The Symposium

Sixth Speech- The Speech of Socrates: The Nature and Origin of Love

            The first thing that popped out to me in this section was when Diotima said, “Do not then insist that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them.” (pg 284) I like this because it connects back to the beginning of the year when we were talking about arguments and the general opinion of the authors was that we see issues as black and white, there is no gray area in between but she is saying that just because something isn’t one thing, it doesn’t necessarily make it the other thing. There can be something that is a mix of both black and white. Tying into that, I like that she keeps stressing the fact that there is a mean, or a middle, in things. She uses the example that love is not divine but is not mortal either. In general, I like how Diotima describes the birth of love. His mother Poverty sleeps with a passed out Plenty to create him and I thought it was a very interesting story. I have a question though, if Poverty is such a pitiful, stupid woman, then how does she get the idea to sleep with Plenty to make a baby? I just thought it was clever thinking on the part of Poverty. The last quote I liked in this section was, “For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described.” (pg 286) I like this because in my mind it just makes sense. To me it says yes, the one you love could be perfect but loving them could be very painful. Say you absolutely love someone but they have a drug problem or something. They could be perfect for you but what do you do about the problem? You love them but can’t be with them… that situation describes exactly what the quote says to me.

The Cause and Effect of Love

            This section is the part where they start off talking about beautiful women versus good women. Diotima challenges Socrates saying when you love something beautiful, what does it give you? When he has no answer, she says ok, let me replace the word with good. Now what do you have? And he says that you gain happiness by possessing the good. So beauty isn’t always the same thing as the good; what’s inside doesn’t always match the outside. A quote I liked was, “Yes, and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also good.” (pg 286) I just could relate to this because I always think of a mate or whatever as “the other half” so I thought it was interesting that it mentions that but it ties back into you are really looking for good on the inside, not necessarily the outside. I also liked, “…for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature…” (pg 286) I have never thought of it that way but it’s totally true. Reproducing and passing on your genes is a way to stay alive forever because there will always be a part of you in someone else. So even if you are mortal, you can be a part immortal through recreation.

            I didn’t find anything very interesting in the last section of the Symposium but I will say this, after reading it, I felt like if they were having a debate, which they kind of were, she would have destroyed him. I don’t see this as a debate though and Socrates says so himself that he went to Diotima for knowledge. I see this as more of a teacher and pupil type setting. He knew nothing and she knew it all.