In any event, I'll post basically the paper I read, I made some minor changes while I was waiting to speak, but apparently its going to be podcasted, so if I can share it, you can live the moment with my sooth man voice.
as far as the experience went, I had a pretty decent time. It was nice to see people out there that cared about education, but there were some who maybe cared too much. The academic world definitely has its claws in some kind of intellectual superiority, and I know that they hang on for dear (useful) life. It was disheartening to see some colleagues or professors who portrayed this attitude. This complaint however, is overshadowed by the time spent with my friends. The people's company who I did enjoy were absolutely wonderful. I not only feel I have great friends, but incredibly brave and intelligent friends. There was a nervousness that you could tell was pressuring us all, and I think we all shone through that haze.
Anyway, I would like to dedicate this paper to my dear friend A, my other friends who attended the conference as a whole, and for everyone who is pursuing a passion for their soul over their body.
After the trial and death of Socrates, it is very reasonable to think that Plato became all-too aware of the dangers that came with philosophy. Instead of Socrates' open critical conversation in the Athenian marketplace, Plato moved his philosophy to a school where he, among other things, took to creating the Socratic dialogues either in homage to his teacher or to use his him as a character to further his own view point – the jury is still out on this subject, and not my scope here. At the Academy, Plato was able to create a physical barrier from the rest of civilization, separating himself from the same people who had prosecuted Socrates. To create further separation, Plato concentrated on the medium of written work, affording him the option of being selective in his audience, but more importantly allowing room for the use of irony. In using irony, what Plato wanted to say was right in front of the reader without actually being written. In the written and ironic format philosophy could be safer.
In this paper there is presented a general sense that philosophy is threatened by the state. I will specifically argue, by exploring the irony in his Symposium Plato presents the defense of both his and Socrates' cause of philosophy, and implicitly if I can be so bold, my cause as well.
If we believe the account in Plato’s Apology, one of the major charges brought against Socrates was that he did not believe in the gods of the city. Prior to this charge, he is accused of corrupting the youth. According to Socrates, this charge arises out of his quest to find someone wiser than he. Chaerophon, or so the story goes, asked the Oracle at Delphi if there was anyone wiser than Socrates. Believing that all he knew was that he actually knows nothing, Socrates went to investigate this claim of the oracle. He sought out the orators, politicians, poets, and craftsmen who appeared wise, they turned out to not know anything worthwhile, but unlike Socrates they thought they knew what they did not. He questioned them all, to see if one was wiser than himself. Showing that the Athenians were assuming they had knowledge they did not made Socrates both a very unpopular man, but it also gained him some fans. The rich youth took pleasure in hearing people questioned, so much so they began to imitate Socrates and did some questioning of their own. These youth then were seen as corrupted, and furthermore presented to the Athenians that Socrates was teaching them not to believe in the gods of the city. Meletus, one of his prosecutors agrees that Socrates believes in spirits though. It begs the question as to how Socrates can believe in spirits, or children of the gods, but not believe in gods themselves. It seems that the defense Socrates raises in the Apology is sufficient for his accusations, but after it fails, something else needs to be said, and that something will come from Plato. The Symposium literally means drinking together and this event would have a leader who suggested toasts, and there would be some ordered drinking. In this specific instance, the poet Agathon has just won his first dramatic contest and is celebrating with a symposium, where the topic for the evening is suggested: praise of Eros, or the god of love.
The Symposium is an appropriate pretense for the defense of philosophy – in the guise of a discussion about love, philosophy, ironically proves to be the epitome of love. The initial speakers do their best to praise Eros, the god of love; however, they all misrepresent the nature of love. All the speakers presume, just as Socrates did when he was younger, that “Love was being loved, rather than being a lover.” Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon are all guilty of praising, or making up, the effects that love grants men, whereas Socrates’ search for the truth begins with the qualities that love actually possesses. After the speech of Agathon, in typical Socrates style, he must get a few acceptable premises established. Socrates begins with Agathon, asking him if Love is the love of something or of nothing. Agathon agrees that Love is the love of something, from there it is agreed that Love also desires that which it loves. If Love desires that which it loves, then it must be the case that it does not currently have what it desires. Desiring something that one already owns can only be done for the sake of continuing that ownership. Drawing on Agathon’s speech, Socrates establishes the type of things Love desires, namely, beautiful things. Incorporated into beautiful things are also good things. It stands to reason that if Love desires good and beautiful things then Love does not have them. From here, Socrates turns to a supposed speech that a Mantinean woman gave him when he was young; when he had the same ideas that the speakers before him had about Love.
