Paper First Draft Thesis + First Body

The speeches in the Symposium and the different characterizations of Love therein are reflective of the speakers themselves. Phaedrus’ speech reflects his role as the young, superficial beloved, who defines eros in gain and Eryximachus’ shows his more mature and scientific background as the lover, who defines eros in techne. In choosing the portray these caricatures of a lover-beloved relationship through their views of love, Plato provides insight into the dynamics of these relationships and shows the subjectivity inherent in how humans view love.

Phaedrus is the first to speak. He is also the impetus for the entire contest concerning Eros. As put by his lover, Eryximachus, Phaedrus is “indignant” and “often complains” about the lack of proper praise given to Love (177A-177C). At first glance, one might think that perhaps Phaedrus is so concerned with how love is represented because of his inherent youthful romanticism. In fact, upon a scant initial reading, this seems to be the case for Phaedrus’ speech. He exemplifies Eros as the oldest god, according to Parmenides, without generation (178B). He argues that Eros gives us the “greatest goods” by instilling in lovers a fear of shame and a love of honor (178D-178E). Phaedrus further romanticizes death and sacrifice in the name of Love in the mythopoetic tradition (179B- 179E).  All of this seems to follow from Phaedrus’ role as the young, attractive beloved to the more mature lover, Eryximachus. However, upon a closer reading, Phaedrus’ full intentions in his speech, and further his root concern with the contest at all, is to praise the benefits which Eros gives the beloved. Riddling his speech is an undercurrent of selfish gain, prioritized over and over again, often supported by a somewhat warped mythological framework. In this characterization of selfish love, Phaedrus defines Eros by an external factor: gain.

Phaedrus’ argument reduces to a definition of erotic virtue requiring “selfishness and visibility” (Rosen 50). In doing so, Phaedrus finds man’s virtue in the “measure of his own conduct”, thus reducing the authority of the gods (Rosen 50). This selfishness all stems from Phaedrus’ perspective as the beloved. Therefore, in his speech he exemplifies the behavior which provides the most benefit to the beloved (Strauss 53). This virtuous behavior from the lover is dependent on the behavior being visible to the beloved (178D). In this, Phaedrus casts virtuous love in the role of providing accountability in the actions of the lover, who acts virtuously under the watch of the beloved for fear of shame. In these sorts of definitions, Phaedrus systematically places all of the responsibility on the lover and casts the beloved as a passive and somehow absolved party.

To support this characterization, Phaedrus draws upon the mythopoetic tradition in a fashion which causes some scholars to label him a “mythologue”, who distorts myth to support his argument (Corrigan 53). Phaedrus asserts that “no one will die for you but a lover”, using the story of Alcestis, who died for her husband, as the mythological support (179C). He claims that the gods delighted in her selfless actions, therefore encouraging the components of death and sacrifice on behalf of the lover. Next, Phaedrus addresses Orpheus, who he argues is “soft...for he did not dare to die” for his love, Eurydice, and instead sought a way to circumvent death and live himself (179D). The reason Phaedrus is so harsh to Orpheus’ plight is because his story “challenges the dependence of the lover” thereby negating the necessity for death and sacrifice which Phaedrus has been arguing (Rosen 56). Phaedrus casts these mythic stories carefully so as to further his idea of a love which demands that the lover be a slave for his desire for the beloved. He rails on Orpheus’ “contrivance” because it undermines this narrative which he has been pushing throughout his speech. It is at this point in the speech where Phaedrus reveals his hand so clearly, showing how very tightly tied his view of love is to his selfish desires as a handsome and coveted beloved.

From this point on, the selfish tone of his speech is apparent. Phaedrus grasps the utility of Eros, arguing that what is “good” is what benefits the beloved (Rosen 52). In reality, this is the reason which Phaedrus thinks that Eros does not get enough attention in prose and rhetoric--because the message of servitude to the beloved is not clearly emphasized outside of the biased view of a beloved narrator. As such, one can guess this is why Phaedrus complains to Eryximachus to begin the contest in the first place. In his view as a handsome young man, the most important aspects of Love are those which benefit beloveds like himself--the gifts and the sacrifices. So Phaedrus’ speech is not naive and overly romanticized. Rather, it shows the clear, calculated selfishness of the narrator. The speeches in the Symposium reflect the lives and views of the speakers themselves. Though they may shroud their more petty motivations in grand philosophical dialogue, the reality of their starkly human and personal issues shines through.

Corrigan, Kevin, and Elena Corrigan. Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.

Rosen, Stanley. Plato's Symposium. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.

