Symposium - AIC

Claudia Luchetti
(211b1, e4), presents itself as the most radical antithesis of the presumed monolithic and a-dialectical
atomism on which Plato, in the opinion of many interpreters, would have based his theory of Ideas, to
abandon it partially or completely only in the later dialogues.
In metaphysical-protological perspective, going back to Diotima recalling the content of
Aristophanes speech, the words of the Priestess could be rephrased as follows: if it is true that Love of
the Good is Love for the One -remembering that the starting point is the lowest degree of the erotic
élan towards the One, the attraction directed to a single body- the opposite statement is not necessarily
true, i.e. that Love of just any unity coincides with the Love for the Good. The Love of the One, to be
Love of the Good, must be Love of a synthetic Unity able to fuse together, and permanently, One and
Not One. It signifies: an ultimate Unity capable of including in itself also the long path of negations
(see 210e2-211b5) and distinctions, in which the pervasive and permeating features of the καλὸν καὶ
ἀγαθόν find their highest expression.
It is easy to see, that such a reconstruction does not collide with those indirect testimonies on
the ἄγραφα δὀγµατα, which explicitly claim the substantial Identity of the Good with the One 2 : the
Half, more generically, the Part, or the Whole, about which Diotima is talking, are always specific
forms of Unity, though they depend on a archetypal dialectical Unity, not on an undifferentiated and
disarticulated One. To say it in an even more prosaic way, allowing myself to recall the Parmenides,
the platonic One-Good finds much more correspondences in the ἕν-ὅλον of the second hypothesis (see
142b1 ff.), certainly not in the non dialectical and unknowable ἕν of the first (see 137c4 ff.) 3 .
The suggestions coming from the Symposium, though, encourage us to reflect very seriously
not only on the relationship of the One, but of both Principles with the ἀγαθόν, at least in two
directions:
a) First, because division and negation, having revealed themselves as elements, that are not
only allowing us to distinguish ‘vertically’ the levels of the epiphany of Beauty, on the base of their
more or less ontological consistence, determining indeed, so to say, ‘horizontally’, the constitution
itself of αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν, are precisely those components by virtue of which it is possible to describe
Beauty as a wide sea (τὸ πολὺ πέλαγος, 210d4). Being coherent with this agathological and dialectical
perspective implies, that if in the indirect tradition διαίρεσις and ἑτερότης, are said to be both,
respectively, methodologically dependent on and ontologically deriving from, the ἀόριστος δυάς, one
should free oneself from a view of the Dyad, occurring in some interpretations of Plato’s theory of
Principles, not only as radically opposed to the One, but above all filled with negative ethical
connotations.
The utility of applying the dichotomic method could not be more evident: by means of it the
apparent unity of departure is conceptually ‘broken’, divided, generating two from one, so that the
Soul of the initiate can comprehend its illusory character and start beholding the Totality of Unities
belonging to the same kind (see again 211c3-4). Therefore, in their methodological and dialectical
manifestations ἕν and δυάς are contributing both not only to free the path to the ultimate vision of the
Beauty-Good, but they converge in the determination of its own nature as well: this θεῖον θαῦµα
(211e3, 210e4-5) is both transcendent and immanent, absolute in its unshaken Unity, and
simultaneously diffusivum and omnipervasivum.
b) Second, but no less important, one should take into consideration the iconic character of
Eros, which leads, reflecting on the relationship between ἀγαθόν and ἕν, to move the center of gravity
of this bond even more decidedly in the agathological direction: in the crucial passus (202d8-203a8),
where Diotima describes the mighty (δύναµις) of this great δαίµων, Eros is that hermetic power
(ἑρµηνεῦον) of intercourse and communication (ἡ ὁµιλία καὶ ἡ διάλεκτος) between the human and the
Divine, able to fill the ‘gap and lapse’ (συµπληροῖ), so that everything can result in itself -
intrinsically- interconnected (ὥστε τὸ πᾶν αὐτὸ αὑτῷ συνδεδέσθαι).
In my opinion, there is no evidence not to see in this marvelous illustration, under the form of
an image, also the description of a dynamic involving, apart from the ‘vertical’ relation of a Soul still
embodied yearning for the Idea, above all the intelligible dimension as such, and this for two reasons:
2 It should be enough here to refer, for the ἀναγωγή of the generalizing method, reducing the µέγιστα γένη to the ἕν, to the
report on the writing περί τῶν ἐναντίων of Alexander of Aphrodisias, in his Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, 250,
20, ff. (Hayduck), and for the reduction of the positive series to Aristotle, Metaphysics Δ 15, 1021a9 ff. For the specific
dependence of ταὐτότης and ἑνότης on the One, see Metaph. Δ 1018a7. For the fundamental identification of ἀγαθόν and
ἕν see, for example, Metaph. Ν 4, 1091b14.
3 In such a brief account I had to give up the plan to discuss Plotinus' more or less explicit reception of the myth of the
divided humans, within his conception of ἕνωσις. Some facets of Aristophanes’ speech (see Enn. IV,3,12), together with a
radically monistic understanding of Plato’s theory of Principles (see Enn. V, 3, 15 and V, 4, 2), become crucial for Plotinus,
both to distinguish νοῦς ἔµφρονος and νοῦς ἐρῶν (see Enn. III,5, 4-7 and VI 7 31-35), and to acquire his own vision of the
superessential One.
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