Symposium - AIC

Claudia Luchetti
καὶ λέγεται µέν γέ τις, ἔφη, λόγος, ὡς οἳ ἂν τὸ ἥµισυ ἑαυτῶν ζητῶσιν, οὗτοι ἐρῶσιν· ὁ δ' ἐµὸς λόγος
οὔτε ἡµίσεός φησιν εἶναι τὸν ἔρωτα οὔτε ὅλου, ἐὰν µὴ τυγχάνῃ γέ που, ὦ ἑταῖρε, ἀγαθὸν ὄν…
Symposion, 205d10-e3
In Socrates speech, Diotima answers to the proposal of a definition of Eros given by Aristophanes,
τοῦ ὅλου οὖν τῇ ἐπιθυµίᾳ καὶ διώξει ἔρως ὄνοµα (192e10-193a1), with an extremely clear alternative:
Love is not primarily Love of the One, a notion that in its polisemy can express both the unity of the
part and the unity of the whole, but Love of the Good as such. Therefore, the longing for the One,
dominant in Aristophanes' speech, has to be corrected and reread as a consequence of its being Good,
and not vice versa.
An extraordinary evidence of the supremacy of ἀγαθόν on ἕν can be deduced from the
characteristics of the erotic path, whose departing point is the more adequate definition of Eros as
Love of the Good and of its eternal possession, that is to say, of Immortality (204d1 ff.), culminating
in the epiphany of Beauty itself.
The dialectical methodology employed within the description of the psychic ascent that
proceeds through the diverse degrees of the erotic mysteries, shows some particularities that require to
be at least mentioned: Plato accustomed us, from the Euthyphron (6c-e), through the Republic (book
V 476b-d, 479c-e) and the Phaedrus (249b-c, 266b-c), until the Philebus (12b-15c), just to mention
few examples, to behold as the first operation of Dialectics (see Soph. 253c-e) the passage,
paraphrasing the Phaedrus, ‘from a multiplicity approached through the senses to a Unity articulated
with/and apprehensible through reasonment’.
In the Symposium Plato challenges us to grasp a much more complex use of συναγωγή and its
variations, from a double point of view:
1) First of all, we have an evident and structural interaction between Unity and Multiplicity:
without needing to arise any doubt about the clear pyramidal and hierarchic organization of the
various degrees of manifestation of Beauty, one can observe that the starting point of this elevation
are not τὰ πολλὰ καλὰ, how one may expect, but a single perceivable object regarded as beautiful
(210a4-8). To avoid the possible mistake of identifying a merely apparent unity of this kind with the
true ‘One’, which is the τέλος of the whole path, the συναγωγή seems to be applied, so to say, upside
down, introducing only in a second phase a phenomenal multiplicity, and this in order to allow the
initiate to recognize, by contrast, an ontologically higher level Unity which no longer belongs to the
bodily sphere. The most immediate consequence of the reiterated use of this method, is the production
of those possible combinations of Unity and Multiplicity, which punctually anticipate the description,
made explicit in the Sophist, of all the operations of the διαλεκτικὴ ἐπιστήµη (see 253d1-253e2). It
follows further, that once the level of Beauty of a single ψυχή and of the many ψυχαί has been
reached, the erotic-dialectical dynamic will keep taking place only within the intelligible realm
(210b6 ff.).
2) Secondly, one can notice the presence, nearly completely hidden, of the well known
dialectical counterpart of this way of forthcoming through more and more articulated and deep levels
of Unification: the way of διαίρεσις. That reduction to Unity, which seemed to be developed upside
down, working as a mediator between a lower range unity and the infinite multiplicity that could
follow it immediately, preventing, exactly as in the former case of the erotic fixation on the apparent
unity of departure, from recognizing traces of Identity and Unity (ἕν τε καὶ ταὐτόν, 210b3), which are
indispensable to reach the following ontological layer, is in reality the dichotomic method: ἀπὸ ἑνὸς
ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἐπὶ δυοῖν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ καλὰ σώµατα, 211c3-4. It is therefore legitimate to conclude that
συναγωγή and διαίρεσις, even if they do not occur as technical terms, are constantly acting on the
background of the erotic ascent in a synergic and indissoluble way.
Why is it possible, even moving from these few premises, to claim both that Diotima’s
perspective is agathological, and to establish its supremacy on Aristophanes henological position,
carried out in his speech?
Because the path of mysteric initiation that leads to the contemplation of Beauty, goes through
a process of expansion from the One to the Many, that evidently places some Multiplicities (like the
one of all bodies or the one of the Souls) on a higher level than that of some Unities (respectively, of
the single body or of the single Soul). By proceeding with this generalization, these Multiplicities are
further synthesized in higher Unities, until the arrival at the τέλος. Therefore, the synthetic Unities
contemplated ‘from time to time’, reveal themselves as complex Beings, that is, as Totalities or
Wholes, ὅλοι.
From an ontological point of view then, the Idea of Beauty-Good, even though it is µονοειδές
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