Summary: Symposium (page 2)

Zeus, moved by pity, repositioned their sex so that they might experience pleasure when they came together. In this way, by knowing satiety, it will cause them to stop and turn to action and the other interests of existence ¹.

Thus arises this definition of love: As the restorer of our former nature, it seeks to unite two beings into one and to heal human nature ².

It is this myth that gave rise to the conception of love as the search for one's other half or the desire to become one: When someone encounters their perfect half, they are overcome with amazement, struck by a sense of friendship and love, an impression of familiarity; and they cannot bear, so to speak, to be separated, even for a moment ³.

The two lovers implore Hephaestus to fuse them into a single being, to fulfil their deepest longing—to reunite, to merge into their beloved, and for two beings to become one ⁴.

Love thus takes on immense significance, for humanity would attain happiness if we could fully realise our love—if each person could find the beloved destined for them, the one who restores them to their original nature ⁵.

This speech, met with great acclaim, is followed by that of Agathon, who depicts Love as the most beautiful of the gods—shunning old age and seeking only youth and beauty.

Yet it is the next speech, that of Socrates, that manages to rise to the level of Aristophanes’, surpassing it and elevating The Symposium to the status of a masterpiece.

Socrates argues that the other speakers have offered "forced" praise rather than genuine praise. By this, he means that we should not ascribe every virtue to Love, but rather praise it for the qualities it truly possesses.

He replaces monologue with dialogue, engaging Agathon in a discussion. This is an example of the famous Socratic dialogue, which proceeds by question and answer (this is dialectic)—guiding the interlocutor to bring forth a truth they already carry within them (a process known as maieutics, or the art of midwifery for the mind).

Socrates begins by problematising the subject: we desire what we do not have. Yet, as Agathon has shown, Love desires Beauty. But then, does this mean that Love is deprived of beauty, that it possesses none? ⁶.

Socrates is merely posing to Agathon the same questions that Diotima, a woman from Mantinea, once asked him. Socrates had answered as Agathon did, prompting Diotima to ask him in turn: Since Love lacks beauty, does that make it something ugly? ⁷.

Diotima cried blasphemy: what is not beautiful is not necessarily ugly.

Why? Consider the example of knowledge and ignorance. There is an intermediate state between the two: having a true opinion without understanding why (without being able to justify it, to provide a reason for it).

This is neither knowledge (for how could something that one cannot justify constitute true knowledge?) nor ignorance (for that which attains truth only accidentally cannot properly be called ignorance ⁸).

Likewise, some things are neither ugly nor beautiful, and this is the case with Love. As a consequence, Love is not a god (contrary to what some guests, including Agathon, claimed), for a god cannot experience lack, especially not a lack of beauty.

What, then, is Love? He is an intermediate being, as we have seen—an intermediary between the mortal and the immortal, between man and god. Love is a great daemon ⁹. In Greek mythology, daemons carry the prayers of men to the gods and transmit the gods’ messages to men. They are thus intermediaries.

This daemon was born of the union of two deities: he is the son of Poros, himself the son of Metis (goddess of cunning and resourcefulness), and Penia (lack).

This lineage means that Love is poor (as the son of Lack) yet always aspires to what is superior—the Beautiful and the Good—as the son of Poros.

¹ 191c
² 191d
³ 192b
⁴ 192e
⁵ 193c
⁶ 201c
⁷ 201d
⁸ 202a
⁹ 202d