EROTIC PAIDEIA IN PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM [33]

Introduction

It is generally accepted that Erôs is a central theme of Plato’s Symposium, but it is not so obvious that the topic of paideia is equally central to the dialogue, such that one can claim that ‘erotic paideia’ serves as one of its leitmotifs. Hence textual evidence combined with interpretive argument is required to make the case, and that is what I propose to do in this paper. Among the many functions which the symposium as an institution served within classical Greek society, a central one was the social initiation of young aristocratic males by older men. Pederasty was tolerated and even regulated in the ancient Greek polis because it promoted class solidarity, as well as being conducive to military valour. So it was no accident that the practice of pederasty was widespread within the military barracks in ancient Sparta, which was subsequently outdone by Thebes with its so-called ‘Sacred Band’. Thus within ancient Athens a primary locus for pederastic activity was the gymnasium, while another was the symposium as a social institution that provided a traditional kind of civic education.1 However, Plato was not an uncritical admirer of pederasty, as is clear from the Republic and Laws, but in the Symposium he tries to show how it can serve a higher purpose if it is directed in the right way towards more spiritual goals. I want to argue that describing such redirection is the chief purpose of Socrates’ report on the lesson of Diotima, which also involves a dialogue between teacher and student. This educational exchange succeeds because the preliminary refutation of Socrates helps to free him from mistaken assumptions about Erôs and thereby enables him to transcend his attachment to particular erotic objects. By contrast, I claim that the subsequent encounter between Alcibiades and Socrates is designed by Plato to show how erotic paideia can fail in the case of someone who is unable to transcend his erotic attachment to particular persons and his powerful desire

1 For the Greeks, the symposium served as a milieu for celebrating manly aretê. For instance, the educational maxims of Theognis (239) were composed to be sung at such banquets, while Xenophanes (Fr. 1 Diehl) says that the symposium is the place for keeping alive the memory of true aretê. 54 paideia

for popular success. Just as Callicles in the Gorgias is in love with Demos, so also Alcibiades is in love with Socrates but yet is unable to make the ascent to the Good and the Beautiful that is described in the speech of Diotima.

I. Questioning Agathon

After Agathon’s ‘amazing’ (thaumastos) speech, Socrates confesses (198b– c) himself to be at a loss. He praises the beautiful language of the speech, [34] but he then exposes its contents | to refutation. In efect, Socrates reveals the speech of Agathon to be a typical rhetorical exercise in which style takes precedence over substance, so that it fails to say anything essential about the nature of Erôs. Socrates ironically confesses that he thought one should tell the truth about everything in an encomium, while picking out from these truths the most beautiful (kallista) things and arranging them in the best way. The rhetorical approach, by contrast, involves attributing the greatest and most beautiful characteristics possible to the thing being praised, irrespective of whether or not it is true. Consequently, Socrates invites Phaedrus to choose whether he wants to hear the truth (t’alêthê) being told about Erôs in whatever way seems right to Socrates. In this way, Socrates sets the terms for his own dialectical speech, which is clearly marked of from previous rhetorical speeches. With the permission of Phaedrus (the father of the logos), Socrates begins by questioning Agathon on the contents of his beautiful speech in which he had promised  rst to show (epideixai) the sort of character which Erôs has (hopoios tis estin) and then to proceed to what it produces (ta erga). Socrates approves of this procedure of  rst specifying the nature of something and then stating its efects. Here we  nd some indications of the proper order of inquiry in dialectic. It is noteworthy that not only this part of Socrates’ contribution but also a signi cant portion of his report on Diotima’s teaching follows the question-and-answer format, in which Socrates replaces Agathon as the respondent. Indeed, we are presented with a younger Socrates who ostensibly had made the same mistaken assumptions about Erôs as did Agathon, and which were corrected by Diotima. In short, as Christopher Rowe (1998) has rightly noted, Socrates speaks his piece in a rather special way, which has more in common with his own preferred method of conversation (dialegesthai) than with the set speeches of the other contributors, even if it reaches a predetermined conclusion. But I want to show how the process of erotic paideia involves dialectical