speeches reported by Aristodemus.18 Thus Phaedrus begins by suggesting that Love is the principle that ought to guide men in all their affairs;19 Pausanias suggests that the proper sort of Love turns men to the correct sort of objects;20 Aristophanes, after describing the human quest for one’s original ‘other half, assigns to Eros the role of guide, leading us to what is akin to ourselves;21 Agathon suggests that Eros guides his subjects to success in the arts22 and serves as the best pilot in all affairs and the best leader in life’s choral dance.23

Everyone, it seems, is looking to Eros as the guide towards achieving the objects of their desire and their highest aims in life. It is true that Socrates does not explicitly assign such a guiding role to Eros in his own speech. Nevertheless, Diotima criticizes Socrates for a mistake resembling that of Agathon, who had supposed that Eros was himself beautiful. Such a mistake, we are told,24 arises from misidentifying Eros as the object of love, rather than the lover. Diotima herself holds that Eros is one who seeks the beautiful, not one who is beautiful, and Socrates concludes his speech with the claim that Eros is our helper in achieving our desire:

Thus, although Socrates does not call Eros a ‘guide’ in so many words, plainly he does not dissent from the view of Agathon and the others that Eros is the guide who helps us in our search for the beautiful object we long for. In these circ*mstances it seems reasonable to take the allusions in Diotima’s speech to a guide in the ascent towards the true beauty to refer to Eros.

If Diotima means that Eros is our guide why does she not say so?

One is led, educated, escorted, or guided along the path up to beauty,27 but it is always left vague just who is doing the leading. The reason seems to be that the progress in love is progress in philosophy, and hence the guide will be not only an expert in love, but also a philosophy teacher. In this very dialogue we meet a number of such guides. For Socrates the guide is Diotima; for those at Agathon’s party Socrates served as guide; and for Apollodorus the guide had been Aristodemus. But in each case the archetype that they embody is the philosopher-god Eros whose role is to direct us to the correct love of wisdom and of beauty.

3. Bare Feet

The chief example of the guide in both love and philosophy is, of course, Socrates, and several features emphasized in the dialogue alert us to the implicit identification of Socrates and the god Eros. The first of these is Socrates’ stance with regard to wisdom and knowledge. As often, Socrates adopts a stance of ignorance, disclaiming wisdom on the simplest matters when questioned by Diotima.28 Indeed, the fact that he resigns authority to Diotima and cites her as the origin of all that he knows about love is itself an example of the Socratic denial of knowledge, though perhaps slightly moderated to the extent that he does now claim to have learnt from Diotima, and hence to have some knowledge concerning love that is derivative from her expertise in that area. Ignorance is a well-known Socratic characteristic, but it is peculiarly relevant here given that as the analysis proceeds we shall find love identified with the philosopher’s desire for wisdom; that desire, we are persuaded,29 cannot occur in one who is already wise, but only in one who lacks wisdom. Only if one lacks can one love, and hence Eros, the archetype of the lover and the philosopher, must be one who lacks both wisdom and beauty. Socrates, like Eros, is notorious for being one who lacks wisdom and desires the knowledge that he lacks.

Socrates’ appeal to his own need for a teacher is part and parcel of his identification with the real Eros.30° That resemblance is fleshed out in Alcibiades’ speech describing Socrates’ characteristics and habits. Indeed, Alcibiades implicitly identifies Socrates with Eros when he volunteers, or is persuaded, to praise Socrates, in place of the encomium on Eros that was in order.31 But Socrates’ similarity to Eros had been hinted at long before, in Socrates’ own speech. Socrates’ speech makes some revisions to the images of love presented in the preceding set of speeches, and one effect of these revisions is to make Socrates’ portrait of love resemble Plato’s portrait of Socrates; thus, while Socrates’ speech debunks Eros, Alcibiades’ speech debunks Socrates, and both underscore the resemblance between Eros and Socrates. This resemblance was noticed by Ficino, and has often been remarked on since.32 But the fact that the parallel is with the portrait of Socrates in this dialogue is generally overlooked by those who cite general allusions to Socrates in Xenophon or Cicero.

