Symposium - AIC

Nicholas Riegel
even of the second tetralogy. It necessarily fails to bring us to the vision of the beautiful itself because
it is a mimetic representation.
Turning to the speeches, we might well ask why Agathon belongs in the philosophic
tetralogy? The answer is because he begins almost in the right way. He begins by considering love
itself rather than its effects, and he criticizes all the previous speakers for failing to do so at 194e-5a.
Socrates acknowledges that Agathon gets this right at 199c where he states, “Indeed, Agathon, my
friend, I thought you led the way beautifully in your speech when you said that one should first show
the qualities of Love himself, and only then those of his deeds. I much admire that beginning.” The
problem is that it is still not precisely right to begin as Agathon does by attributing all good and
virtuous qualities to love. Even though this is not made explicit until Diotima’s speech, the proper
procedure is to begin by considering an object’s nature or essence. Only then should one move to
consider its qualities and then its effects.
Socrates presents the antithesis that love is not good. He argues 1. That love is “of” something
(199d-e); 2. That it is the desire for its object (200a); and 3. That a desire implies a lack or deficiency
of the object desired (200a-b). From this he argues that it follows that love can be neither good nor
beautiful, as Agathon had claimed. Whether Socrates’ arguments are valid or not would be the subject
of another paper. But his conclusion seems insightful and plausible. His overall conclusion is that
insofar as love implies some sort of desire, it also seems to imply some sort of lack, deficiency, and
imperfection. And thus one who is in a state of love/desire is experiencing an awareness of a lack of
goodness. Socrates is the first to begin by considering love’s nature, and thus he advances the
dialectic.
But even Socrates fails to give a definition of love. Only with Diotima do we finally get a
proper definition of love. Progress toward the definition begins at 204d when she changes the proper
object of love from beauty to goodness. The next step was already prepared for us by Socrates when
he realized that persons who possessed a quality could still be said to desire that quality in a way.
What those persons desire is the continued possession of that property. Diotima reminds Socrates of
this when she points out that lovers don’t just want the good, they want the good to be theirs eternally.
The full definition of love is at 206a: “In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever.”
And this shows the problem with the other speeches. Even if one is lucky enough to attain the good in
this life, we still remain mortal beings. So if anything is going to solve the problem of life and love it
must tell us two things: first, what is the good, and second how can we possess it forever. Anything
which fails to answer these two questions, fails to solve the problem of love, which has become the
problem of life. And Diotima does both, even if a bit cryptically. The good turns out to be the eternal
possession of the ultimate object of knowledge in the increasingly abstract ascent of the higher
mysteries (210a-212a). This is the apex of the ascent of philosophy, where one achieves a vision of
the beautiful and eternal life at the same time. But, though we seem to have an answer finally to the
question of love and life, the dialogue does not end here, and it is worth considering why.
I would like to focus only on two main points with respect to Alcibiades. The first is that he is
or represents Dionysus in the Symposium. He crowns the victors of the contest between two
tetralogies: Agathon, Socrates and himself, just as Dionysus decides the contest between Aeschylus
and Eurpides in Aristophanes’ Frogs. This eventuality was prepared for us at the beginning of the
Symposium, at 175e, where Agathon tells Socrates that Dionysus will soon be the judge of their
wisdom. The second point is that Alcibiades shows the problem with the second tetralogy. Alcibiades
can and does describe Socrates intimately, but it is clear that he doesn’t understand him, for if he truly
did understand Socrates he wouldn’t have run away and lived the life that he did. What I think this is
meant to show is that even if a poet had the right method, still the problem with poetry is that at best it
can only represent, and therefore it cannot get you to the transcendent solution to love and life.
V. CONCLUSION
Thus, in conclusion, the essay began with two questions: What is the connection between the
argument about tragedy and comedy, and the rest of the dialogue? What is the meaning of Socrates’
argument that it belongs to the same person to write tragedy and comedy? Regarding the first
question, it turns out there were many connections: First, the Symposium takes place at Agathon’s
house. Second, Aristophanes is there. Third, Alcibiades is depicted as Dionysus and Socrates as
Silenus. And finally there is the Structure of the Dialogue itself, which seems very similar to the
dramatic contests performed at the festivals of Dionysus. Regarding the second question, it belongs to
the same person to know how to write tragedies and comedies because they are about the subject
matter. All three: tragedy, comedy, and philosophy attempt to deal with the problems of life. Two of
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