Symposium - AIC

Philotimia and Philosophia in Plato’s Symposium
Jens Kristian Larsen
”So it was by main force that I stopped my ears and took off in flight, as if from the Sirens, in order
that I might not sit here in idleness and grow old beside him. In regard to this human being alone have
I been affected in a way that no one would suspect was in me, to feel shame before anyone at all. Only
before him do I feel shame. For I know within myself that I am incapable of contradicting him or of
saying that what he commands must not be done; and whenever I go away, I know within myself that
I am doing so because I have succumbed to the honor I get from the many.” (Symp. 216a6-b5) 1
With these words the drunken Alcibiades, who arrives at the end of Agathon’s symposium,
describes his own troubled relationship both to Socrates and to the Athenian public. The speech
delivered by Alcibiades, which is presumably meant to tell the truth about Socrates (214e1-6), seems
to tell the truth about Alcibiades as well. Under the influence of Socrates, whose speeches Alcibiades
claims affect him like charms (215c6-d6), Alcibiades has come to the opinion that it is not really
worth living if he remains as he is (216a1), and therefore he feels shame before Socrates. For instead
of taking care of himself, which Socrates both urges him to do and forces him to admit that he does
not do, he is preoccupied with the affairs of the Athenians (216a4-6). Alcibiades, it seems, does not
live the examined life that Socrates in the Apology claims is the only one worth living (38a1-7). As
such we may suspect that he lacks the self-knowledge that the Delphic oracle exhorts us to seek.
All the same, Alcibiades does seem to know himself, at least to the extent that he knows that
it is his own love of honour which prevents him from turning from the applause of the multitude to the
philosophic life envisioned by Socrates. He thus seems to have realized what Socrates points out, both
when defending his life of philosophy before the men of Athens in the Apology and before his friends
in the Phaedo, namely that philotimia, love of honour or ambition, may stand in the way of
philosophia, the love of wisdom (Apo. 29d7-e3, Phd. 68c1-3, 82c8). 2 Although Alcibiades thus seems
unable to break the spell public esteem holds over him, he has at least realized how questionable this
is, since he knows that it prevents him from caring about that which really matters, his soul. He has
been bitten by Socrates’ philosophic discourses, as he says (Symp. 217e6-218b2), and this has made
him painfully aware of his own shortcomings, even if they have been unable to turn him to
philosophy. The life of Alcibiades seems to be a troubled one.
Alcibiades’ ambivalent relation to honour due to his encounter with Socratic philosophy
seems to make him the exact opposite of Phaedrus, the initiator of the encomia to eros that makes up
the greater part of the Symposium. For Phaedrus makes philotimia pivotal in his account of the goods
bestowed on human beings by eros. He thus seems blind to the doubtful worth of philotimia and its
connection with public approval that Alcibiades has come to realize. Moreover, Phaedrus, more than
any of the other encomiasts, praises eros from a traditional point of view. As uncritical reliance on
tradition seems to be the opposite of philosophical inquiry, it might appear that Phaedrus of all the
figures in the Symposium is the one farthest removed from the life of philosophy advocated by
Socrates. That the speech of Phaedrus has often been accorded little interest from scholars is thus
perhaps understandable. 3
All the same, a careful reading of Phaedrus’ speech reveals that it contains insights about eros
that will ultimately be absorbed into Diotima’s speech and this alone should make us hesitate to
condemn it as devoid of philosophical content. Furthermore, as I shall go on to argue, these insights
are connected with Phaedrus’ understanding of philotimia. This should make us wonder if there
might, at least according to Diotima, be a positive aspect of our ambition for honour, an aspect that
has escaped Alcibiades. Let us therefore turn to Phaedrus in order to see what we can learn about eros
1 Translation is taken from from the Symposium are by S. Benardete
2 This potential conflict is of course also pointed out in the Republic, ???
3 Thought-provoking and careful readings of the speech can be found in S. Rosen, Plato’s Symposium, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1968 [2 nd ed. 1987], 39-59 and L. Strauss, On Plato’s Symposium, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2001, 46-56. Both Rosen and Strauss regard Phaedrus as preoccupied with utility or gain, more precisely, with the utility of
eros from the point of view of the beloved, and hence see Phaedrus as the lowest of the speakers of the Symposium. All the
same Strauss points out, to my mind correctly, that all “the motives of Phaedrus’s speech return in Socrates’ speech in a
modified way”, p. 56 (see also Rosen, p. 35). In contrast to Strauss’ and Rosen’s overall negative evaluation of Phaerus, F.
Sheffield Plato’s Symposium – The Ethics of Desire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 17 points out that his speech is
“a thought-provoking account of how erōs can lead to virtue”. See also K. Corrigan and E. Glazov-Corrigan, Plato’s
Dialectic at Play, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, 51-56, who emphasize the positive aspects of
Phaedrus’ speech while maintaining that Phaedrus himself is incapable of examining the philosophical importance of his
claims.