While the existence of the actual symposium taking place is at least doubtable, as the cast of speakers is highly unlikely to have gotten along so well, or even be in Athens together. The Symposium is told from the perspective of Apollodorus, who heard the account from another person, this type of indirect approach to the dialogue occurs in another one of Plato’s works, the Parmenides, which could not have possibly taken place. It is quite possibly, and more than likely that the event never took place, so the speeches are Plato’s inventions. The conversation between Socrates and Diotima that supposedly took place is in more doubt. While Diotima’s existence is only suggested to us by Socrates’ account here, it is more telling of her creation that “she” alludes to a view just presented by Aristophanes moments before. The significance of this allusion is that more than likely, even if Diotima existed, what she is represented to have said here was not composed before the party took place. For convenience sake, the story of Diotima is to be taken as a heuristic device of Socrates or Plato. When Socrates faced this logic his initial reaction was to assume that since Love did not possess beauty or goodness that he was ugly. “Don’t force whatever is not beautiful to be ugly, or whatever is not good to be bad” Diotima tells Socrates, “Yet everyone agrees he’s a great god,” he replies in the tone of the speakers before him. If Love is to be a great god, it must be the case, that like all gods, he is beautiful and possesses good things. Since Love does not possess beautiful and good things, it must be the case that Love is not a great god, but it is also not the case that he is mortal. Love is a spirit, in-between the mortal and immortal, a messenger that rounds out the differences and binds all to all.
While there is a lot to be said about the Symposium, the forcefulness of irony comes from Diotima’s speech to Socrates about the genealogy of Love. “When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a celebration,” Diotima begins, at this celebration Poros the god of resourcefulness got drunk and fell asleep in the garden of Zeus, and then Penia the goddess of poverty looking to relieve her lack of resources became pregnant by Poros – the child was Love. This genealogy connotes many things, like the reason for Love to always follow Aphrodite or beauty, and why he is neither mortal nor immortal, but most importantly his physical appearance. As the son of poverty, he is always poor, far from being delicate and beautiful, and he is tough, shriveled, shoeless, and always in need. According to the Platonic dialogues, Socrates was nowhere near a beautiful person, he was old or shriveled, he was poor, shoeless and tough, and he was always in need. These characteristics of Love’s mother’s side ring true with Socrates’ physical description, but what about the resourceful parent? On his father’s side, he is a schemer after the beautiful and good, brave, and resourceful in his pursuit of intelligence. This side of Love most emphatically resembles Socrates; however, one last comparison remains. Love, like being in-between mortality and immortality is also in-between wisdom and ignorance. The immortal gods are already in possession of wisdom and therefore do not desire it, and the mortal ignorant do not desire to become wise for they are content in their ignorance and do not desire what they do not think they need, so Love is in-between wisdom and ignorance, and as such he loves, he desires wisdom. Love is philosophon, he is a lover of wisdom, that is to say, a philosopher.
Though the state prosecuted and killed Socrates for impiety, even after the defense he supposedly raised in the Apology was logical enough to acquit the charges, it was not enough to save his life. Plato, I think, wanted to show the Athenians, without actually saying it, that not only was the charge of impiety false, but it was backwards. Only by using the written work and in using irony could Plato safely get away with this rebellion. Of course Plato would not equate Socrates to a god, but by making philosophy a spirit that connected to the divine, Plato is saying that philosophy and Socrates are the epitome of piety. Much like the Athenians, the speakers gave a false account of the god that they worshipped, and Plato uses Socrates’ to contrast that with his proper philosophical account. The irony presented in the Symposium suggests that the Athenians, who threatened philosophy, pushed it aside as useless, and killed off its most notable figurehead, are the ones with impiety.
