Symposium - AIC

ABSTRACT
The Kind of Knowledge Virtue Is:
Rational Ecstasy in Plato’s Symposium
Kendall Sharp
At the close of Plato’s Symposium, Socrates is seen “compelling [Agathon and Aristophanes] to agree
that it belongs to the same man to know how to make [epistasthai poein] comedy and tragedy, and the
man who is a tragedy-maker by technê is also a comedy-maker” (223d). This scene evokes Socrates’
argument, from Ion, that the poets’ knowledge is not a technê but a divine gift. Two other dialogues,
Protagoras and Meno, also end on the related theme that virtue, although knowledge, cannot be taught
by instruction like technê-knowledge (Protagoras), and comes to people by divine gift (Meno). Yet
Socrates in Ion and Phaedrus describes divinely inspired knowledge as a type of mania. Two urgent
questions thus arise: If not by instruction, then how do humans acquire by divine gift the knowledge
that is virtue? Second, if this knowledge comes by divine gift, then why is virtue not a type of
madness? In this paper, I argue that by concluding with this scene, Plato associates Symposium with
these questions, and indicates that he has answered them in the speeches of Socrates and Alcibiades.
In these speeches, Plato sets forth a picture about the kind of divinely inspired knowledge virtue is,
and about Socrates’ role in helping others obtain it by divine gift and become virtuous.
The picture emerges when the two speeches are read in light of our two questions. While
virtue is not technê-knowledge, Socrates claims another type of knowledge, which he calls “ta
erôtika” (Smp. 177d, 198d). Socrates’ speech can be read as answering our two questions by
describing this erotic knowledge. This knowledge fits the bill because it comes by divine gift (Lysis
204bc), but leaves its recipients in their right minds nevertheless, for it results in part from extensive
training in rational discourse (logoi) (Smp. 210a-d). Alcibiades in his speech makes clear that this
training in rational discourse consists in precisely Socrates’ characteristic conversational practice. He
also displays the non-technê, divine aspect of this knowledge in his own experience of it. Not only
does he inadvertently echo Socrates’ use of metaphors from the mystery religions. Alcibiades’ speech
also connects Socrates’ eulogy of Eros to his model in Ion for sharing divine inspiration. In that
dialogue, Socrates describes how the poet’s divine inspiration is obtained, not through instruction like
a technê, but during moments of personal contact with one who already possesses the gift (535e-
536d). This matches very closely how Alcibiades describes the beneficial influence of Socrates on
himself, as turning him to philosophy only when he is in Socrates’ presence. When he is not with
Socrates, this beneficial influence fades, and Alcibiades’ focus shifts back to his more usual political
ambitions (216a-b). If Socrates’ speech is understood as answering our two questions, then the
knowledge that is virtue is erotic knowledge of to kalon. At different degrees of initiation, this
knowledge comes by divine gift to those who philosophize, but only after the soul is prepared by
training in the rational logoi of Socrates’ conversational practice (210a-e).