Symposium - AIC

Nicholas Riegel
the main problems are: What is the good and how do we get it? What is the meaning of it all
considering our mortality?
Tragedy and comedy can and do address these problems, but they cannot solve them. They
cannot solve the problems because they do not have the right methodology. This was the problem
with the first tetralogy. But even if they did have the right methodology, qua mimetic representations
they can only give an external description of the good and how to get there. They cannot bring us to
the good itself. This was the problem with the second tetralogy. Art and poetry, according to Socrates
in the Republic, can only hold up a mirror to nature. But the problem for Plato is that he thinks the
solution to the problems of life ultimately require transcending the concrete world of the senses. The
Symposium teaches that only through philosophy can we transcend the concrete world of the senses
and find a solution to life’s problems. Whether Plato was right about that is another question.
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