The Ocean of the Beautiful
J. Prescott Johnson, Ph.D.
Northwestern University
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Monmouth College (IL)
Introduction
The Symposium is a masterpiece of art that unveils and interprets the meaning of life. Even at the distance of twenty-three centuries we hear the tone of the speakers, first in the ripple of their speech, and then in their eloquence.
The theme of the narrative is the passion of personal love. Plato shows, in eloquent language, how human kind is subject to the sway of bodily beauty. It is a reflection of an eternal and immutable beauty, perceived not with the eye but with the mind. He show that there is a victory over the lower elements of the love-passion and opens the way to a pursuit of beauty on higher and higher levels until in a sudden flash its ultimate and rewarding essence is revealed. We may pass with ever wakening and widening powers to the contemplation of invisible, eternal verity.
The Symposium stands out from even the best writings of Plato as a marvel of artistic ease and grace. The translations have frequently succeeded in presenting his vivid picture of the social manners of ancient Greece, and much of the beauty his eloquence; but they have failed to transmit his brilliant characterization of the individual speakers in the style of their addresses.
The date of the opening address is about 400 B.C. ; the banquet itself was in 416 B.C.
The Symposium
Apollodorus tells his comrades how he heard about the Banquet
The banquet was held on the occasion of Agathon’s celebration of the writing of his first tragedy. His friends are gathered to hear how his speeches were received.
How Aristodemus fell in wit Socrates and came to the banquet.
The two were on their way to the banquet. Socrates was absorbed in his thoughts and fell behind. Aristodemus began to wait for Socrates. Socrates then told him to go ahead. The people who were present then asked the host to bring Socrates to the group. Agathon, another friend, asked Socrates to sit with him at the dining table, so that he, Agathon, might gain some wisdom.
After dinner, they made a libation and sang a chant to the god. Pausanius, another of the group, inquired as to the best method of drinking, because earlier they had imbibed profusely. The conclusion was reached that all should make their own decision concerning the amount to drink.
Then all of them, on hearing this, consented not to make their present meeting a tipsy affair, but to drink just as it might serve their pleasure (Symposium 176E)
Then another in the group, Eryximachus, proposed that they engage in conversation, which they did.
Eryximachus proposes the Theme of Love.
Eryximachus opened his remarks by saying
Is it not a curious thing . . . while other gods have hymns and psalms indited in their honour by the poets, the god of Love, so ancient and so great, has no song of praise composed for him by a single one of the many poets that ever have been? (Ibid., 177B).
The Speech of Phaedrus.
The speech honors the power of love. “Thus is by various authorities allowed to be of most venerable standing; and as most venerable, he is the cause of our highest blessings” (Ibid., 178C).
So there is my description of Love–that he is the most venerable and valuable of the gods, and has sovereign power to provide all virtue and happiness for men whether living or departed” (Ibid., 179B).
The Speech of Pausanius.
The main point of his speech is that Love is not one element. There are many kinds of love. Therefore, we must specify the kind of love that is most valuable and supreme. Love is noble or worthy of celebration only if it impels us to love in a noble manner (Ibid., 180C).
Thus worthy love abides throughout life, as the lovers are fused into one with the abiding (Ibid., 183A).
The Speech of Eryximachus.
In Symposium, beginning with 201D, Socrates speaks, recounting Diotima’s ( Διoτίμα) discourse in love, which he heard. She is a Mantinean woman. Socrates is recounting, first, her remarks about the nature of love, and, second, of the works of love.
Love may not, however, possess beautiful things. It may but desire beautiful things, which love lacks and yearns for. Love, Diotime continues, is a great spirit : “for the whole of the spiritual (τ δαιμόvιov) is between divine and mortal” (Symposium, 202E).
The power of love, she continues:
Interpreting and transforming divine things to the gods and human things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above: being midway between, it makes each to supplement the other, so that the whole combined in one. . . . God with man does not mingle: but the spiritual is the means of all society …” (202E).
There is the question concerning the origin of love. It is a very strange story. The gods made a great feast to celebrate the birth of Aphrodite. Among the guests was Resource, the son of Cunning. Soon Poverty joined the company. To assuage her poverty, she had sexual intercourse with Resource. Thus love was born. However, as a result of this union, love has incompatible aspects that cannot be reconciled. From his father he was poor and far from tender or beautiful; from his mother he ever dwells with want.
. . . so that Love is at no time either resourceless or wealthy, and furthermore, he stands midway between wisdom and ignorance. The position is this: no gods ensure wisdom or desire to be made wise; such they are already; nor does any one else that is wise ensure it. Neither do the ignorant ensure wisdom nor desire to be made wise: in this very point is ignorance distressing, that a person who is not enlightened or intelligent should be satisfied with himself. The man who does not feel himself to be defective has no desire for that whereof he feels no defect.
Socrates then asked this question: “Who, then, are the followers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the ignorant” (Ibid., 204A). She replied:
They are the intermediate sort, and amongst these also is Love. For wisdom has to do with the fairest things, and Love is a love directed to what is fair; so that Love must needs be a friend of wisdom, and, as such, must between be wise and ignorant (Ibid., 204B.)
Socrates then asks: “But if Love is such as you describe him, of what use is he to mankind? (Ibid. C). Diotima replies that Love is set on beautiful things. This implies a further question, which is what does one have when he gets beautiful things? She then informs Socrates of a remarkable process that all desire. It is the process of bringing beauty into the affairs of humankind.
It is a divine affair, this engendering and bringing to birth, an immortal element in the creature that is mortal. . . . and hence it is that when the pregnant approaches the beautiful it becomes not only gracious but so exhilarate, that it flows over with begetting and bringing forth (Ibid., 206C)
The begetting of the beautiful is not only physical, it is also spiritual. There are things that must be born and reborn, a begetting of the things “that are proper for soul to conceive and bring forth” (Ibid., 209A). These are things that concern “the regulation of cities and habitations; it is called sobriety and justice” (Ibid, ).
Finally, this begetting of the beautiful as properly informing society brings to the citizenry “a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature” (Ibid. 210E). It is eternal in its nature, it is altogether beautiful,
When one begins to “descry that beauty he is almost able to lay hold of the final secret. Such is the right approach or induction to love-matters” (Ibid., 211C).
There is a vision of souls. It is the supreme vison. It involves:
And turning rather towards the main ocean of the beautiful may by contemplation of this bring forth in all their splendour many fair fruits of discourse and meditation in a plenteous crop of philosophy: until with the strength and increase there acquired he descries a single knowledge connected with a beauty which has yet to be told. … Suddenly he will have revealed to him, as he draws to the close of his dealings in love, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature. First of all, it is ever existent, and neither comes to be nor perishes, neither waxes nor wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and in part ugly; nor is it such at such at such a time and other at another, nor in one respect beautiful and in another ugly, nor so affected by position as to seem beautiful to some and ugly to others; but existing ever in singularity of form independent by itself. So when a man . . .begins to descry that beauty, he is almost able to lay hold of the final secret. . . . So when he has begotten a true virtue and ha reared it up he is destined to win the friendship of heaven; he above all men, is immortal (Ibid., 211A-C).
Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates.
He remarks that Socrates’ excellent way of speaking is even greater than that of Pericles That is indeed a fine compliment.