Plato's Symposium, a dialogue set at a dinner party where guests propose to deliver speeches praising Eros, the god of love, offers more than just a collection of romantic musings. While the individual speeches, from the poet Agathon’s eloquent but superficial encomium to Aristophanes' whimsical myth of divided souls, provide a rich tapestry of ancient Greek perspectives on love, the dialogue’s true philosophical weight emerges through Socrates’ account of Diotima of Mantinea. Diotima’s teachings, relayed by Socrates, present a rigorous and ultimately transformative understanding of Eros, not as a mere emotion or deity, but as a philosophical impulse that propels the soul upwards, from the appreciation of physical beauty to the contemplation of the ultimate Form of the Good. This ascent, a core tenet of Platonic philosophy, reveals The Symposium as a profound exploration of desire's potential for spiritual and intellectual transcendence.
The initial speeches, while entertaining, serve to highlight the limitations of conventional and aesthetic understandings of love. Agathon, a tragic poet, presents a beautifully crafted speech that personifies Eros as a young, delicate god, embodying virtues like justice and temperance. His Eros, however, is entirely dependent on external attributes and avoids hardship, rendering him a passive recipient of admiration rather than a dynamic force. Aristophanes, with his myth of humans originally being round beings split in two, offers a compelling explanation for the longing and pursuit of a “better half.” This popular interpretation underscores the idea of love as a quest for completion and innate connection. However, both these accounts, and indeed most of the preceding speeches, remain anchored in the sensory and personal, failing to grasp the universal and divine dimensions of love.
It is Diotima’s discourse, delivered through Socrates, that elevates the discussion. She reframes Eros not as a god, but as a daimon, an intermediary spirit between the mortal and the divine, born of Poverty and Resource. This origin story explains Eros’s perpetual striving, his lack of inherent perfection, and his constant pursuit of what he lacks. Diotima then outlines a hierarchical ascent, a "ladder of love," which serves as the dialogue's philosophical core. This ladder begins with the love of a single beautiful body, then expands to the love of all beautiful bodies, recognizing beauty in its physical manifestations. From there, the ascent moves to the love of beautiful souls, appreciating inner qualities and virtues, followed by the love of beautiful activities, laws, and institutions. The penultimate step involves the love of knowledge and sciences, understanding the beauty inherent in abstract concepts and intellectual pursuits.
The apex of Diotima's ladder is the contemplation of Beauty Itself, the Form of Beauty, which is eternal, unchanging, and the source of all other beauty. This ultimate object of love is not a particular thing or person, but the pure, absolute essence of beauty, akin to Plato’s broader concept of the Form of the Good. Achieving this state requires a profound philosophical discipline, a turning away from the transient world of appearances towards the eternal realm of Forms. This is where Eros transforms from a mere personal attraction into a powerful philosophical drive, the engine of the soul’s recollection of the Forms it knew before embodiment. The lover, in this Platonic sense, is the philosopher, driven by an insatiable desire for truth, goodness, and beauty in their ultimate, unadulterated forms.
The Symposium therefore presents a compelling argument for the transformative power of love. It is not simply an emotional experience but a philosophical pathway. By demonstrating how desire can be reoriented from the particular and the superficial towards the universal and the transcendent, Plato, through Diotima, offers a blueprint for intellectual and spiritual growth. The dialogue’s enduring legacy lies in its profound insight that the deepest human longings, when properly understood and directed, can lead us to apprehend the very foundations of reality and being.