You make me wanna... (Usher) Plato’s Symposium You make me wanna... (Usher)

Overview Symposium: A Drinking Party [from symposion: drinking together], with food, flute-girls, and speeches… Dialogue: the logical production of two (or more?) Tonight’s topic: “Eros,” or Love as desire (eros vs. philia)

You make me wanna….[what?] Last Scene: the arrival and speech of Alcibiades   “the moment he starts to speak, I am beside myself: my heart starts leaping in my chest, the tears come streaming down my face, even the frenzied Corybantes seem sane compared to me – and, let me tell you, I am not alone.” The Love Movement / the Progress of Love: From “possession” to “production” (and personal growth): the love triangle, the next morning…

The ends of Love: Poiēsis (and Poiētēs) What does “Love” want?: “reproduction and birth in Beauty” Where does “Art” come from? “inspiration” / “sublimation”   What’s “Beauty” got to do with it?: On “having” vs. being “in”   Socratic “Method”: strategies On desire, frustration, and being led on (or drawn along)

Symposium: A long night of speeches Aristophanes (on the origins of love): The myth of the ‘original’ humans, split in two and seeking their other half  Pausanius (two kinds of love, better or worse): Its not what you do, but how you do it: propriety On homosexual love: lover/beloved roles (relations)   Agathon (on right method): First the character, then the effects (or: First the qualities, then the deeds)

The dialogue of Agathon and Socrates Begins by rejecting Agathon’s conclusion: Love wants beauty AND Love is beautiful Not what is (merely) “likely,” but “necessary”   Necessity part 1: the nature/meaning of “want”: If Love wants beauty, i.e., has a ‘present need’ for it, then Love (“necessarily”) doesn’t have it already…

Necessity Part 2: the Syllogism (going from A to C) If A (is true), and if B (is true), then C (is necessarily true) “If Love needs beautiful things, and if all good things are beautiful, [then] he will need good things too” A: Love needs (‘wants’) beautiful things, i.e. doesn’t have them now B: good things are beautiful (e.g., ‘the gods’ love them [197b]) C: love needs (‘wants’) good things   A: Love wants X B: X = Y [X = beauty; Y = good] C: Love wants Y Agathon: “I am unable to contradict you. Let it be as you say.”

“Diotima’s Speech”: the (reported) dialogue of Socrates and Diotima Giving the backstory: filling in the details & going to the source Socrates the pupil: On the mysterious character of the Teacher’s Teacher What is Love not? “She showed me how, according to my very own speech, Love is neither beautiful nor good.” Socrates’ first mistake…

...taking negation (“not x”) as “the opposite of x”: “So I said, ‘What do you mean, Diotima? Is Love ugly, then, and bad?’ But she said, ‘Watch your tongue! Do you really think that, if a thing is not beautiful, it has to be ugly?’… And if a thing’s not wise, it’s ignorant? Or haven’t you found out yet that there’s something in between…’” [201E-202A]

What is Love? The logic of the “in-between” Love as a “Spirit,” what goes between: mediation   Not “x,” but also, not its opposite: neither / nor Neither mortal nor immortal Neither ignorance nor widsom Not absolutely one or the other, but shares something of both

Who is Love? From logic to myth What are His origins? The “conception” of Love Who are his Parents? Poros (resourcefulness) and Penia (poverty): So he is always in "need,” but also clever enough to get it (what he needs) Love as a movement between, esp. lower to higher: From Mortal to Immortal From Ignorance to Wisdom   One way or the other “absolutely” = standstill Both are “content”: i.e., no desire Movement only possible with the in-between

What is Love? (take 2): Love is a “Lover” Not: ‘love is beautiful’ But: ‘love wants beauty / beautiful things’ Love is ‘in love’ with beauty (but not beautiful himself) “lover/beloved” as abstract relations: “Love” (eros) in the role of one who loves / wants But still: what is beauty? what do we have when we finally have it? (Socrates gets stumped [204E], so…)

Syllogism, again: (beauty = good) “Suppose someone changes the question, putting ‘good’ in place of ‘beautiful’…” Love wants beautiful things to ‘become his own’ Good things are beautiful things Then (C), Love wants (to own) good things Plato’s foundational equation: beauty = wisdom = good (equivalent sometimes, but not totally equal…)

Love: What is it good for? (so many things…) (The dialogic movement picks up speed…)   First answer to “what will he have”?: “happiness” [205A] The effect of thinking about the end state of love: Love is wanting to possess the good, forever On “having forever”: the return of immortality as the end (or goal) of Love

Retreat to go forward? But wait! another shift, more confusing than before:   “You see, Socrates…what love wants is not beauty, as you think it is…” (frustrating…) [206E] So what was true at the start, is no longer true? How’s that? (very frustrating…) “What Love wants is not beauty…”: (What do you think is coming next? Or, what do you think is not coming next?)

So what does Love (really) want? Not “beauty”, but “reproduction and birth” in beauty [206E] From “having” (forever) to “making”: poiēsis and the (mortal) “desire for immortality” [207A] The nature/problem of material things: always “becoming” (coming into being and passing away…) even wisdom dies, needs “studying” to bring it back again The “immortality” of mortals: to die, but to be born again, anew Renewal through giving birth; or “conception,” two ways: 1) making children: pregnant in body 2) making ‘art’: pregnant in soul

But what does it mean to be “in” beauty? “in” as in “with,” or “in the presence of”: Recall the mythic “conception” of Love himself, at the celebration for the Birth of Aphrodite (the goddess of…?) “That is why Love was born to follow Aphrodite and serve Her…” But still: Why beauty? Why does it make men “teem” with ideas? Suggestion 1: Beauty gives pleasure, needed to offset the pain and frustration that comes with true learning. To get it, you need to really want it (philia a bit gentler, maybe weaker, perhaps not enough..)

Grasping the “form” of Beauty: on desire, conception, and relations-between Form and the (beautiful) body: Beauty and “ideal” proportions (ratios) Form and Unity, or (neo-)platonisms: Turning the body, turning the soul The Form of The One: binding the all to the all (Religion, and the Laws of State)

On love, beauty, form and making: poiēsis / poiētēs Poetry and the beauty of formal relations A two way street: Eros gives birth to poetry; and poetry gives birth to Eros once again So what is Eros? Is it only a means to an end in “making” (making art; making laws; making you a better person by self-examination)? Or an end in itself? Maybe neither / nor (absolutely) but a bit of both…

The Love Movement, take I (Sappho) He seems to me equal to gods that man whoever he is who opposite you sits and listens close to your sweet speaking and lovely laughing – oh it puts the heart in my chest on wings for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking is left in me

no: tongue breaks and thin fire is racing under skin and in eyes no sight and drumming fills ears and cold sweat holds me and shaking grips me all, greener than grass I am and dead – or almost I seem to me. But all is to be dared, because even a person of poverty […]

The Love Movement, take II Find A Way (A Tribe Called Quest)