It’s probably significant that Classical Greek has no exact equivalent for our word ‘love’. English gets by with a single, overworked monosyllable, but the Greeks subcontracted out the various nuances to three or four different words. So there’s agapē, for one, which connotes a higher, more ethereal sort of affection; not surprisingly, it turns up a lot in the New Testament. Another is philia, which is what you feel for a friend, say, or a favourite TV show. And finally there’s the notorious eros, the down and dirty kind of love, with the grunting and the moaning.

Does all this semantic delegating mean that the Greeks were better at emotional compartmentalization than we are? I doubt it, but it might mean they were better at conceptual compartmentalization. There’s an old theory that the Greek language was uniquely adapted to philosophical speculation. Heidegger subscribed to this notion, I believe, though he also awarded German an honourable mention (naturally).

The Symposium, then, is all about eros. So when you read it in English, and the word ‘love’ keeps popping up, you have to remember they’re mostly talking about s-e-x. Not exclusively, but a lot of the time.

But enough highbrow chitchat. Now for some ethnic humour.

Q: How do they separate the men from the boys in Greece?
A: With a crowbar.

Now, I wouldn’t want to generalize on the basis of a dumb joke, but it’s well known that all Greek men are pederasts. Fact. This is another thing to keep in mind about the Symposium. By and large, it’s not concerned with sweet, romantic boy-girl love. It’s more about sweaty, angry, man-boy love. Bathhouse love. Just a word of warning in case you’re turning to Plato for Cosmo-style relationship advice. Unless you’re a member of NAMBLA, you’d best look elsewhere. (I can’t believe I just googled ‘man-boy love’ to find that acronym. Mental note: delete search history).

Yet, despite (what I think of as) my raging heterosexuality, I consider Alcibiades’ speech at the end of the Symposium one of the most moving passages in Greek literature. Not only is it a sly, ironic treatment of the eros theme; it’s also a vivid portrait of Socrates the man, in all his oddness and nobility.

The way Plato sets it up is kind of beautiful. Socrates and his drinking buddies have been holding a long, civilized debate about the nature of love. Just when everyone’s getting a bit groggy, Alcibiades, the handsome playboy, crashes the party. He’s drunk off his ass, with a laurel wreath set jauntily on his head and a bevy of flute girls attending him. He’s talking too loud and being a bit of a jerk. Hijacking the conversation, he demands the floor and, with a drunk’s honesty, tells the story of the hopeless crush he had on Socrates years before. In his youth, Alcibiades had been your standard Mediterranean boy toy—he was hot and he knew it. So he throws himself at Socrates, hoping to trade on his good looks in return for intellectual guidance. Socrates, however, just smiles indulgently, gives him a paternal pat on the shoulder and sends him on his way. Wtf, dude? is Alcibiades’ reaction, in so many words.

There’s a lot more to the speech (including an interesting bit about how Socrates once saved Alcibiades’ life on the battlefield) but that’s the emotional kernel. It’s a great monologue, half-mocking and half-affectionate, and by the end of it Alcibiades has them rolling in the aisles. It’s pretty clear to everybody, though, that he’s still ruefully in love with the old guy.

And that’s about it. The party breaks up near dawn, with only Socrates and a couple of others staying behind. His companions are nodding off, but Socrates is still in full flow. The last thing they remember before falling asleep is Socrates explaining that it should be possible for the same man to write a great tragedy and a great comedy. Finally, he covers the others up with a blanket, tiptoes out, goes to the Lyceum for a shvitz, and “then spends the rest of the day in his ordinary fashion,” no worse for the wear. It’s a perfect ending. It’s Shane riding away; it’s Rick and Captain Renault walking into the fog together; it’s Judd Nelson traipsing across the football field. Gets me every time, damn it.

Loeb Classical Library No. 166

The symposium is Greek for "kegger", and Gorgias is my favorite Plato. Callicles is arguably his best character. You'll find Plato hilarious if you catch his subtle jokes. The Greek text is included in this edition, should you aspire to become a scholar.

Read Lysis from this translation.

Absolutely brilliant—Plato is famous for his condemnation of the poets in 'The Republic’—'The Symposium' is what, for me, refines his point. Plato is not some vulgar crank who can’t afford an appreciation for anything but the practical. Plato may have burned all of his plays upon meeting Socrates, but, let’s keep in mind, his dialogues are an everlasting achievement which serve as testimony to to what art can achieve. If there were an aesthetic treatise composed by Plato, ‘The Symposium’ is it—and gives us proof of Schiller and Hegel’s own reflections on aesthetics as firmly in the footsteps of Plato, in my humble opinion.

For Hegel, art (or anything we may call civilization… or what Zupančič understands as “sexuality") results from an attempt to erase the gap between the subject and their world… this is hardly far from what Plato argues, though using a different language. For Plato, work which produces the Beautiful as a result of cultivation of an education is the closest thing mortals have to immortality.