We may run briefly through some of the features that alert us to the assimilation of Eros and Socrates in Diotima’s description. In addition to the passage where she argues that Eros must be neither ignorant nor wise,33 to which we shall return, the main text is the account of the birth of Eros at 203b–d. Diotima corrects Agathon’s classic picture of Eros as delicate and beautiful;34 far from it, he is really hardened, unkempt, barefoot, homeless, always sleeping rough and without a blanket, bedding down in doorways and on the streets under the stars, and impoverished.35

Some of these are, in any case, familiar characteristics of Socrates, but they are given a particular prominence in the Symposium. Eros is said to be homeless, sleeping rough without a blanket. What Diotima means by Eros’ homelessness is not, of course, that he lacked a city that was his home town. Doubtless that would also be true, but Diotima does not say that he lacked a polls but that he lacked an oikos.36 Thus the fact that Socrates is clearly at home in Athens is not a reason to deny that he resembles Eros in being ‘homeless’.37 Perhaps Socrates was not literally without a home, but Plato almost never portrays him at home; like Eros he is generally in someone else’s home, at large in the city or outside the walls, or in the gymnasia and wrestling schools.38 In the Symposium itself Socrates is away from home all night, and all the following day. Only in the evening does he finally make his way home, notably in the last two words of the dialogue.39 Likewise Alcibiades describes Socrates away from home throughout: it is Alcibiades who invites Socrates to dinner or to the gymnasium,40 and it is at Alcibiades’ house that they spend the night together.41 Similarly on military service Socrates is out on camp at Potidaea and in battle at Delium. In this dialogue we catch no glimpse of Socrates as a domestic man with a home life or economic interests.42 In this sense he is aoikos, homeless.

Eros sleeps rough. Socrates seems to have a habit of staying out all night. At the symposium at Agathon’s house Socrates actually never goes to sleep at all, and it is not clear that he did at Alcibiades’

house either;43 similarly at Potidaea Socrates spends a summer night awake, standing rapt in thought from one sunrise to the next, while the other soldiers bring out their beds and go to sleep round him.44 Thus although Socrates is not one to sleep out he does regularly spend the night out under the stars.

Sleeping without a blanket also fits the picture. Alcibiades enfolds Socrates in his own himation when he finds him huddled under no more than his usual thin cloak on a winter night,45 and again at Potidaea, in the bitterest winter weather, Socrates ventures out with no more than his usual himation.46 Coverings, or the lack of them, are part of the image of Socrates that Alcibiades depicts. As to bedding down in doorways, again Socrates is not one for bedding down; but doing philosophy in doorways is certainly his thing. The reader will not have forgotten that Aristodemus had left Socrates behind on the way to Agathon’s house, and that he arrives hours late after sitting in the neighbours’ porch.47 As Aristodemus assures us, this is entirely in keeping with Socrates’ habits.48

Socrates, like Eros, is a liminal figure, always at the door. Indeed, there is a great deal of arriving at doors in the Symposium. Just as Poverty, the mother of Eros, hangs about the door at the party to celebrate the birth of Aphrodite, so people keep turning up outside the door at Agathon’s party to celebrate his successful play, hoping to get in. Not only Aristodemus, who arrives uninvited ahead of Socrates, and, of course, Alcibiades, but in addition a whole host of gatecrashers turn up at the door at 223b, and turn the party into a disorderly drinking session. There is clearly a sense in which Agathon’s party represents the vision of beauty that everyone yearns to be included in, though only Socrates has the stamina to survive the rigours that ensue. Just as Aphrodite, at whose birthday party Eros was conceived, is a beauty to which Eros is devoted,49 so Beauty itself, and the vision of it revealed at Agathon’s party, is the object of Socrates’ passionate devotion.

Perhaps most characteristically Socratic are Eros’ unshod feet. We know from the Phaedrus that Socrates regularly went barefoot.50 The Phaedrus is another dialogue about love, but in that case, instead of going up towards the city as they do in the Symposium, Socrates and his interlocutor go outside the walls and down the valley of the river Ilissus. On that occasion Socrates was, as usual, barefoot, while Phaedrus, though not normally barefoot, was for once, on that particular occasion, without shoes. Clearly there is an inversion between the Phaedrus and the Symposium; whereas in one Socrates is typically barefoot, in the other he is untypically shod; whereas in the Phaedrus the interlocutor is untypically barefoot, in the Symposium Aristodemus is typically barefoot. And in both dialogues there is some question as to who is leading whom on the journey; Phaedrus volunteers to guide Socrates down the Ilissus valley, but in practice it is Socrates who knows the history and cultural significance of the features they pass, and who can correctly identify the geography of the place, although he had professed to be unfamiliar with it.51

Bare feet seem to make a difference to the search for the truth about beauty and love, and to one’s ability to take the lead in that search. In each case it is the one who typically goes barefoot who makes accurate progress. If we are right that Eros, in Diotima’s speech, is to be the guide on the ascent to the vision, it is not irrelevant that he too is barefoot.52 And indeed the matter of wearing shoes becomes a recurrent theme in the Symposium.

