Symposium - AIC

ABSTRACT
Eryximachus’ Physical Theory in Plato’s Symposium
Richard D. Parry
In line with recent attempts to defend the coherence of Eryximachus’ speech, this paper will explore
the similarity between his account of double eros and Empedocles’ account of Love and Strife. I
assume that, in basing Eryximachus’ account on Empedocles’, Plato is offering a variation of the
latter that deserves serious consideration. Empedocles posits four roots: fire, air, water, and earth
(B6). These are not the mutually aggressive opposites, found in Anaximander and Heracleitus, that
devour one another. Rather, they either cohere with or flee one another, depending on whether Love
or Strife rules (B17, 23). Eryximachus’ theory is similar—but only to a point. His speech begins with
a medical theory in which appetites are subject either to noble eros (which is orderly and healthful) or
to base eros (which is hubristic, causing disease). Medicine, which institutes noble eros in place of the
base, is knowledge about bodily desires’ (tôn erôtikôn) filling and emptying. This medical theory
finds some important parallels in the account of medicine in the Gorgias, especially in the relation of
health to orderly appetites and of disease to undisciplined ones (493e-494a; 500e-501c; 503e-505b;
517d-518d). For Eryximachus, whether the appetites are healthy or not depends on whether noble eros
rules the opposites that compose the body, instituting not only desire (eros) but also accord (homoia)
among cold and hot, bitter and sweet, dry and moist (186a-e). In Eryximachus’ account of the system
of the seasons, we can see how noble eros institutes accord among opposites. When noble eros unites
hot, cold, dry, and moist in harmony and temperate mixture (harmonian kai krasin…sôphrona),
fertility and health result for humans, animals, and plants. When base eros rules, the opposites destroy
one another and commit injustice, resulting in pestilence and disease (188a-b). First, then, unlike
Empedocles, Eryximachus keeps the opposites, as found in, e.g., Anaximander (B1). Second, noble
eros affects both bodily appetites and the opposites. Thus, we need not suppose that eros in bodily
desires is different from eros among the opposites—as some hold. If we suppose that, in Anaximander
and Heracleitus, the opposites consume one another because of desire, the desire would be like hunger
or thirst. A variation on this kind of opposition would have them sexually desire one another, like
lovers. Then the hot would have a desire for its opposite, the cold, to fill some lack it has. If noble
eros rules, the hot is filled without completely destroying the cold and committing injustice. Since the
same can be said for the desire of the cold for the hot, they achieve harmony with respect to their
desires; thus, noble eros causes friendship and accord. This type of integration of elements into a
larger whole makes their coherence into a regulated mutual dependence. It is what we would call
chemical—and, as we shall see, has advantages over Empedocles’ combination of elements. Still,
Eryximachus’ account has other deficiencies, given its position in the series of speeches.