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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2013
After arriving drunk (‘plastered’ in one translation) at Agathon's party, Alcibiades offers to praise Socrates instead of love, the object of the other characters' praise. In praising Socrates, Alcibiades says that he will have to use images (εἰκόνων, 215a4–5). He assures his companions, however, that this ‘is no joke: the image will be for the sake of the truth’ (ἔσται δ' ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἕνεκα, οὐ τοῦ γελοίου, 215a6). Alcibiades goes on to present his famous images of a Socrates who is full of divine images (ἀγάλματα), and who casts spells with his words (λόγοι). Later, Alcibiades describes those words themselves as ‘bursting with images of virtue’ (ἀγάλματ' ἀρετῆς, 222a3–4).
1 Nehamas, A. and Woodruff, P., Symposium, in Cooper, J.M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis, 1997), 457–505Google Scholar, at 494 (212e3). I rely heavily on their translation throughout my discussion, though most translations are ultimately my own. I have also consulted translations in Howatson, M.C. and Sheffield, F.C.C., Plato, The Symposium. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also in Rowe, C.J., Plato: Symposium (Warminster, 1998)Google Scholar. All citations refer to the Greek text in Dover, K.J., Symposium (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar
2 Reeve, C.D.C., ‘A study in violets’, in Lesher, J H., Nails, D. and Sheffield, F.C.C., Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Hellenic Studies 22 (Washington, DC, 2006), 124–46Google Scholar, comes close to this view at 131.
3 For recent attention to these injunctions, see R. Blondell, ‘Where is Socrates on the “ladder of love”?’, in Lesher, Nails and Sheffield (n. 2), 147–78, at 158 and Reeve (n. 2), at 124.
4 Metcalf, R., ‘The trial of Socrates in Plato's Symposium’, Epoché 14 (2009), 39–55Google Scholar, also takes Alcibiades quite seriously, and for similar reasons; see esp. 41–3.
5 Hyland, D.A., Plato and the Question of Beauty, Studies in Continental Thought (Bloomington, 2008)Google Scholar suggests such a reading at 61–3.
6 See D. Nails, ‘Tragedy off-stage’, in Lesher, Nails and Sheffield (n. 2), 179–207, esp. 184–5 and 192–4, which argues that Diotima focusses too much on ‘mystical contemplation of the beautiful’, whereas philosophy must also involve a recognition of ‘the beauty of particulars’, a return to the cave, as Republic 7 has it.
7 Part of my account depends upon treating the words εἰκόνες, εἴδωλα and ἀγάλματα as synonyms, all referring in some sense to what in English I call ‘images’. The first two terms are often treated as related in Plato's works, and at times they are clearly synonymous. Although in some contexts it is useful to separate ἀγάλματα from them, the Symposium does not appear to be such a context. Reeve (n. 2), 125 explains that usually in Plato's works ‘an agalma … is a figurative statue … of any sort – the puppets which cast their shadows on the walls of the cave in Republic VII are agalmata (517d7)’. A key component of the difference is that ἀγάλματα often depict gods while the other terms usually denote images of mortals. Thus Socrates teems not just with any images, but with divine images. These divine images, nevertheless, are images: Socrates does not of course teem with actual gods.
Reeve himself finally treats ‘ἀγάλματα’ as synonymous with ‘images’ in the Symposium (see esp. at 138). This treatment appears reasonable, especially given the standard view of images in Plato's works, as expressed by Theaetetus in the Sophist: an image is ‘something that's made similar to a true thing and is another thing that's like it’ (τὸ πρὸς τἀληθινὸν ἀϕωμοιωμένον ἕτερον τοιοῦτον, 240a7–8). In the context of the cave image it is necessary to separate the puppets from their shadows; it nevertheless appears true that both the puppets and their shadows – both the ἀγάλματα and the εἰκόνες – can be seen as kinds of images.
8 For a more thorough account of the relation between Diotima's claims about love and Alcibiades' claims about Socrates, see Bury, R.G., The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge, 1932), lx–lxi.Google Scholar
9 For a much more detailed – and generally quite compelling – account of Diotima's speech, see Obdrzalek, S., ‘Moral transformation and the love of beauty in Plato's Symposium’, JHPh 48 (2010), 415–44.Google Scholar
10 I use the masculine pronoun because Diotima does so; I assume that her presence here shows that this achievement is beyond gender.
11 See for example Hyland (n. 5), 59; Blondell (n. 3), 159.
12 See Hackforth, R., ‘Immortality in Plato's Symposium’, CR 64 (1950), 43–5Google Scholar, at 44. Rowe (n. 1), 201 bridges these, arguing that the successful lover produces virtue both in himself and in others. See White, F.C., ‘Virtue in Plato's Symposium’, CQ 54 (2004), 366–78Google Scholar, at 374 n. 37 for further possibilities and citations.
13 See Howatson and Sheffield (n. 1), xxii, and Sheffield, F.C.C., Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire. Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 134; L.P. Gerson, ‘A Platonic reading of Plato's Symposium’, in Lesher, Nails and Sheffield (n. 2), 47–70, has a similar view at 65–6.