To start with, one of the first things, indeed almost the only thing, that we learn about Aristodemus (who first told the story to Apollodorus) is that he was always barefoot.53 The point is partly to indicate that Aristodemus was already a committed follower of Socrates; indeed, Apollodorus says that he thinks he was a lover of Socrates. But the significance is greater than that. Two other things we are told about him are that he was small, and that he belonged to the deme of Kudathenaion.54 The significance of his diminutive stature is not obvious, though traditionally Eros himself appears to be small. But it may well also be important that Aristodemus is from Kudathenaion, which is a deme within the city walls of Athens, unlike Socrates’ own deme, Alopeke, which was just outside the walls, across the Ilissus valley.55 The motif of ascent implied that the city was identified with the summit of the journey to the vision of beauty, and hence it is unsurprising to find that Aristodemus belongs in the city and has, in this respect, a head start over Socrates on the philosophical track. Socrates still needs to tag along behind Aristodemus to Agathon’s house, and behind Diotima on the ascent to knowledge. Aristodemus, on the other hand, is already a lover, already barefoot, already a city-dweller. In some sense he no longer needs a guide, but he serves as the guide for those who subsequently seek to find out. He seems to stand for one who, by following Socrates, has already arrived. It is no wonder, then, that in one sense he never speaks—many have wondered that Aristodemus does not list himself among those who took their turn at speaking—and in another sense he speaks throughout, since it is in his words that the whole episode is narrated. He is, after all, our first authority on love; but he is not, as the other speakers are, still engaged in the search for a guide to truth. He is the real lover who has already mastered the technique.

The tale that Aristodemus tells begins by commenting on the fact that Socrates was, on the occasion of the symposium, wearing shoes.56 We have already noted the way in which Socrates had dressed to play the part of Agathon’s lover at Agathon’s party. His style corresponds to the image of the elegant Eros that Agathon will describe in his speech. Aristodemus remarks on how unusual it was for Socrates to appear bathed or shod. It is true that at the very end of the dialogue when all the rest have fallen asleep, Socrates goes off to the Lyceum and has a wash before beginning the day’s business.57 But that routine wash58 is not going to affect the overall presentation of the person, as the bath59 had done before the party. Bathing clearly merits remark as something quite out of the ordinary for Socrates.60

Now we can understand why it is that Socrates, in this dialogue, has resigned the position of leader in love to Aristodemus and Diotima. His uncharacteristic appearance and footwear show that he has adopted the model of love put forward by Agathon. That is what Socrates says at the start of his speech, when he observes that he had made claims about love essentially identical to those put forward by Agathon,61 and that it was Diotima who was in a position to correct and teach him. His appearance supports his contention that he is ignorant on the subject,62 whereas Aristodemus’ appearance supports the idea that he is a lover modelled on the Eros of Diotima’s speech: unshod and lacking.

We know that Aristodemus was not just usually barefoot but also barefoot on this particular occasion. When he arrives at Agathon’s party, before he can recline on the couch, a slave has to come and wash his feet.63 If he had had shoes on, the job of the slave would have been to take off his shoes, as is the case when Alcibiades comes in. He is taken to a place between Agathon and Socrates, where he first of all sits down.64 Then Agathon has the slaves remove Alcibiades’ shoes, whereupon he is ready to recline on the couch.65

Alcibiades, unlike Aristodemus, is not so devoted to Socrates as to imitate his barefoot habits. Describing Socrates’ remarkable hardihood in the wintry campaign at Potidaea, Alcibiades stresses Socrates’ lack of footwear:

Clearly Alcibiades did not imitate Socrates at Potidaea, nor is he following his barefoot example now on the occasion of Agathon’s party. Thus, although Alcibiades is fascinated by Socrates, he is in striking contrast to Aristodemus, the Socratic lover. Whereas Aristodemus never speaks the whole evening, Alcibiades is an unbridled chatterbox. But the whole of Alcibiades’ speech, with its candid confession of his failed attempt to seduce Socrates, betrays just how far he is from understanding what makes Socrates tick. Among the features that indicate Alcibiades’ confusion is his failure to appreciate the significance of the barefoot philosopher.

We have dealt so far with the features of Eros that derive from his mother, Poverty. But Diotima also notes that there is a resourceful side to his nature, supposedly inherited from his father Poros. These features also bear a resemblance to Socrates’ character, less detailed perhaps than the poverty side, but recognizable. Eros is said to be one who lays traps for the beautiful and the good; he is daring, headstrong, and intense, a clever marksman, always contriving some schemes. He has a passion for wisdom, is resourceful, and spends his whole life philosophizing.67 Alcibiades’ account of his relationship with Socrates plainly reveals Socrates as one who ensnares the beautiful and good. Alcibiades had thought himself the master of love’s arrows,68 but Socrates, it emerges, was really the wizard at that.69 Similarly the description of Eros as the lifelong philosopher with a passion for wisdom cannot fail to remind us of Socrates.

