Symposium - AIC

Yuji Kurihara
they are and how they are related, except saying that (b) is merely the final result. From a
philosophical viewpoint, his standpoint is far from clear. Thus, we must now shift from philology to
philosophy.
3. What is the Telos of the Ladder of Love?
Although I have focused on the distinction between (a) seeing the knowledge of Beauty and (b) seeing
or knowing Beauty itself, few scholars care about it, but group them together, despite the fact that
most of them actually follow the emendation of (ii). Terence Irwin, for example, divides the whole
process of ascent into six stages: S1=a single beautiful body; S2=the beauty in all bodies; S3=the
beauty of souls; S4=the beauty of practices and laws; S5=the beauty of sciences; S6=Beauty Itself. 15
If one reads ἵνα for καὶ (211c8) either causally or teleologically, then one must distinguish between
(a) and (b); otherwise, one would be inconsistent. Hence, because I now follow the transmitted text
and read καὶ (c8), I need not explain a causal or a teleological relation between (a) and (b). However, I
must explain how (a) and (b) are both distinct and related to each other. 16
Let us begin by considering (a) seeing the knowledge of Beauty at 210d6-e1. As the text
indicates, this follows the previous stage in which the lover engages in philosophy and sees the beauty
of various kinds of knowledge, while contemplating the great sea of beauty and giving birth to
beautiful and magnificent words and thoughts. To compare these two stages, we must note that it is in
philosophy (ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ ἀφθόνῳ d6; ἐνταῦθα d6) that the guide leads the lover from studying
different kinds of knowledge to the single knowledge of Beauty itself. The lover then must start to
study each subject of knowledge according to its proper method and the overall curriculum of
philosophy. Beauty in each kind of knowledge is different from beauty in bodies and activities or
laws, in that knowledge concerns universals instead of particulars, such as a little boy, a person, or an
activity (d2-3). Being led by the guide correctly, step-by-step, the lover observes beautiful subjects of
all kinds of knowledge as in the great sea of beauty spread in front of him. Without being possessed
by any particular kind of knowledge, by following the guide the lover tries to swim across the great
sea through understanding a series of philosophical subjects and producing reasonable accounts and
theories of them in due order.
Next, the lover is led to see the knowledge of Beauty, which must be distinct from seeing the
beauty of each kind of knowledge in the previous stage. In astronomy (cf. R. 528e-530c), for example,
the lover may look up at the night sky, observe the celestial objects, and suddenly comprehend the
real motions of the heavenly bodies based on the universal law behind apparent movements of the
sensible stars, so that he can give an account of the law by discussing it with the guide. In this case,
the lover sees the objects of knowledge—the celestial objects, the heavenly bodies, and the universal
law—in front of him and with the guide, as well as seeing its beauty, acquires knowledge of it.
Similarly, the lover may well see (κατίδῃ 210d7) the knowledge of Beauty somehow in front
of him before acquiring it. Now that the object of knowledge is Beauty itself, not the beauty of
something else, he cannot rely on sensible objects in order to discover something hidden behind them.
Instead, he witnesses how the knowledge of Beauty manifests. This time, however, there is no other
medium through which he learns to see beauty. Because the knowledge in question concerns Beauty
itself, the knowledge of Beauty directly emerges through the philosophical dialectic between the
guide and the lover. Not only does the guide try to teach the lover what Beauty itself is, but she also
actualizes and exemplifies her knowledge of Beauty here and now. Differently from the previous
stage in which the lover studies each kind of knowledge with the guide and succeeds in seeing its
beauty, the lover at this stage cannot yet produce beautiful words and thoughts by himself, but
receives them from the guide through dialectic, thus learning what the knowledge of Beauty must be
like, even before possessing it. 17 The guide is a model of the acquisition of that knowledge and the
lover begins to imitate the model in order to know Beauty itself next.
Diotima goes on to explain (b) how the lover learns to see Beauty itself: “Anyone who has
been guided and educated in love matters to this point, contemplating beautiful things in order and
correctly and coming now to the final stage of love matters, will suddenly behold something
τελευτήσῃ to τελευτήσαι and leaves γνῷ unchanged.
15 Irwin (1977) 167; cf. Moravcsik (1971) 286; Blondell (2006) 154-5. An exception, again, is Nehamas and Woodruff
(1989) xxi, who say: “But even the love of knowledge … is not the final stage of the ascent,” but it is surprising that they do
not distinguish between seeing beauty of kinds of knowledge and seeing the knowledge of Beauty; so their reading of the
subjunctives does not serve to explain the final stage of the ascent.
16 This copulative καί may be either successive or epexegetical. As I shall show below, it must be successive.
17 At 202a Plato posits correct belief between knowledge and ignorance, in that it hits the truth without giving a reason for it.
17