Before we get into specifics, let’s treat the dialogues contained here (Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias). What all three dialogues have in common is more broadly their familiar theme of rejecting eulogy in favor of speculative reason… but in terms of content, they all eventually find themselves treating Love and friendship. Our first dialogue, Lysis, is a classic aporetic dialogue. The construction of the dialogue is pretty interesting (the two friends are separated and reunited midway through, possibly symbolizing the ephemerality of their young friendship) though just the tip of the iceberg. What we establish in Lysis is that a formula for Love or friendship which would try to pin it down to “correct” definition fails to articulate any sort of reality as to what Love really is. It isn’t “having things in common,” or, “opposites attract.” For a real deep look at Love we must move on to ‘The Symposium.'

‘The Symposium’ famously contains speeches about Love—I’d be willing to be that Aristophanes’ bizarre and colorful theory on love as a reuniting of two halves which were once a whole is even more well-known than Socrates’ own. The dialogue opens with Socrates being invited to a symposium… and Socrates’ mysterious disappearance at the beginning of the dialogue (which, to be frank, was a detail I cannot make much of). The guests proceed to eulogize love without really thinking about what Love *is*. Of course, it is left to Socrates to make this clear. Socrates points out that all expositions on Love had thus far been centered around a conception which waxed poetic on the beauties and virtues of the beloved; his own attempt, rather, emphasizes that Love takes after the lover, not the beloved, or a worship of that which *is* beautiful. It is the lover in their restless activity who is responsible for the dynamism and movement of spirit in the *act* of loving. Love is never for the sake of the beloved, but a relationship which disturbs a literal reading of the beloved that, in turn, disturbs the Lover and their world. The lover moves beyond voracious desire which would eliminate the love object—instead, Love occurs for its own sake. From the dialogue itself—


“Every mortal thing is preserved in this way ; not by keeping it exactly the same for ever, like the divine, but by replacing what goes off or is antiquated with something fresh, in the semblance of the original. Through this device, Socrates, a mortal thing partakes of immortality, both in its body and in all other respects ; by no other means can it be done. So do now wonder if everything naturally values its own offshoot ; since all are beset by this eagerness and this love with a view to immortality.”


His illustration of this is most beautifully rendered with a myth that centers on a celebration the gods hold in honor of the birth of Aphrodite. Socrates claims this myth was told to him by Diotima. According to Diotima, a feast was held in which Love was begat by Resource (as he slept) and Poverty. As a result, Love has the qualities of both his father (Resource) and his mother (Poverty). Love is thus always poor yet always “scheming for all that is beautiful and good” like his father. Significantly, Love is neither mortal nor immortal… as Socrates would go on to say, “for the whole of the spiritual is between divine and mortal.” Through the practice of aesthetics, mysterious agencies and influences by which the gods communicate with mortals beget what we recognize as the beautiful. Thus, as stated earlier, Love is not enthusiasm for the beautiful (what we might call taste) but the *engendering* and *begetting* upon the beautiful. This begetting of the beautiful is the only stab at immortality available to mortals.

'Gorgias', at first, seems to bear little relation to ‘Lysis’ and ‘The Symposium.’ By the end, however, we come around full circle. First, there is a structural similarity in the rejection of eulogy, as when Socrates remarks to Polus—“[…] when Chaerephon has asked in what art Gorgias is skilled, you merely eulogize his art as thought it were under some censure, instead of replying what is is.” It is discovered that Rhetoric as an art may be in the service of injustice and is no proper education al all.

In his debating Gorgias and Polus on the virtues of teaching rhetoric, things go smoothly enough without any real hiccups. Things *really* come to a head when Socrates brings out his famous line that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong—Callicles, our typical libertarian Athenian democrat will have none of it, insisting that this is nonsense… and that the only reason Socrates seemed to “convince” Polus and Gorgias earlier was their being polite in their answering. Callicles manner of argumentation is extremely aggressive and hostile at times. He seems easily swept up in passion, which is a reflection on his quality of argument, one which essentially confuses pleasure (individual accounts) and good (social accounts). Socrates goes as far as to say that to wrong someone is “more of a disgrace than an evil” and that those who commit wrongs do so only “against their will.”

I think it requires some nuance to understand the full weight of what’s being said here. These are not just statements meant to propel the dialogue. I think that the worth of saying that the pursuit of pleasure is against the will of the actor is tantamount to saying that the actor does not always know themself—and I think it’s true that the most profound philosophical questions stem those who are willing to admit that there is a split within themselves that prevents a full possession of oneself. This for me is *the* philosophical position par excellence.

We are finally brought around to the conclusion which brings us back to our similar theme of friendship. All humankind benefits from living as amongst friends, and it is in the greater interest that we do so. This requires that we distinguish pleasure from what is truly Good. In Socrates’ own words—


“And wise men tell us, Callicles, that heaven and earth and gods and men are held together by communion and friendship, by orderliness, temperance, and justice ; and that is the reason, my friend, why they call the whole of this world by the name of order, not of disorder or dissoluteness.”


It was so much fun revisiting these dialogues. It had been years since my initial reading. Being able to make connections between ‘Lysis,’ ‘The Symposium,’ and ‘Gorgias’ and what I’ve been reading in the past few years was very enjoyable. I am looking forward to future visits!

very nice

3½ out of 5 stars

I can hardly suppose that you will affirm a man to be a good poet who injures himself by his poetry.

(from Lysis)