The resemblance between Diotima’s picture of Eros and Plato’s picture of Socrates is remarkable. It is also worth noticing because it shows us that the theory about the status of Eros and his role in philosophy is not just a piece of mythological demonology, but is also about Socrates and about Socratic philosophy. The text is first and foremost about the status of the philosopher and his relationship with truth, beauty, and the good.

Eros is an intermediary. So also is Socrates, whose task it is to convey the wisdom of the priestess Diotima to the company at the party. Eros is neither ignorant nor wise; likewise Socrates knows at least that he needs to learn. Eros is neither mortal nor immortal; neither is the philosopher, whose love earns him the immortality he desires. Nevertheless, we should not dismiss the passage about Eros just because it portrays an image of Socrates. The image of Socrates presented by Plato in the Symposium is just as much an illustration of a theory of love as his account of love is a picture of Socrates. In other words, Plato chooses to stress certain features of Socrates in this dialogue as part of his definition of love.

4. Eros in Need

Diotima’s account of love starts by making some basic philosophical distinctions which help to determine the status of Eros. These distinctions come into three categories.

(i) Opposites

At 20Ie8–10 Diotima makes laborious work of explaining to Socrates (whose wits seem slow at this point) a rather elementary point about the neutral middle ground between contraries such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’. The point is then made again at 202a2–10 for ‘wise’ and ‘ignorant’,70 and also at 202d8–13 for ‘mortal’ and ‘immortal’. The aim is partly to stress Socrates’ own lack of wisdom, the condition necessary for being a philosopher; but in this case his lack of wisdom is specifically in the field of what is ‘in between’, including the epistemological state between knowledge and ignorance, though not only that. By this means it becomes clear that the state of being neither one thing nor the other, but in between, is fundamental to the theory of love that is being offered.

(ii) The notion of lover

Diotima turns the analysis of love away from the beloved (which had been the focus of attention in all the earlier speeches) and seeks an explanation in terms of the lover. Socrates had already, at 199d, drawn attention to the relational character of love. This paves the way for Diotima’s claim, at 204c 1–6, that to explain love we need to look at that which loves, not that which is loved.71 She rejects any attempt to explain love on the basis of the beauty of the beloved, and locates the explanatory force in the lover, specifically in the need or lack on the part of the lover. Hence we start with an analysis of love as desire, or more specifically the desire to possess some class of good things, which happen to be the property of certain individuals. Hence it is the desirable properties, not the individual who possesses them, that take on the role of object in a desire-analysis of love. And the motivation becomes self-interest. It is Socrates who suggests that the lover wants the fine things to ‘accrue to him’,72 but at this point no other option is available since love has been analysed in terms of fulfilling a need. The direction of the analysis was determined from the point at which Socrates secured agreement from Agathon to the principle that one could not love what one already possessed.

(iii) Begetting

Although the analysis initially starts from desire to possess (204d–206a) this is modified in the famous passage concerning ‘begetting in the beautiful’ (206b–212a), where the emphasis changes from possessing the beautiful to gazing on beauty and goodness itself, while the need to possess is a need to possess immortality in order to gaze for ever on the beautiful itself. Thus at this stage, although Diotima does not remark on the fact, a wedge has been inserted between the desire to possess and what constitutes true love. The motivation is still self-interest, and the focus of attention is still the lover, but the ultimate aim of his love is not possession of good things but a vision of unfailing beauty.73 His relation to individual beautiful things is likewise not to possess or consume, but the creative relationship of ‘begetting’.74 Only immortality is desired for possession,75 and then as a means to the permanent enjoyment of other things, not as an end in itself.76 At 2o6e2 Diotima remarks on the revision of the original analysis.

Given this outline of the progress of Diotima’s analysis of love, we can arrive at a kind of explanation of the status of Eros in Diotima’s account, i. In Diotima’s view Eros is the lover, not the beloved. 2. The lover is one who desires beauty, not one who possesses beauty, so Eros must be lacking in beauty and those other fine things he loves. 3. In order to desire something one must be intermediate, not so lacking as to have no sense of what one lacks. Hence Eros must be intermediate in the relevant respects. 4. Since love also desires immortality, Eros must be intermediate between mortal and immortal.

The mythical description of love and his parentage occurs in the framework of the initial, possessive, account of love. The subsequent revision, in terms of creative begetting, is never plugged into the portrait of Eros, but the desire for immortality, introduced in the transitional passage77 but a subsidiary pursuit in the second analysis, continues to be conceived on the same model of acquisitive desire that was central to the first analysis of love.78

5. Theology

We have already two kinds of explanation of Eros’ liminal status: first that Eros serves as an image of Socrates and of the true philosopher; secondly that he illustrates Diotima’s first, acquisitive, analysis of love in which desire is explained by the intermediate status of the lover and by his need. However, neither of these excludes the possibility of a third kind of analysis, in terms of what it is to be, or not to be, a god. If Eros marks the gap between gods and men, can we see what makes a god a god and a non-god not a god?

