Symposium - AIC

Thomas M. Tuozzo
applies more widely to the desire for happiness. The reproduction characteristic of specific love
enables it to more fully express the desire for happiness than other ways of pursuing it.
Diotima’s Teachings, Second Round: Lesser Mysteries
At 202a5 Socrates turns from a summary of the teachings Diotima gave him on repeated occasions to
the report of one particular lesson. Here Diotima focuses entirely on specific love; there is no reason
to suppose that she discusses the general desire for happiness at all. On this occasion Diotima pursues
the investigation of specific love at a more fundamental level than her usual lectures: she asks for the
cause (aition, aitia) of the “awful lovesick state” (hôs deinôs diatithetai … nosounta te … kai erôtikôs
diatithemena) animals are in when they want to reproduce (grouping together both sexual intercourse
and care for offspring as manifestations of specific love). The aitia of this behavior, she reveals, is
rooted in the very nature of mortal beings:
mortal nature seeks so far as it can to exist forever and to be immortal. And it can achieve it only in
this way, through becoming (genesei), because it always leaves behind something else that is new in
place of the old…(207d1-3). 6
Diotima goes on to explain that the very continued existence of mortal things is due to ceaseless
becoming, with parts of the body passing away and replaced by new ones, and psychic states
behaving likewise. It should be noted that Diotima never calls the becoming that is the fundamental
aspect of mortal being reproduction, nor does she intimate that the beautiful has anything to do with
it. 7 Rather, the reproduction characteristic of specific love is a specific manifestation of mortal
becoming, one that enables the individual to survive, in a fashion, beyond the limits of his own life.
After rooting specific love, with its concern for reproduction, in the general nature of mortal
things, Diotima turns to a specifically human form of that love: the “awful state” human beings get in
“through love of becoming famous and of storing up immortal renown for all time” (hôs deinôs
diakeintai erôti tou onomastoi genesthai kai kleos es ton aei chronon athanaton katathesthai.) Human
beings who pursue specific love in this way are pregnant in soul, and what they give birth to is virtue.
Diotima makes it clear that giving birth to virtue must be understood in a broad sense, to include
becoming virtuous, performing virtuous activities, and producing educational discourses, poems, and
laws that enable one’s virtues to live on after the death of those who produced them. And this ‘living
on” itself has several dimensions – not only does a person live on in others’ memory of what he has
done and been, but he also lives on in the virtues and virtuous actions of those who are inspired by his
example or more directly educated by his poems or laws. While the focus in Diotima’s account of the
lesser mysteries is on the variety of virtuous offspring produced by those pregnant in soul, she does
not neglect the role of beauty as catalyst: those pregnant in soul are stirred to give birth to virtue by
their dealings with a beautiful beloved, one whose bodily beauty in the best case is, but need not be,
accompanied by beauty in soul (cf. 209b).
Diotima’s Teaching, Second Round: Greater Mysteries
At 210a Diotima turns to her “final revelation” about love, even as she expresses doubt as to Socrates’
ability to understand what she is about to say. In these greater mysteries Diotima is not introducing
yet a new class of lovers, distinct from and superior to those pregnant in soul discussed in the lesser
mysteries. 8 Rather, she reveals the proper method to be followed in matters of love by those pregnant
in soul in order to reach the highest results of which they are capable. 9 In the lesser mysteries Diotima
explained what sort of offspring is produced by those pregnant in soul: virtue and logoi about virtue.
In the greater mysteries, Diotima does not reject this aspect of the highest use of love; 10 rather,
she takes it for granted, and focuses on the different grades of beauty in response to which the
properly-led lover gives birth. Whereas in the lesser mysteries the only beauty mentioned was that of
the beloved, the proper method of the greater mysteries requires that the human beloved be left behind
6 Extended translations are based on Rowe (1998b).
7 Indeed, throughout this whole passage (207c8-208b6) Diotima never uses any of the words she has used earlier for
generation and reproduction (tiktein, gennan, etc.); when she has cause to talk about reproduction as it relates to the constant
becoming of mortal things, she uses a different word: “offshoot” (apoblastêma, 208b5).
8 Those whose views tend in this direction include Obdrzalek (2010) and Sheffield (2006).
9 Note the repetitions of orthôs: 210a2,4,6, e3; 211b5,7.
10 logoi: 210a8, c1, d5; virtue: 212a3-5.
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