Symposium - AIC

ABSTRACT
Platonic Fables as Philosophical Poiesis
Rick Benitez
Scholars have sometimes noted the importance of fables to Plato by pointing to the passage of Phaedo
in which Cebes speaks of Socrates embellishing Aesop's fables (ἐντείνας τοὺς τοῦ Αἰσώπου λόγους,
60d1). Some have suggested that Plato's fables play an important structural role in the philosophical
lessons of particular dialogues (e.g. Betegh, 2009). 1 None, however, have gone so far as to describe
the Platonic fables as making an important contribution to Plato's critique of poetry generally. In this
paper I propose that Platonic fables—short myths, typically incorporating comic elements and
embedding a philosophical lesson rather than a caution—have a cognitive function that conventional
fables do not: they reflect a rationally ordered picture of how things are. Mimesis of a rational order
of things is an aesthetic criterion; we see it at work in Plato's fables, where it provides a model for
what Plato believes good poems and myths should do.
A unique context for examining my hypothesis is the Symposium, because it presents both a
Platonic fable—the fable of Poros and Penia—and a fable in conventional form—Aristophanes' fable
of the circle-men. In the Symposium it is possible to observe both Plato's objections to conventional
fables and his recommendations for what fables (and by extension poems and myths) should do.
Scholars have generally treated the fable of Poros and Penia as part of Socrates' response to Agathon,
but there are many similarities to Aristophanes' fable (such as the union of complementary beings, the
neediness of incomplete beings, the relationship of desire to lack, etc.). Despite the structural
similarities linking the two fables, however, they function in entirely different ways. While
Aristophanes' fable emphasises the irrationality of the human condition, the hubris of human beings,
and the need to fear the gods because of their power to destroy, the fable of Poros and Penia
emphasises cognitive capacities, approves of unrestrained desire to understand, and establishes
intercourse between humans and gods through an intermediate.
Hunter (2004:85) 2 recognised that the fable of Poros and Penia provides part of the
philosophical education of the acolyte of beauty (though according to him only the lowest part). My
aim in this paper is to show that the Poros and Penia fable does more than that. Since it incorporates
an understanding of the nature, object and function of desire, it is the sort of story that only a teacher
who had received the highest vision could tell. It is thus a creation that is born in the presence of the
beautiful—the sort of creation that reflects how things really are. The fable of Poros and Penia, then,
is not only an inducement to the attainment of rational vision, it is the accomplishment of such a
vision.
Sheffield (2006:45) 3 has noted that through the fable of Poros and Penia "Socrates envisages
stories with the right (philosophical) content." This is correct, but does not go far enough. The fable
also allows us to envisage stories with the right form and aim of composition.
1 Gabor Betegh, 2009, "Tale, theology and teleology in the Phaedo" in Catalin Partenie, ed., Plato's Myths. Cambridge.
2 Richard Hunter, 2004, Plato's Symposium, Oxford.
3 Frisbee Sheffield, 2006, Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire, Oxford.