The main part of my analysis will be concerned with the grounds on which Diotima denies to Eros the status of god. Secondly I shall ask why intermediates could or should exist, and thirdly whether there are theological advantages in positing them.

(i) Why not a god?

When and why does Diotima claim that Eros cannot be a god? The first mention of his divinity in Socrates’ speech is at 201e5 and is dramatically prominent because it marks the beginning of Socrates’

disagreement with the previous speakers, all of whom had either assumed or stated explicitly that Eros was a god.79 But in fact Diotima’s first challenge is not to the divinity of Eros, but to the claim that he is beautiful or good.80 This first refutation supposedly delivered by Diotima is not narrated by Socrates, who says it took the same form as his conversation with Agathon.81 Thus, when Diotima’s discussion begins at 201e8 Socrates has already been convinced that Eros cannot be beautiful and good. It remains to show that he need not be ugly and bad either, since it is possible to be neither good nor bad but intermediate.

Thus Diotima’s first objection is actually to the claim that Eros is beautiful and good, and makes no reference to theology. It is completed at 202b2–5 with the observation that if Eros is not beautiful and good it need not follow that he is ugly and bad. It is Socrates who introduces theology at this point: ‘Yet on the other hand, I said, it is universally agreed that he is a great god.’82 Socrates introduces this as a new point;83 the precise connection between beauty and divine status has yet to be examined.

Diotima proceeds to ask84 whether the view that Eros is a god is held by people who do not know, or by those who know as well. Her division into knowers and non-knowers85 carefully complies with the principle she has just enunciated concerning the middle ground between knowledge and ignorance.86 Socrates’ suggestion that the view is held by knowers and non-knowers alike meets with derision from Diotima, who claims that there are at least two people who hold that Eros is not a god at all, Socrates for one and Diotima for another.87

Socrates is surprised to find himself credited with such a radical view. It seems to be the opposite of what he has just proposed.88 Diotima has to persuade him that he is already committed to it in virtue of his agreement to the proposition that Eros is not beautiful and good. This she does in a meticulous exposition of the theological implications of his position:

This passage is interesting. Diotima does not move directly from Socrates’ agreement that Eros is not himself beautiful and good to the conclusion that he cannot be a god. To do that she would have had to claim that any god must necessarily be good and beautiful. It is not clear that that principle could be demonstrated at this point,90 but Diotima takes a point specifically related to Eros, namely his lack of good things. Happiness (or blessedness, eudaimonia) is a feature of the gods, and if happiness consists in having what you want, then Eros plainly cannot have it, for he is by definition one who is always in want of something.

Diotima inserts the notion of eudaimonia to add plausibility to the idea that lack of fine possessions is incompatible with godhead. She also seems to hold that lacking good things means that one is not oneself good,91 and lacking fine things means that one is not fine, but these are not the immediate basis on which she argues, and would perhaps not stand up to scrutiny. She takes it for granted that being beautiful and being blessed go together. Eros is neither beautiful nor blessed, and hence cannot be a god.

The next step in Diotima’s account is an outline of what it is to be a daimon or spirit;92 it is taken for granted (202d8–9) that Eros is not mortal, and the only remaining possibility is that he comes into the intermediate state of daimon. Before considering this discussion of what a daimon is we should look first at one other passage concerning the criteria for divinity. At 203e5, at the end of the account of the birth of Eros, Diotima says that he is in between wisdom and ignorance. She then expands the point:

Diotima cannot argue that because Eros is not a god, therefore he must be a philosopher, since she does not hold that all who are not gods are philosophers. On the contrary, she allows that some who are not gods might be wise,94 and certainly some are supposed to be ignorant and hence not to know what it is to be a philosopher or why one should be one. Nor does it follow that because Eros is intermediate between gods and mortals he must be a philosopher; again it is allowed that some of those between gods and mortals might not be philosophers. Diotima does not argue from Eros’ divine status (or lack of it) to his being a philosopher. On the contrary, Diotima’s argument is designed to establish that Eros has an intermediate status, starting from the premiss that he is a lover of the beautiful. The argument is explained at 204a8–b5; Socrates, singularly dim-witted on this occasion, has already forgotten what he was told at 202a about the intermediate state between knowledge and ignorance. He is puzzled as to who could qualify as a philosopher:

Who are the philosophers then, Diotima, if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant? I said.

