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The Transition from the Lower to the Higher Mysteries of Love in Plato's Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Cristina Ionescu
Cristina Ionescu
Affiliation:
Campion College, University of Regina
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Abstract

In the Symposium Socrates shows how Diotima initiated him into the mysteries of love in two stages. Yet, at first sight, the teachings offered at the two stages seem divergent and discontinuous. In this article I argue that we can understand the continuity between them if we regard Diotima's notions of spiritual pregnancy and birth-giving as metaphors suggesting that the metaphysical horizon looming in the background of her teaching is that of Plato's theory of recollection.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , Winter 2007 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2007

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References

Notes

1 Plato, , Symposium, translated by Nehamas, A. and Woodruff, P., in Plato, Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997)Google Scholar. All my quotations from the Symposium use this translation.

2 See Irwin, T., Plato's Moral Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 171Google Scholar. For the opposite view see, for instance, Anderson, Daniel E., The Masks of Dionysos (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993), p. 85Google Scholar, and Lowenstam, Steven, “Paradoxes in Plato's Symposium” Ramus, 14 (1985): 85–104, esp. p. 95.Google Scholar

3 This claim is consistent with recognizing that there are strong dramatic reasons why Plato chooses to present his conception of recollection in mythical form where he does so. For a fuller discussion of this issue in the Meno, see my article, “The Mythical Introduction of Recollection in the Meno (81a5–e2),” Journal of Philosophical Research, 31 (2006): 153–70.Google Scholar

4 Not all scholars agree that from this point on Diotima's talk is about desire generally. Some argue that, after defining human desire generally as “wanting to possess the good forever” (206a11–12), Diotima returns to desire in the restricted sense of sexual desire. On this view, Diotima's definition of eros as “giving birth in beauty” (206b7–8) refers exclusively to sexual desire and all the rest of her teaching, including the higher mysteries, deal exclusively with eros in the restricted or specific sense of erotic desire. The main argument for this view is that at 206b3 Diotima refers to eros as what would be called eros (eros an kaloito), and this corresponds to a similar phrase that she used when talking about common linguistic abuses, whereby the name of a genus is applied to just one of its species (205c). In that earlier context Diotima distinguished between what eros really is and what is commonly called eros, equating the latter with sexual desire. For supporters of this view, see Ferrari, G. R. F., “Platonic Love,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, edited by Kraut, R. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 254–55Google Scholar (Ferrari however argues that, although the definition at 206b applies to specific eros, generic eros returns in Diotima's speech at the level of the higher mysteries); Santas, G., “Plato's Theory of Eros in the Symposium,” in Plato and Freud (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 14–57, esp. pp. 34–39Google Scholar; Stokes, M., Plato's Socratic Conversations (London: Athlone Press, 1986), p. 160Google Scholar; and Waterfield, R., Plato: Symposium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 84Google Scholar. I believe there is an alternative and possibly more suitable way to account for Diotima's reference to what would be called eros at 206b3. The context of the discussion all the way through to 209e corresponds to an initial stage of initiation, the lower mysteries. At this level Diotima deals with our common conceptions of desire generally (including, but not restricted to, sexual desire), while, at the next level, the ultimate revelation (210a–212b), she will deal with the proper conception of it. For Diotima, who is already wise and initiated into the higher mysteries, the view exposed at the initial stage will always remain a less than adequate conception of desire generally and is therefore naturally referred to as what might be called eros (206b3). The broader context of the dialogue suggests a possible parallel between the conception of virtue produced at the level of the lower mysteries, and based on the less adequate conception of desire generally, and what Socrates calls in the Phaedo (68d–69b, 82a–b) and the Republic (430a–c, 500d8) civic or demotic virtue, on the one hand, and between the conception of virtue reached at the peak of the ladder of love (212a3–7), and based on the adequate conception of desire, and what the Phaedo and the Republic call true virtue. Correspondingly then, the lower mysteries deal with human desire generally as it is understood at the level of our common conceptions, while the higher mysteries talk about human desire generally, when properly understood.

5 This does not imply that Plato necessarily envisioned a change in the reproductive dynamic from the biological to the spiritual level. it is very plausible that Plato himself might have shared his contemporaries' belief that “the whole of the child's body comes from the father and all the mother has to do is to provide a temporary receptacle in which it grows like a seed in the earth” (Morrison, J. S., “Four Notes on Plato's Symposium,” Classical Quarterly, 14 [1964]: 42–55, esp. p. 54)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On this view, we can talk literally of male pregnancy and the male's pangs of childbirth at the biological as well as the spiritual level.

6 For a similar understanding of the relation between the preliminary (artistic and athletic) and the more advanced (mathematical and dialectical) stages of the educational curriculum designed in the Republic, see Gill, Christopher, “Plato's Republic: An Ideal Culture of Knowledge,” in Ideal and Culture of Knowledge in Plato, edited by Detel, W., Becker, A., and Scholz, P. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003), pp. 37–55.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Phaedo 73a–b, 75a, 75b–eGoogle Scholar; Phaedrus 249bGoogle Scholar; and Meno 82b–86b.Google Scholar

8 For an insightful and detailed exposition and analysis of this view, see Dorter, Kenneth, Plato's Phaedo: An Interpretation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), pp. 65–69.Google Scholar

9 The Meno and the Phaedrus emphasize recollection; the Symposium, the Republic, and the Timaeus emphasize purification. The Phaedo presents both purification (63e–69e) and recollection (72e–76a) explicitly and with relatively equal emphasis (see Dorter, Plato's Phaedo).

10 However, this is not to say that the Symposium recommends the clarity of Apollonian reason at the expense of all Dionysian passion and frenzy. In fact, there are clear indications that philosophy combines both the asceticism of reason and the emotional passion of a lover once his emotions have been redirected to their proper goal. I offer evidence for this view in what follows.

11 Additional evidence for Plato's suggestion that Dionysian, emotional aspects are a necessary component of the account of love elaborated in the Symposium comes also from: Diotima's frequent employment of variants of the word telete (“initiation”) typical of Dionysian mystery rites (see, for example, Burkert, W., Ancient Mystery Cults [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987], p. 9)Google Scholar; Alcibiades' portrait of Socrates, which likens him to a Silenus with his pipes, and to Marsyas, who challenges Apollo (215a–217a); and Alcibiades' reference to the Bacchic, frenzied quality of philosophy (218a–b). For excellent accounts of these and a variety of other Dionysian aspects present throughout the Symposium, see Robinson, Steven, “The Contest of Wisdom between Socrates and Agathon in Plato's Symposium,” Ancient Philosophy, 24 (2004) 81–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sider, David, “Plato's Symposium as Dionysian Festival,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, 4 (1980): 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For a similar conception, see also Republic 485d–e.Google Scholar

13 See, for instance, Crombie, I. M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrines, Vol. 1, (New York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. 162ffGoogle Scholar; Rowe, Christopher, “Socrates and Diotima,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, 14 (1998): 239–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich, Platon, Vol. 2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1920), pp. 171, 173.Google Scholar

14 For a detailed analysis of the inadequate conceptions of love defended prior to Socrates' speech, see Dorter, Kenneth, “A Dual Dialectic in the Symposium,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, 25, 3 (1992): 253–69.Google Scholar

15 The Symposium seems thus to illustrate the view defended in the Phaedrus, i.e., that persuasive discourses pertaining to philosophical rhetoric are built on two conditions: first, the rhetorician must have good knowledge of the souls of his audience so that he may decide what form of discourse will effect the desired result on the respective types of soul; and, second, the rhetorician must be familiar with the background beliefs of his audience (Phaedrus 271b1–5).Google Scholar