[For a more schematic overview of some of the points made here, see the class handout]
Agathon's speech stresses an either/or: between young/old, beautiful/ugly, etc. (consistent with the difference in Greek thought between the beloved and the lover).
This either/or, as the translators point out, is not coincidental: Agathon, the beautiful young poet, who has just won the high honor for his poetry, sits next to ugly old Socrates.
But the inadequacies of Agathon's praise of eros begin to appear as Socrates questions him regarding the character of eros. By briefly analyzing the way in which we use language, Socrates leads Agathon to accepting a definition of eros as desire for what one does not have. This leads to a simple syllogism:
Eros = desire for what one does not have.Eros desires beauty.
therefore, Eros cannot itself be beautiful/have beauty.
This wrests from Agathon the astonishing admission "I did not know what I was talking about," followed by Socrates' comment "But your words were beautiful" - i.e., you did what can do as a poet, create beautiful speeches. But as this philosophical/logical critique demonstrates, the poets cannot always be trusted to tell the truth of things.
In this way, Socrates confirms the distinction he began with, as he suggested that Sophists, poets, and rhetoricians are all skilled in Seeming and persuasion - but not concerned with truth/Being (as he begins by exclaiming his confusion over the speeches - he had thought they were to be truthful praises, not simply apparent). That is, this initial distinction (used in its own right as a rhetorical/persuasive device to gently lead into a critique of Agathon, by ostensibly suggesting how inadequate Socrates will be in speechmaking, if speechmaking has to do with Seeming), is now given substance by Socrates' demonstration - apparently persuasive to Agathon - that Agathon's collection of great adjectives and powers attributable to Eros included at least one falsehood.
Socrates' own skill as a rhetorician suggests that the distinction between poetry and philosophy is not an either/or (as Agathon's own logic would require it to be): rather, the two can cohere. Indeed, as Socrates introduces the figure of Diotima, he not only introduces the first female in the series of speechmakers - one who will articulate the complementary, inclusive logic in her account of Eros that overcomes the deficits of Agathon's account and dualistic logic: he further demonstrates this complementarity as his figure of Diotima is clearly fictive - i.e., Socrates is further a poet, a maker or creator, who crafts the figure of Diotima just as Agathon crafts the characters of his plays. Again, poetry and philosophy are not exclusive, as they would be Agathon (who seems especially interested in excluding Socrates, the old and ugly): rather, they are complementary, at least as handled by Socrates and Diotima.
Diotima [consistent with the religious flavor of her name, "honor of the god"] in turn begins her account to Socrates with a mythos, a mythical geneology regarding the origins of Eros. As the offspring of Poverty and Plenty, Eros is a middle - one who, we should note, is both a "mighty Sophist" as well as a philosopher. (Diotima is likewise compared to a perfect Sophist.) This mythic account coheres with the more directly philosophical understanding of Eros in philosophy: philosophy stands as the love of wisdom, not the possession of wisdom - and hence is a middle between pure ignorance and pure wisdom.
Again, the coherency between the mythic/genological account and the logos - the logical/philosophical - account demonstrates in the content of the speech a complementarity [this time, between a religious-style mythos and a philosophical logos] that defines the shape of Diotima's teaching - as well as the previous complementarities we have seen [Sophistry/poetry/rhetoric :: philosophy]. This complementarity is further apparent as Diotima is the first female introduced back into an otherwise all-male world.
Diotima's account of Eros not only switches from Agathon's dualistic logic - but in doing so results in a much more complex understanding of Eros, including its relation to poetry.
Very briefly, Eros, as the desire for what one does not have is, in mortals, desire for immortality - an immortality that is achieved on three different levels, as Eros seeks its completion on the level of body/appetite (children), spirit (honor, reputation), and reason (issuing in laws, accounts of virtue, etc. - ultimately in the apprehension of Beauty as such.
Over against Agathon's account, in which Eros masters Ares, the god of war (in a classical master/slave hierarchy of power - in Diotima's account, the erotic pursuit of beauty catalyzes poesis [creation/generation], rather than takes poesis as its end-product. (And so, Eros/philosophy is always the midwife of generation - not the direct maker or progenitor.)
And, over against Agathon's account, in which one either wins the battle or loses (and one is either young or old, beautiful or ugly) - as Eros is a drive which, in Diotima's account, works through the three levels of the soul (appetite/spirit/reason), Eros here encompasses all three forms of poesis, arranged on a scale of "good" (body/appetite), "better" (spirit), "best" (reason). Again, rather than forcing upon a choice between poetry and philosophy - Diotima's complementary logic and account of eros issue in an understanding of the philosophic life as one that incorporates the poetic, but not as the centerpiece. It further issues in an account of the philosophical life which begins squarely with the body and appetite: these are affirmed as goods.