Thus Eros’ desire for wisdom is just one aspect of his desire for all fine things. Since desire presupposes lack he must lack wisdom, but he cannot lack it to the extent of ignorance since then he would not desire it.96 Thus we have here, as we did not in the case of the god/mortal dichotomy at 202a, a reason why Eros must be in-between. And once we have established that Eros is between wisdom and ignorance, we can infer that he is excluded from the ranks of the gods since they all possess wisdom.97

Eros’ lack of immortality, mentioned at 203d8 ff. but never explored in detail, must prevent him from being a god, just as his lack of wisdom does, since we are told at 2o8ab that gods have immortality in a way peculiar to themselves:

Diotima leaves no room here for intermediates between mortal and immortal. She is no longer talking specifically about Eros the daimon, but has moved on to her later analysis of the progress of the true philosopher towards the vision of true beauty. Unlike this philosopher, who achieves both the vision and some form of immortality, Eros as he was described before could achieve neither possession of the goods he desired nor immortality.99 Eros is in fact responsible for mortals’ yearning, but not for the achievement of their ambition. Though mortals do achieve some half-baked version of immortality, by leaving offspring or by begetting true virtue, Eros permanently lacks even that.

(ii) Why a daimon?

Diotima has suggested three criteria for gods: (1) all gods are happy and beautiful, 202c; (2) all gods are wise, 204a; (3) gods (and gods alone) have pukka immortality, 208a. Eros fails on all three, so he cannot be a god. But given that he is not a god, are we in a position to infer that he is a daimon? Socrates himself professes to be unfamiliar with the notion (202d8–e2) so we should take the cue from him and ask what is the point of daimones?100

As we observed, Diotima does not, initially, offer any reason why Eros could not be a mortal,101 but in response to Socrates’ ignorance she offers an account of the nature and function of daimones at 202e–203a. It is here that we should look for a reason, if there is one, for there being intermediates between gods and mortals. The function she describes is entirely concerned with communication:

Interpreting and conveying to the gods the things from men and to men the things from the gods, from men their prayers and offerings, from gods their commands and returns; being in the middle the daimon completes both, so that the whole is bound itself to itself.102

She goes on to explain that prophecy, priestly art, divination, and so on are all facilitated by the daimon: ‘For god does not mix with humanity, but all the intercourse and communication that gods have with human beings, whether awake or asleep, is through the daimon.’103 Diotima seems to suppose that two problems would ensue if no intermediate existed: (a) communication between gods and humanity would break down; and (b) the universe would fall apart because the divine part would not be joined to the mortal part. But she does not explain why we should think either consequence likely. Is it not merely a result of positing an intermediate that the extremes are too far apart to meet? It seems that if we dispensed with daimones then gods and men would be adjacent and not divided by any gulf. Whereas if we do suppose there is a difficulty about bridging the gap between gods and mortals, will there not also be a similar difficulty between daimones and mortals, or daimones and gods?

I want to offer two kinds of defence against the charge that Diotima is merely multiplying the celestial hierarchies to no effect. (a) First we should observe that gods and men are treated not as adjacent links on a more extensive chain of being, as might be the case for example if animals and plants were under consideration, but rather as polar opposites. God is at one extreme of a scale of which humanity is the opposite end; the pair god and mortal is treated as logically similar to the pairs beautiful and ugly, good and bad, and wise and ignorant that we had met earlier in Diotima’s speech as examples of opposites which allow for an intermediate state that is neither one nor the other.104

Thus, whereas the insertion of extra links in a continuous chain would elongate the chain and increase the distance between what had been adjacent links, Diotima’s intermediates are used to fill a gap that was a maximum divide between extremes. This is one reason why it is important for Plato, or Diotima, to explain the nature of contraries that allow such logical space for intermediates. It seems that Diotima’s universe would be in danger of falling into two parts if intermediates were denied, due to a kind of dualism that treats what are properly contraries as if they were contradictories.

(b) Daimones are posited because such intermediates are held to be a logical possibility. But why should Eros in particular be a daimon? It seems that the communication for which Eros finds himself peculiarly responsible is that of desiring to possess what one lacks, and indeed perceiving that one lacks it in the first place. Eros serves as a daimon in that he enables mortals to perceive their lack of divine qualities and hence to desire to possess them, providing a link between the divine and the mortal.

On the other hand, there seem to be difficulties. Certainly the gods are happy, beautiful, wise, and immortal, and these are the features that mortals lack and that are the object of the desire aroused by Eros. Without Eros the mortals would not only lack those features but be so far from appreciating them that they would not even perceive their lack or the desirability of the features they lacked. Eros is responsible for their ability to perceive a lack and their desire to make good the lack. That desire can only occur when they come near enough to being wise or beautiful to perceive what it would be. That much is clear.