Strauss, Leo, and Seth Benardete. Leo Strauss on Plato's Symposium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

The One With The Circle People

When I read the first five speeches of the Symposium, Aristophanes immediately stuck out to me. I didn’t give much thought to my “favorite”, but when Dr. Schultz asked us in class I immediately knew that Aristophanes spoke to me the most. And at first I couldn’t really concretely explain why. But looking through my book I had underlined a certain quote which summed up, for me, Aristophanes’ speech:

“It’s obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else, his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle” (192D).

Aristophanes tells a story about love which describes a human condition of continually searching for one’s other half. In romcoms this is said figuratively pretty often, but in Aristophanes’ case he’s being literal. He says humans were once circle people who were split apart by the gods in punishment for their hubris. He says:

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature” (191D).

And that is, I think, what is most appealing about Aristophanes’ speech. It affirms what everyone hopes for and truly wants to believe about love. That somewhere out there is another half of you and all you have to do is find them. It is poetry and romance and hope. And in this, Aristophanes hits on something that no one else does in the dialogue. The nuance of love. The unexplainable draw and magnetism. So I’ll leave this blog with some relevant song lyrics by Sam Smith:

"You’re the one, designed for me

A distant stranger, that I will complete

I know you’re out there, we’re meant to be

So keep your head up, and make it to me"

The One With The Cave, Selfless People, And Other Primates

Wow. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve updated my blog. February had me riding the hot mess express, but I’m back in the swing of things. Never you worry.

In class we discussed the Allegory of the Cave. One point which seemed to be in slight contention was the role of the individuals who are holding up the images for those chained to the wall. Are they purposefully being deceitful with some unknown ill intentions? Are they showing those in chains the shadows of the images to somehow protect them by shielding them from the entire truth? Or perhaps they are trying their best to show the full truth of things? Somehow my gut reaction was that these people could not possibly have purely altruistic intentions. Why would they venture back into the cave and bother trying to help the others? It’s their duty, sure Plato. But why? A deeper question that this conversation got me thinking about was altruism itself. Do people ever do anything completely selfless?

For my anthropology minor I took a course in primate behavior, which I absolutely loved. One of the topics we discussed was the evolutionary history of “altruism”. The main takeaway from this discussion was that pure altruism does not exist in nature and if it did, it would be fantastically maladaptive. Any seemingly selfless act could somehow be traced to something that would benefit the altruistic individual. For example, since relatives bear a certain percentage of one’s own genes, it is in one’s evolutionary fitness interest to help that individual. If the individual is part of a larger social group, it would benefit you to help them so that they help buff up the herd and decrease your chances of getting picked off by a predator. And perhaps this is true for non-human primates. But could this principle hold true for humans? That pure altruism does not exist?

For a cynic such as myself this concept doesn’t seem completely unfathomable. After all, if one reads far enough into most any action they could find an ulterior motive or perhaps manufacture one to suit this trend. I used to do this a lot as a teenager. I’d say that Christians, for example, don’t ever do anything selfless because every good deed is in fact a product of a fear of hell or desire for heaven. I’d see Mother Teresa as collecting and hoarding little stepping stones to heaven which were thinly veiled as altruistic acts.

So perhaps this isn’t a question that can be answered. But a thought that logically follows this conversation--does it matter? So what if an altruistic person is simultaneously helping themselves and someone else? That seems efficient after all--two birds with one stone and all that. However, I would argue that it does matter. The difference between a pure act of selflessness and that of mutual benefit is significant. I couldn’t possibly articulate why, but it is. Maybe that’s just the cynic in me.

The One Where Not-Being Is Kind of Difficult

Parmenides’ poem is a beast. To discuss it in its entirety would be a vast undertaking. The point which interested me the most was the entire concept of “not-being”. It sparked a memory of a passage that I read around a year ago. This requires a semi-tangential deviation from Parmenides, but since it’s still philosophical in nature we’ll say that it’s fine. Right? Right.

For my Russian history class we were required to pick a fictional book by a Russian author, read it, and analyze it in a paper. Not having much knowledge in the area, I chose blindly and came away with The Foundation Pit, by Andrey Platonov. The entire book is a satirical, yet poignant commentary on early Stalinism, collectivization of agriculture, industrialization, etc. It has some incredibly bizarre moments (think huge anthropomorphic bear which can sniff out traitorous peasants and is also a blacksmith), but it also has some thought provoking passages. The excerpt in question involves the character Prushevsky and his intense depression and suicidal tendencies. In a pitiful, heartbreaking, and memorable passage, while pondering a far away star, he wonders whether or not it would be better that he die rather than continue to endure living (Platonov 21). Later a couple characters have a discussion about him:

“What made him be?”

