Symposium - AIC

Carolina Araujo
if everything is enthusiastically moved, Eryximachus’ artist is not. He does not love; he is moved by
the greatest power of knowledge, the only one that, bringing things to their ends, generates happiness
(188d5-10). 6
The first attitude of Aristophanes in his speech is to defend Eros as a cause of human
happiness, turning him into the divine physician that promotes the healing of human beings (189c9d3).
According to his myth, Eros is the longing for the previous half (191a5-b1; c8-d3; 192b5;
192e10-193a1), which could have been deadly had not Zeus provided human beings with temporary
relief (191b6-8) and ways of reproduction (191c4-5). Sex is not Eros, but as well as the rules (192b2),
it is a device to ensure all other non-erotic human actions (ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τρέποιντο καὶ τοῦ ἄλλου βίου
ἐπιµελοῖντο - 191c7-8), in particular the sacrifices and honors to the gods (190c4-5). However, this
purpose of the gods is not clear to humans; to us Eros is an obscure motivation (192c4-d5), an
indefinable stroke (ἐκπλήττονται - 192b7), a suffering (τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν καὶ τὰ παθήµατα αὐτῆς
– 189d5-6) in opposition to the actions expected from humans. Notwithstanding Eros is our own
nature (191c8-d2), each erotic suffering is a reminder that we are not the god that Eros is. We suffer,
Eros heals; his philanthropy consists in a unique inverted enthusiasm: he leads to constant failure in
achieving the goal, i.e., to become whole, and through this suffering he inspires non-erotic actions.
Eros is a cause of happiness inasmuch as it reminds us that happiness is not the fulfillment of our
desires, but a gift from the gods and that therefore we ought to act piously (193a7-b1). 7
This brings us to Agathon’s complaint that all the previous speeches have taken the
enthusiastic model for granted in not distinguishing the god himself from his effects in human beings.
According to him, Eros is the highest paradigm of happiness, beauty, goodness and youth (195a6-8),
whose presence is to be found in the characters and the souls both of humans and gods (ἐν γὰρ ἤθεσι
καὶ ψυχαῖς θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων - 195e4-5) that present these properties. Hence Eros manifests itself
not through enthusiasm, but according to a principle of affinity, i.e., attraction of the similar (ὅµοιον
ὁµοίῳ ἀεὶ πελάζει - 195b4-5) and repulsion of the opposite (196a7-8). 8 Moreover, this is not a
compulsive movement; Eros is a choice to the detriment of the kingdom of Necessity (195c6; 197b7).
Both gods and human beings are voluntary servants of Eros, to use Pausanias’ expression (196b6-7;
c1-2); a choice justified because Eros is the strongest of all desires (196d2-3). Agathon’s model
merges inspiration, restraint and choice into aspiration 9 : given the principle of affinity, the most
powerful internal motivation is the one toward the external paradigmatic object (δῆλον ὅτι κάλλους –
αἴσχει γὰρ οὐκ ἔπι ἔρως - 197b5; ἐκ τοῦ ἐρᾶν τῶν καλῶν πάντ' ἀγαθὰ γέγονεν - 197b8-9), an external
final cause presented to both gods and humans. Happy are those who choose happiness and the ones
who choose Eros love.
Notoriously this is Socrates’ point in the elenchus based on the formula τινος ὁ Ἔρως ἔρως
(199d1-2; e6-7). We can see here that Socrates distinguishes lover and beloved, claiming three points:
i) the presence of Eros is necessary to the act of love; ii) it is the lack in the agent that marks his
difference from the object (200a8-b1; αὐτῶν τούτων ὧν ἐνδεής ἐστιν - 202d1-3) and iii) love is a
desire to possess the object and this possession is happiness (200b6-8; 205a1-3). Altogether, these
claims result in Socrates’ striking treatment of Eros, and not of the human being in which Eros
manifests himself, as the lacking subject (201c4; 204a1-7). Diotima’s speech, claiming that Eros is
not a god, but a daimon (202d5-e1; 203a4-8), is introduced precisely to reject the enthusiastic model
through a defense of the unity of the love agent. It is not only the case that both daimones and human
6 In presenting Eryximachus as “the exemplar of authority that persuades” (170), Edelstein lists all the advice given by him
to other characters, but unfortunately he does not make any connection between this position and the authoritative content of
his speech.
7 The contradiction pointed by Corrigan and Glazov-Korrigan, “if we are pious, we shall be restored to our original nature.
But our original nature was violent and impious” (74), is not a contradiction, but the moral of Aristophanes’ myth.
“Therefore the final problem is how to establish a working relation between this rebellion, the attempt to return to the
original nature, and the Olympian gods, to whom men owe their lives” (Strauss: 127). “... the 'whole' which Aristophanes'
lovers seek is not only physically inaccessible to them; its attainment lies under the eternal interdict of the gods. Eros is,
therefore, an endless, unterminating, perpetual desire.” (Halperin: 169). The difficulty in Halperin’s reading lies not in his
interpretation of Aristophanes’ speech, but in his thesis that the speeches prior to Aristophanes would treat Eros as a simple
appetite in Halperin’s terms.
8 Sedley spots this principle but he is too ready to relate it to the argument of causality in Phaedo, 102a9-107a1; the result is
a retreat to the enthusiastic model: “if you desire something, your doing so is secondary to, and caused by, the presence in
you of the relevant desire, itself the primary subject of the desiring” (56). Defending a “principle of affinity” we can claim
that choice is Agathon’s relevant contribution to the causal role of Eros.
9 Stokes calls attention to the problem: “The ‘absolute’ use may, or may not, imply, or require supplement by a general
expression in the genitive case. It is simply not clear from Agathon’s speech which view he wishes to take, or how he would
answer to these questions.” (118). However, the use of both forms is precisely Agathon’s point according to his principle of
affinity, a principle Stokes seems to neglect in his analysis of self-predication in Agathon’s speech (140).
22