Two problems seem to arise. (I) As Socrates agrees at 205a5–b2, all humans seem to have the relevant desires, to some extent, and indeed even animals reveal a desire for immortality, according to Diotima (207a7–d2), so that it seems impossible to locate any example of mortal nature in its wholly unregenerate state. (2) It seems possible for mortals not merely to desire to become like the gods, but also to some extent to achieve their desire. Yet if gods and mortals are defined as contraries it seems impossible that what is mortal should acquire the features of the divine and yet remain what it is.

The first difficulty is not a real problem; indeed it clarifies why mortals and gods are introduced as opposites in the first place. The fact that we cannot locate an example of mortal nature untouched by the effects of Eros does not mean that we cannot infer what mortal nature would be in the absence of Eros. Diotima’s point would be that no mortal without Eros would desire wisdom or beauty and the rest. In that unaspiring state they would indeed be the antithesis of the divine. Then the second difficulty can be explained on the same lines. The fact that mortals can acquire the divine characteristics to some degree does not mean that we should not define mortality itself as the total absence of those characteristics. With the assistance of Eros mortals cease to be the unerotic creatures they would have been in their purely mortal state. What is anomalous is the fact that we continue to call them mortals even after they have lost the defining features of mortality and acquired some vestiges of divine characteristics.

(iii) Are there theological advantages in positing daimones?

Diotima implies that we need daimones to avoid a kind of dualism and bipartition of the universe. That need arises first from positing a profound opposition between god and mortal nature. Given that opposition we then need some means of accounting for the fact that mortals do, in practice, recognize and desire communion with divine beauty and goodness.

The same sort of issue arises in the Judaeo-Christian tradition when humanity is considered in its fallen state. Even if originally created beautiful and good, postlapsarian humanity is often conceived as fundamentally divided from God, in a state somewhat comparable to what Diotima assigns to mortals without Eros. If humankind is so utterly without virtue, how can it possibly achieve relations with the divine? Much theological controversy has turned on whether the source of the grace that enables us to achieve communion with the divine lies in our own nature, or is provided by some mediator between ourselves and God, or derives from God’s direct intervention in the mortal realm.

Diotima, for sure, does not envisage the divine stepping out of its cosy heaven to intervene in the mortal sphere; in her scheme the divine is beautiful and happy in virtue of its possession of good things, and it has no need to share. Nor does mortal nature have the ability to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. Thus we are likely to admit that if, with Diotima, we hold (a) a low estimate of human nature as such, (b) a high estimate of the degree to which it can rise to the level of divinity, and (c) the total non-involvement of the divine in providing for that progress in mortals, then to posit a non-divine intermediary as what we might call a ‘soteriological device’

is probably the best option.

6. Plotinus

Plotinus comments in a rather random fashion on the myth of the birth of Eros in Plato’s Symposium, at Ennead 3. 5.105 He returns several times to the issue of why Eros should be a daimon and not a god,106 but it appears that for him the function of Eros is rather different from the function we have just outlined from a reading of Plato himself. I shall consider two of the relevant passages in Plotinus.

(i) Ennead 3.5.6

In Chapter 6 Plotinus starts on his exegesis of the birth of Eros. The first question is why Poros and Penia are appropriate parents for Eros. In fact Plotinus does not deal with Poros and Penia as individuals until Chapter 7. In the meantime he considers the fact that they, like Eros, must be daimones.107 What are daimones?

Plotinus goes on to explore how the daimones fell into this condition; the details need not concern us. What we notice here is that whereas in Plato the daimones lacked what the gods possessed (namely happiness and fine things) here the daimones possess what the gods lack (namely feelings, πάθη).109 Impassibility (apatheia) is the mark of the gods, and apatheia is a freedom and independence preserved by those who have not become involved with matter.110 So in Plotinus the daimones are the ones who have, and the gods are the ones who lack.

The difference from Plato’s picture is, in a sense, a theological one because it reflects the fact that for Plotinus everything, including the daimones and mortals, theoretically derives from the divine state of apatheia and independence. There is no need to explain why things that were originally opposed should be drawn together, since Plotinus does not suppose that they are originally opposed. Because the divine is their place of origin, mortals naturally have some desires or aspirations upwards toward divinity. The further they are from perfection the greater and more pathetic their desires, and, of course, the harder of fulfilment. Hence for Plotinus Eros is not required to explain mortals’ aspirations, unless he explains the fall from unity, not the return to it. For Plotinus Eros is one example of the desiring nature of what is not divine, as anything that is one step down from divinity will be caught up in desire for what is above.