“He was scared of not being.”

(Platonov 78).

When I read Parmenides’ poem and the goddess discussed the unknowable “path of not-being”, The Foundation Pit was the first thing to cross my mind. I think it is a common theme throughout humanity to fear “not-being”. Something which is impossible to understand or grasp. Perhaps this was not the intent of Parmenides or the goddess, but not-being makes me think of nothingness which makes me think of death. And Prushevsky had the same reservations about it. He feared not being--as I think we all do.

This might sound exceptionally atheist, but this is where I believe religious views of an afterlife come in. They soothe the fears of nothingness and provide an alternative to not being. They are convenient human constructs to make death seem less absolute and terrifying. Because people want to feel special and chosen, like Parmenides on the seldom trodden path to knowledge. No one wants to believe that they only have the time that their mortal bodies allow them. So one might not judge too harshly those who believe that a bright afterlife awaits them with the warm embraces of their ancestors. Because after all, not being is a far less tidy and satisfying conclusion.

The One Where We Learn Not To Pee Towards The Sun

To be frank, I found most of the content about Pythagoras to be exceptionally ho-hum. Something something numbers something something transitive souls. However, I did find something supremely thought provoking in the fact that Pythagoras wrote basically nothing himself and almost everything we know about what he said and believed is second-hand.

This got me thinking about historical narratives of figures whose legacies were made by others. Pythagoras’ teachings were largely spread by the groups, the mathematikoi and akousmatikoi, that came together after his death and then other philosophers after that, like Aristotle and Plato. This seems like a game of telephone, in which one’s original message gets lost and morphed in translation, except over generations and distances. So in reality it seems widely accepted that there are a great deal of things attributed to Pythagoras that are actually just a product of misattribution and projection. As the Stanford web article points out, the fact that none of these sources are contemporary and most contradict each other doesn’t help matters either. In the study of ancient and classical history, this is so very confounding. This is a case study in how unreliable sources can be. One must take classical sources, even champs like Herodotus or Aristotle, with a healthy dose of incredulity. Writers using the unreliable narrator trope before it was even cool.

The One With “The Fiction of Our Fathers”

I like Xenophanes. I like a guy that can boldly question the established religious systems of his time. I myself, having transitioned throughout my life from Christian, to agnostic, to atheist, identify with this. Sure we didn’t end up at the same thought, but Xenophanes suggests an alternative to what he had, presumably, learned growing up regarding the gods and the cosmos. One can imagine little Xenophanes with his parents in the temple learning about Zeus and his adventures and one might wonder what led him to question the theological facts of his time. Was his theological journey of belief similar to mine? How much of a difference does two thousand years make to the mind of a curious, questioning child?

One bit of the reading that stuck out to me was the point that if other animals like horses or oxen had the means to do so, they would draw and imagine a god that was a horse/ox in their image (Curd 34). This is something that has bothered me for a long time. The anthropocentric view imposed upon gods by most religions is nonsensical. The Greeks imagined and depicted Zeus as humanoid (when he isn’t otherwise occupied turning into an eagle and raping women). Many modern Christian depictions of God are of a humanoid guy with a robe, flowing white beard, and a fierce browline. The Bible says that God created man in his image. But why? Why do humans consider themselves so special? With every other form of life known to man, humans still have a complex with being unique and chosen. The fact that a random philosopher from thousands of years ago was asking the same questions is curious. The fact that it is still an issue is curiouser still.

The One Where Sappho Subverts The Patriarchy: You Go Girl

Sappho seems to have been an intriguing figure. Early into her bio the author mentions that she was of significant wealth, which led to leisure time, which led to her poetry. This is a common theme throughout history. The leading thinkers, writers, and historians were often fairly well off. This makes a certain amount of sense as one might not expect the common Joe Schmoe laborer to have the means, free time, and education to produce such a magnum opus. From this, one would expect that this prejudice in who is writing would influence the narrative of history, producing gaps and “silences” of the “others”. While the sampling of Sappho’s poetry which we read was lovely, it is equally intriguing to me what another woman of lower status would have written about the nature of love and beauty and how it might differ from a woman of leisure’s perspective.

Homosexuality in Ancient Greece isn’t an alien concept, however I almost exclusively think of male homosexuality in the Greek context. The presence of female homosexuality is intriguing. How socially acceptable was female homosexuality in the context of the time and place. Did it have the same basic fundamentals as male homosexuality with an older, experienced individual along with a younger individual assuming a more passive role? Was this limited to Lesbos or was female homosexuality more widely prevalent? Did this affect Sappho’s reception as a poet, whether positively or negatively? It brings up a lot of interesting questions.