Symposium - AIC

4. εἴπερ τῳ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ
Gerard Boter
Now that we have established that the phrase εἴπερ τῳ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ should
not be taken in an exclusive sense in our passage, we should return to the word ἀνθρώπων in this
phrase. We have already seen that man (ἄνθρωπος) belongs to the class of ζῷα, “living beings”, to
which θηρία, “animals” also belong. The large majority of men become immortal in the same way as
animals, namely by physical procreation. Some people, however, become immortal by intellectual
procreation; at 209c she calls this type of offspring ἀθανατώτεροι παῖδες, “more immortal children”.
Because men become immortal through their offspring, we may conclude that the parents will become
all the more immortal when their offspring is more immortal. So here the scalarity of immortality is
mentioned explicitly. With the philosopher’s offspring we reach the top of the scale. Like some other
men, he produces spiritual offspring. But, just as the spiritual offspring of some is more immortal than
the physical offspring of others, the philosopher’s offspring thus surpasses the spiritual offspring of
others because the philosopher begets this offspring in real beauty, the Form of Beauty itself, and not
in an image of beauty. Therefore the philosopher might rightly be called ἀθανατώτατος, “most
immortal”. Thus the phrase εἴπερ τῳ ἄλλῳ ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτῳ καὶ ἐκείνῳ fulfils the function it
usually does: it indicates an inclusive superlative―the top of the scale. Like others, the philosopher,
being a man, becomes immortal through the offspring he begets and raises. 16
Many scholars have drawn attention to the similarity of the philosopher’s view of the Form of
Beauty in the Symposium and the perfect and eternal view of the Forms by the philosopher’s soul
after death in the Phaedo, when he finally escapes from the cycle of reincarnation. 17 But the
differences between the two dialogues are so great that they prevent us from attributing personal
immortality to the philosopher-lover in the Symposium. For one thing, I have already mentioned that
Diotima speaks about him as a man (ἄνθρωπος) viewing the Form of Beauty, whereas in the Phaedo
the Forms are viewed by the disembodied soul of the philosopher. For another, the relation between
viewing the Forms and virtue in the Symposium is exactly the opposite of the situation in the Phaedo.
In the Symposium the philosopher’s viewing the Form of Beauty enables him to produce real virtue
and thus it precedes virtue; in the Phaedo the possession and practising of real virtue earns him the
reward of viewing the Forms and thus it follows upon viewing the Forms.
5. The immortal Socrates
It is generally assumed that the picture of the philosopher as the perfect lover sketched by Diotima is
put into practice in Alcibiades’ eulogy on Socrates in the next part of the Symposium. 18 I would
suggest that an allusion to the person of the historical Socrates may also be present at the end of
Diotima’s speech itself. What I have in mind is similar to the situation in the Simile of the Cave in the
Republic. There (R. 517a4-6) it is stated about the man who returns into the Cave after having seen
the real world and who tries to free the prisoners and lead them outside the cave, “And if it were
possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they
not kill him?” (Shorey) It has long been recognized that this is an allusion to the fate of Socrates
himself, who was killed by his fellow Athenians. Thus Socrates is made to predict his own death in
the Republic. I suggest that a positive counterpart of this procedure is found in the Symposium. Just as
the philosopher-king, that is Socrates, in the Republic has acquired true knowledge of the Forms, so
the ideal philosopher-lover, that is Socrates, has acquired true knowledge of the Form of Beauty. And
his contact with the Form of Beauty has enabled him to give birth to true virtue. The true virtue,
therefore, alludes to Socrates’ perfect philosophy of virtue. This true virtue, being the most immortal
offspring imaginable, will make him immortal.
Both the Phaedo and the Symposium can be regarded as monuments for Socrates. They might
be said to constitute a diptych. In the Phaedo the man Socrates is about to die. The dialogue
unsterblich sein”; Chambry, “Or c’est à celui (...) qu’il appartient (...) et, si jamais homme devient immortel, de le devenir lui
aussi.” Lamb’s translation, “he, above all men, is immortal”, makes the superlative meaning of the phrase explicit.
16 What happens to the philosopher’s soul (or, for that matter, to anybody’s soul) after death is not mentioned at all in the
Symposium. As to Plato’s opinion on the immortality of the soul at the time he wrote the Symposium, I concur with those
scholars who claim that this doctrine is nowhere contradicted in the Symposium; it just plays no role in this dialogue. See for
instance Kahn 2003, 300-301; Sedley 2009, 159. Kahn convincingly speaks about the “autonomy” of the Platonic dialogue.
17 See, e.g., Sier 1997, 187: “Diotima läßt ihre Rede, mehr andeutend als ausführend und in einem gewissen mythischen
Halbdunkel mit einem Motiv ausklingen, das gleichsam die Abbreviatur eines eschatologischen Mythos darstallt, wie er
gegen Ende von Gorgias, Phaidon und Politeia begegnet.” See also Fierro 2001, 36-41; Sedley 2009, 160.
18 See, e.g., Hunter 2004, 99 with references.
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