Given this view we can see that Plotinus does not need Eros as a ‘soteriological device’, because the desire of the lower for the higher is innate and natural. Plotinus has an apophatic theology, defining the divine by its lack of the constraints that characterize the material, mortal, pathetic, and worldly. Diotima, by contrast, gave us an apophatic anthropology, defining mortals by their lack of all that the gods possessed, attributes which she ascribes cataphatically to the divine.

(ii) Ennead 3. 5. 7

In this passage Plotinus considers the features of Eros in particular, not of daimones in general. Now he carries out his task of interpreting the parentage of Eros. He says little about Poros, who, we infer in lines 9–12, provides Eros with his status as a logos, but Penia is said to be responsible for the incompleteness of Eros and his lack of self-sufficiency:

This is the nearest that Plotinus comes to elucidating Plato’s concern with lack in Eros; but whereas for Diotima what Eros lacked were good and fine things, in Plotinus he lacks determinacy and rationality. This explains not his desire as such, but the instability of his desire:

Thus it is the indeterminacy, inherited from his mother and modified only slightly by his fatherly heritage of rationality, that explains Eros’ neediness and craving. Eros is born an insatiably leaky vessel. Thus Plotinus explores, as Plato did not, why Eros cannot get and keep the things he lacks. He is leaky because he has not got proper edges, his walls are porous; he is a mixture of the finite and the indefinite.

Plotinus is not concerned, as Plato was, to make Eros a boundary-crosser. His concern with boundaries is only to place Eros outside the sphere of intellectual, definite things, and inside the realm of mixture where definition is lost, and where pathos and craving belong.

7. Conclusion

If my analysis is right it seems that Plotinus is more concerned about pathos and emotion than Diotima was. It would be nice to be able to offer an explanation for this change. Initially it seemed plausible that an explanation might be sought in the fact that Plotinus was aware of a threat from Christianity, a factor plainly not significant for Plato. Perhaps it was because Christianity’s God appeared to be subject to pathos and emotion that Plotinus was particularly concerned to attribute apatheia to the gods as an essential part of the divine nature. In Plotinus’ theology no god could suffer, nor love.

But this concern will not explain why the notion of lack, so prominent in Plato, should have disappeared from view in Plotinus. That notion too might well have figured in an attack on Christianity, given that Christianity affirms the self-emptying of the divine logos as a central tenet. This suggests that seeking an explanation in terms of the presence of Christianity is not helpful. The difference between Plato and Plotinus is probably better analysed in terms of the distinct anthropological theories advanced in the two passages. It is not, perhaps, that they think differently about god so much as that they present different accounts of humanity Diotima’s polarity between god and mortal nature in its unredeemed state means that mortal nature in its unredeemed unerotic state is wholly apathetic: it neither knows nor desires the things it lacks. Hence it is without longing, without passion, without aspirations. That state of apatheia is impossible in Plotinus, except in one who has achieved union with the divine. Hence for Plotinus pathos invariably characterizes the lower forms of life.

Thus what is absent in Plotinus is Plato’s (or rather Diotima’s) antithesis between gods and mortals that makes human beings so far from the divine that they have no inclination to seek what is good. Plotinus places mortals closer to the divine as part of its fallout, not as an opposite kind of being. If Plotinus’ view were a response to Christianity, which in any case I doubt, it would have to be a rejection of the anthropological views, rather than the theological views, of the theory it rejected. In fact it would need to be a response that said that soteriology is simply unnecessary. There is not, and never has been, any need for a redeemer since humanity was never so far lost as to lack the aspirations, and the means, to draw itself back to communion with the divine, from its own innate resources. For Plotinus humanity is, in itself, fundamentally erotic.

The contrast between Plotinus and Plato shows us something about what is important in the account of love in the Symposium. Diotima had diverted our attention from an explanation of love in terms of the beauty of the object to an explanation in terms of the lover. That move is important because we are to look at the aspirations we have to improve our lot. But what Eros accounts for is the very fact that we perceive the objects as desirable and worth having. It is not that the beauty provides the motivation, but that we have to be inspired even to see the beautiful as something to love. And that perception of the beloved as desirable is something inspired by the work of Eros, that transforms us from mere mortals without erotic aspirations to philosophers who yearn for what they perceive as good. So it is wrong to suppose that love is motivated by desire, or inspired by a beauty that is perceived independently of love. Rather we should see Plato as attempting to capture the notion that our very perception of the beloved as good is dependent on our first seeing with the vision of love. It is an attitude that takes us outside ourselves, to see ourselves as lacking and inadequate, and which enables us to proceed on the road of philosophy, a road that we should never set out on if we did not first remove our shoes and follow the spirit of Socrates, or Eros, who can inspire us with the love of wisdom.