Symposium - AIC

David T. Runia
given for why Plato might want to end his speeches with the themes of aretê, eudaimonia and the
good life. It has everything to do with the role of protreptic in his philosophy. It can be argued that the
question ‘how should one live’ as so strikingly formulated in the Gorgias (492d5), is the central theme
of Plato’s philosophy. The main subject of the Symposium is erôs, but of course with a specific
philosophical focus: how can love, that phenomenon that plays such a central role in both the cosmos
and in human life, contribute to the achievement of the central quest of human beings, to live the good
or even the best life. Implicit is the so-called protreptic argument, namely that all human beings desire
to achieve the state of eudaimonia and the good life, that only philosophy can bring about this state,
that one should therefore change one’s way of life and practise philosophy, and thereby achieve one’s
goal (telos) and become eudaimoon. 12 It is significant that, as we saw, Diotima expounds in her
speech (205a) a key proposition of that argument, namely that in achieving eudaimonia, the
attainment of the highest good, one reaches the end-point of the argument. So, by placing the
protreptic theme so emphatically at the end of four main speeches, and particularly as the climax of
the most important speech, that of Diotima–Socrates, Plato has created a philosophical framework that
gives the theme of love its ultimate place. The themes of aretê and eudaimonia are of course not
exclusively philosophical. It is clever how Plato introduces them right from the start in seemingly
non-philosophical contexts and then gradually deepens them until in the climax of the dialogue they
play a key role.
I also cannot resist returning to my earlier hypothesis about a possible link between the theme
of the telos and the closure of a literary piece, in the case of the Symposium, the speech. As we have
seen, in Diotima’s speech Plato emphasizes both the end of an argument (205a3) and the end of a
quest (210e4) in connection with eudaimonia and the good life. I believe that this connection with the
end may still have played a role in bringing about the striking feature of the speeches that we have
focused on, namely that they end so deliberately with the theme of the goal of human life. Admittedly,
unlike in the Timaeus, there is no direct literary reference to the telos in any of these conclusions, 13
but it seems to me that the conjunction of the two kinds of end may have contributed in the
background.
But there is remains a seventh speech which we have not yet discussed. After Socrates has
finished recounting what he learnt from the priestess Alcibiades bursts in. His quite lengthy speech
falls outside the formal arrangements of the Symposium, but nevertheless it must be seen as the
seventh speech in the dialogue’s sequence. And it too builds up to a climax. Alcibiades returns to the
hollow statues of Silenus as the image of Socrates. These are now ‘truly worthy of a god, bursting
with figures of virtue inside, of great, no indeed of the greatest importance for anyone who wants to
be a truly good man (kalos kagathos) (222a3–6)’. We have here the climax of Alcibiades’ speech,
before he closes with a brief peroration. Plato returns to the theme of aretê now personified in the life
and logoi of Socrates (219d, 221d). This recalls above all the ending of the speech of Pausanias,
where as we saw the role of aretê is central, but also of the other speeches (except that of Agathon 14 )
in which it is explicitly mentioned or implicitly assumed. 15 But here Plato does not go the further step
and have Alcibiades speak of eudaimonia and the good life. I am convinced that this is very
deliberate. Alcibiades comes under Socrates’ sway and feels the attraction of the life of excellence
and virtue, but he does not go the further step of embracing that life, as of course his very behaviour
on that night demonstrates. He stops short of doing what he ought and so the good life promised by
the philosophical life embodied by Socrates will elude him. In a parallel way, too, that is why the final
speech of the dialogue does not exhibit the full-blown conclusion involving eudaimonia and the good
life that we have seen to be a key feature of the majority of speeches preceding it.
Bibliography
A. Nehemas and P. Woodruff, ‘Symposium’ in J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato Complete Works
(Indianapolis 1997) 458–505.
C. J. Rowe, Plato: Symposium (Warminster 1998).
D. T. Runia, Bios eudaimoon (inaugural lecture, Leiden 1993).
F. C. C. Sheffield, ‘The Role of the Earlier Speeches in the Symposium: Plato’s Endoxic Method,’ in
J. H. Lesher and D. Nails (edd.), Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception
12 For this argument see esp. the locus classicus Euthd. 278e–282d. On philosophical protreptic in the fourth century and in
Plato see Slings (1999) 59–164.
13 But note the use of verbs involving the role of τέλος: ἀποτελούµενος 188d6; ἐκτελέσαιµεν 193c4.
14 Agathon only praises the aretai of Erôs, not those of human beings affected by him.
15 See the speech of Phaedrus 180b6; of Pausanias 185b7; of Eryximachus 188d5–6 (moderation and justice); of
Aristophanes 193d4 (piety towards the gods); of Diotima 212a5.
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