[This raises the possibility of a powerful set of critiques of Agathon's account, beyond its apparently lack of truthfulness - especially if we take his account as one that, structured along a hierarchy of power, issues in a choice between the young and beautiful poetic winners of the contest/competition - and all the rest as losers.
This conjunction of competition, power, youth and beauty reminded us current cultural stress on youth and beauty - a stress which, as Naomi Wolfe has powerfully argued, can be extraordinarily damaging for women, whether or not they fit within the cultural ideals of youthful beauty. We observed that this power hierarchy now includes both men and women as people who must be young and beautiful if they are to be "good." Ess commented on the irony of this view. While it may have begun in some way in a 1960's countercultural rejection of what was perceived as a Christian denigration of the body and the sexual - the Playboy/Playgirl celebration of the sexual and the body in an interesting way simply turns the older Christian dualism on its head and in that way remains trapped in the same structure. The structure is destructive in either version - i.e., the "Christian" or the "free love" version - as someone wins and most of the rest lose.]
Some of these observations were fueled by noticing the character of Alcibiades, the intoxicated military man who shows up at the climax (pun intended) of Diotima's speech. Alcibiades is a comic relief, but also an important parody on the account of Eros given by Agathon, first of all as he serves as a comic example of Agathon's claim that Eros conquers Ares.
But as the laughter dies down, the question suggests itself: Alcibiades is comical in that, intoxicated both with alcohol and his desire for Socrates, he simply cannot seem to get past a notion of Eros focused on the body. Part of the comedy here is the image of a drunk general wanting to go to bed with an old and ugly philosopher. But if Agathon's account of Eros is complete and correct - what else can Alcibiades do?
Behind the comedy, then, is the darker suggestion that this is what Agathon's account of Eros can only leave us with - as we grow older and less beautiful, an Eros which can focus solely on body will put us in the comical (but not so comical) position of having to chase around other old and ugly folk.
In this way, Agathon and Alcibiades sandwich Socrates and Diotima's account of Eros - and thereby provide an example of what Ess calls the "M & M peanut" structure of some of the Platonic dialogues. If Socrates and especially Diotima's account are to be taken as the peanut, the kernal which has the most to teach us - they are skillfully woven into a rhetorically powerful "shell," one which eases the transition from the familiar, the popular, the easy (Agathon, Alcibiades) to what is odd, difficult, esoteric.
As such, this suggests again that the dialogue is itself a complementarity, one which consciously and skillfully uses poetry, rhetoric, and perhaps some sophistry along with its philosophical/logical dimensions in order to elucidate the role of Eros in the philosophical life.
It may also not be accidental that it is the character of Diotima who introduces the complementarity logic. There has been research to suggest that men as a group tend to be "hardwired" so as to think primarily in dualistic fashion, while women as a group tend to think primarily in more holistic, complementary ways. Whether Plato would have made the same observation, I have no idea. But in any case, it is important to note that the complementarity at work here extends to gender - over against the overt hostility towards women apparent in the other speakers, a hostility inevitable if we adopt a dualistic logic and presume men are the superior ones.
[This suggest still again a much more "women-friendly" understanding of Eros is provided by Diotima than by Agathon - and, by extension, Diotima's account of Eros may be more satisfying and helpful for men and women together, than Agathon's account, especially in its late 20th ct. incarnations.]
Especially as Diotima stands at the center of the dialogue, however, with her complementarity logic and an account of Eros that conjoins the bodily and the rational/spiritual, the passions with the intellectual, the feminine with the masculine...
what are we to make of postmodern accounts of Western thought in general and Plato in particular which (echoing Nietzsche's critiques of Christianity and at least a Christianized Plato) as exclusively rationalistic, dualist, contemptuous of the body and sexuality, and expressing only a male sense of reason and experience?
Question:
Creativity seems like an end-goal for Nietzsche, whereas it is catalyzed by eros for Diotima/Socrates?
Response: So it seems. Nietzsche sometimes gives the impression that we can punch through the nihilistic phase through a kind of brute force insistence on the power of our own creativity (so as to create our own values, etc.) And there are places in Nietzsche where he clearly rejects the optimism of Diotima's vision (e.g., where he suggests that by leaving the cave, we may emerge - only to discover the inky night above us, i.e., no single guiding sun of knowledge/goodness/truth, or we may simply become ever more lost and isolated in the labyrinth). This would seem to put him closer to Agathon - and it is also true that the implicit mysogyny of Agathon's position is consistent with some remarkably explicitly mysogynist passages in Nietzsche.
But Nietzsche is an extraordinarily complex thinker - it is risky business to assert in a single sentence, "Nietzsche thinks..."