Symposium - AIC

Samuel Scolnicov
by more noise and irritation in the form of sneezes. 5 Eryximachus can restore the body to its ordered
state, even if he cannot explain why he does what he does. But he cannot go beyond natural science as
such.
But Aristophanes’ own analysis of man’s deficiency as the lack of a part is pointedly shown
not to be quite adequate either. Hiccups and sneezes are not the sort of defect that Aristophanes will
address in his speech. They are not a form of bodily incompleteness. Although he exhibits this
shortcoming of his own body, Aristophanes cannot account for it in his speech. Even by resorting to
the mythical mode, Aristophanes too cannot transcend empirical phusis. 6 The poet’s man is conscious
only of his longing for some sort of physical completeness. Like his own half-men, who experience
ho adunatoi eipein (192d), what they cannot say, also Aristophanes exhibits what he cannot formulate.
Aristophanes’ original men ta phronema megala eikhon (190a), were high minded and had proud
looks. 7 They not only conspired against the gods. 8 Perhaps there is in this phrase some ambiguity,
certainly not intended by Aristophanes but possibly played on by Plato, as he is wont to do: they had
high thoughts, proud designs, were presumptuous and arrogant, in good and bad sense. 9 Aristophanes’
original men attempted to be like the gods by escalating their place. Diotima will transform those
proud thoughts into a drive for homoiosis theoi. High thoughts indeed. Aristophanes’ man becomes
kosmioteros by being reminded of the unwelcome consequence of his hubris towards the gods.
Diotima’s man becomes kosmioteros as a most fortunate consequence of his attempt at trying to
transcend his given state.
Socrates learned from Aristophanes, first of all and most importantly, that man, as empirically
given, is defined by what he lacks rather than by what he is or does. Moreover, Aristophanes makes
quite clear that what man lacks both belongs to him and is outside him, natural to, but not immanent
in him, not what he already has. 10 What we have is not simply inside us. We do not have it, not in our
present state, although it is natural to us.
Socrates also takes from Aristophanes the need for conscience of this lack. Only man is
conscious, in fact only semi-conscious, of his deficiency. Socrates, through Diotima’s speech, again
corrects Aristophanes, even while following his clue. True, man longs for wholeness. Eros is the name
given to epithumia holou (192e), desire for the whole. But eros is not just an epithumia, not as such.
Aristophanes cannot go beyond epithumiai as bodily desires. But eros is not only of the corporeal and
not of the same order of being as the epithumiai. In Aristophanes’ myth, man longs for himself, for
completion of what he lacks. But for Socrates/Diotima this ‘himself’ is his ideal nature. It is his
oikeion, but it is not homoion to him. 11 It is akin to him, natural to him, even in this empirical life of
his, but it is not like him. Aristophanes has an inkling of this at 193d2-3, in saying that, if we behave
ourselves, we can hope that the gods will lead us to our oikeion. But he still misunderstands this
oikeion as what we lack materially.
In all the previous speeches, eros was a desire for some form of immortality. Any immortality
referred to, however, was only by descendants or else by fame of deeds and works. Animals can reach
only physical transcendence in the form of descendants. This transcendence will be interpreted by
Diotima as ultimately dependent on another order of being, of which other animals cannot ever be
conscious. For Aristophanes, only man is conscious of his incompleteness. Sex organs are turned to
the front to allow a certain transcendence, not different from that of the other animals. In any case,
these do not interest Aristophanes.
Thus, procreation is not totally incidental to the true motive of eros. 12 It is a way of attaining
some sort of immortality in the form of progeny or of something else man cannot put a name to.
Aristophanes’ men long for something they do not know what it is and cannot achieve it. Man wants
to be whole ekei au en Haidou (192e), also there in Hades’. ‘What is erotic is unconsciously animated
by a vision of the “immortal”.’ 13 Man wants to transcend this life but he can hardly think beyond
some sort of extension of his empirical life. 14 That much Socrates learned from Aristophanes.
Man and even, more obscurely, all animals are driven by their real nature, which is not
immanent in them. Aristophanes’ man longs for something else he takes for everlasting wholeness:
5 On Aristophanes’ implicit critique of Eryximachus, see Hofmann 1947, 14.
6 Pace Salman 1990.
7 Bury, ad loc.
8 Megala phronemata dicuntur habere qui contra dominis conspirant (Hommel, quoted by Bury, ad loc.).
9 Cf. LSJ, ad voc. II.
10 Contra Hunter 71.
11 Pohlenz 1916.
12 Contra Salman 1990.
13 Salman 1990.
14 As pointed out by Rowe 1998.
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