14 White (n. 12), 373.
15 Ibid. 377–8.
16 White, F.C., ‘Beauty of soul and speech in Plato's Symposium’, CQ 58 (2008), 69–81, at 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17 Bury (n. 8), 126; Dover (n. 1), 156.
18 See Rowe (n. 1), 195.
19 As Rowe (n. 1), 201 explains, the ‘difference between phantom and reality here [sc. 212a] in fact seems to be essentially a matter of degree … But then it is an extraordinary difference of degree’ (emphasis original).
20 Blondell (n. 3), 155–60; Prior, W.J., ‘The portrait of Socrates in Plato's Symposium’, OSAPh 31 (2006), 137–66Google Scholar, at 156–7. Blondell, however, ultimately argues that Socrates is at all and none of the stages on the line at 174–8. See Blondell 156 n. 34, for other readers who place Socrates at the top of Diotima's stairs; and ibid. 160–74 for other placements of Socrates.
21 Blondell (n. 3), 159.
22 Howatson and Sheffield (n. 1), 85–6.
23 Reeve (n. 2), 138.
24 Ibid.
25 Obdrzalek (n. 9), 426 presents a helpful discussion of the fact that the lower lovers cannot actually be producing true virtue, ‘despite Diotima's claim that they give birth to wisdom and all of virtue’.
26 I'll not recite the details of his life or its shortcomings here, but see the entry in the Howatson and Sheffield (n. 1) ‘Glossary of Names’, 71–2; Larivée, A., ‘Malaise dans la cité. Éros et tyrannie au livre IX de la République’, in Dixsaut, M. and Larivée, A. (edd.), Études sur la République de Platon I. La Justice (Paris, 2005), 169–97Google Scholar, at 187–92; and the entry in Nails, D., The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics (Indianapolis, 2002), 10–20Google Scholar. Although Alcibiades may not have been guilty of all he's charged with, his reputation is certainly not that of a virtuous person.
27 Perhaps overstating things a bit, Hobbs, A., Plato and the Hero (Cambridge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 258 writes that Alcibiades shows ‘absolutely no inclination’ to ascend the ‘ladder of love’ described by Diotima. It's certainly true that Alcibiades' passionate attachment to Socrates locates the former quite a few steps from the top of the ladder. Lear, J., Open Minded (Cambridge, MA, 1998), 156–7Google Scholar makes a similar case.
28 Metcalf (n. 4), 42 has recently and implausibly claimed that Alcibiades is ‘cluelessly stuck at the bottom rung of the ladder of love’. I agree that Alcibiades is ‘not exactly indifferent to having physical relations with Socrates’ (44), but surely that is not because Alcibiades loves Socrates' beautiful body. Alcibiades' comparison of Socrates with the satyrs at 215b should suffice to show that Alcibiades does not love Socrates for his looks.
29 A not altogether disreputable way to treat a person. For an especially nice defence of Alcibiades in the face of Socrates' otherworldliness, see Nussbaum, M., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), 165–99.Google Scholar
30 Larivée (n. 26), 195 offers a similar account of Alcibiades in her discussion of tyranny in the Republic, where she highlights the proximity of philosophy and tyranny and claims that the argument of the Republic is directed at ‘les jeunes érotiques possédant un naturel philosophe susceptibles, comme Alcibiade, de céder à l'attrait de la tyrannie [sic]’. The traits that make Alcibiades promising also make his fall so awful.
Larivée's discussion also suggests another kind of response to the question of Socrates' responsibility for Alcibiades. The promising philosopher, according to Republic 6, is a prime target for exploitation by friends and family, who would do anything to ‘prevent him from being persuaded’ to pursue philosophy (494d–e).
31 Obdrzalek (n. 9) cites the lower lovers' focus on glory and fame as key evidence that they're not truly virtuous, since they desire virtue only for the sake of immortality, especially at 426–7.
32 See Cleary, J.J., ‘Erotic paideia in Plato's Symposium’, in Havlícek, A. and Cajthaml, M. (edd.), Plato's Symposium. Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium Platonicum Pragense (Prague, 2007), 125–46Google Scholar, at 146; J. Jirsa, ‘Alcibiades’ speech in the Symposium and its origins', ibid. 280–92, at 289–92; and Rowe (n. 1), 205–6 for recent affirmations of this reading. The classic dissent is Gagarin, M., ‘Socrates' hubris and Alcibiades' failure’, Phoenix 31 (1997), 22–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see also Hyland (n. 5), who comes close to indicting Socrates at 61–3.
33 I am grateful for discussions of this project at the Northwest Philosophy Conference and the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, and to comments at those meetings from, respectively, Nathan Carson and Chris Tennberg. Suzanne Obdrzalek has also been kind enough to discuss the Symposium with me, and I greatly appreciate her insight. Finally, I would like to thank the students who have studied Plato with me in my Freshman Seminars on Knowledge and Beauty at Seattle University. This work is, ultimately, for them.
