Plato's fiction

Others again affirm that he [Plato] wrestled in the Isthmian Games -- this is stated by Dicaearchus in his first book On Lives -- and that he applied himself to painting and wrote poems, first dithyrambs, afterwards lyric poems and tragedies. ... Afterwards, when he was about to compete for the prize with a tragedy, he listened to Socrates in front of the theatre of Dionysus, and then consigned his poems to the flames, with the words: Come hither, O fire-god, Plato now has need of thee.

Diogenes Laertius (3rd century CE), Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers III, 4-5.

This story is probably worthless as evidence. Yet it's likely enough that Plato would have tried his hand at tragedy in his youth. He was a gifted writer and tragedy was a dominant form. But the point of the story is I suppose to express a paradox: that Plato pursued an entirely different path from the tragedians, yet his dialogues evince considerable dramatic gifts. Especially in the Symposium, where he brings half a dozen characters together in a highly developed scene. (Two of them, Aristophanes and Agathon, are dramatists.) The result is serious philosophy that is potentially enhanced, and potentially undercut, by the competing insights of fiction.

Das Gastmahl des Platon (The Symposium of Plato), painting by Anselm Feuerbach (first version, 1869)

[Image source: Wikipedia . The painting is in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe. It shows Alcibiades and his drunken revellers (left) bursting in on the symposium, just after Socrates has given his speech. The young man wearing the laurel wreath in the centre is clearly Agathon, the owner of the house where the symposium is taking place (and the recent recipient of dramatic honours). Socrates is identifiable as the lit-up figure between the two lamps, conspicuously ignoring the newcomers (as was also the case in Pietro Testa's 1648 etching). Feuerbach did not explicitly identify the other figures, but we can make some inferences. One of the lamps has a caduceus design, and suggests that the nearest head to it, that of the man sprawling with his back to us and gazing at the revellers, belongs to the physician Eryximachus. The bearded man in animated conversation with Socrates is surely Aristophanes (according to Aristodemus the revellers bang on the door while Aristophanes is trying to say something in response to Socrates' speech, and later we'll learn that these two, with Agathon, carry on talking all through the night). Pausanias is perhaps the balding man seated behind Agathon's right arm, a proximity reflecting their status as lovers. Of the speechmakers this only leaves Phaedrus, who I reckon is most likely to be the grey-headed man with his back to us who is sharing a bench with Eryximachus; although in 416 BCE, the supposed date of the Symposium, Phaedrus was probably still under thirty.  Several very similar-looking young men are attentively listening as Socrates chats to Aristophanes. These presumably represent Socrates' youthful devotees; Aristodemus is usually identified as the figure standing behind Socrates. (I don't think it's worth trying to reconcile Feuerbach's painting with the seating arrangement described in The Symposium itself, i.e. Phaedrus on the far left, then Pausanias, etc. It's not as if Feuerbach's furniture is really practical for a drinking party, except of the park bench variety.)]

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Back in university days I flew through those Platonic dialogues that a non-philosopher can hope to get anything out of; the ones in Penguin Classics, in other words. Forty years later, The Symposium has come back into my life, in the same 1951 translation, by Walter Hamilton. After reading through it a couple of times I ran across Philip Krinks' Developing A Defence Of Eros: The Unity of Plato's Symposium (2011 PhD thesis, University of London), which I've learnt a lot from. Least important, but worth mentioning, I learned that I shouldn't take Hamilton's renderings for granted. For example, Agathon says "Homer describes Infatuation as being not only divine but sensitive" (softly stepping on the heads of men); The Greek is Ate, rendered by Krinks as "Madness". Alcibiades says (addressing Socrates): "For one thing you're a bully, aren't you?" Krinks translates the word as "transgressor", a word with a much wider range of possible meanings. (Krinks' translations build on C.J. Rowe's 1998 translation.) 

So Alicibiades is probably referring to the kind of accusations that would lead to Socrates' downfall, and not to his dialectical method, which may well strike us as bullying when, e.g. he belabors Agathon into conceding that Love lacks beauty on the grounds that He desires beauty and must therefore  lack it. Which, first of all, confuses love itself with a human lover. Which, second, fails to contend with the observation that beautiful people usually fall in love with beautiful people; it is not their own beauty they love! Which, third, confuses desire with love. We do not stop loving someone or something as soon as we possess this someone or something. Our love often deepens, and this "love" of what we already possess cannot be equated (as Socrates claims) with "desire for continued possession", however often those two feelings may coexist. Happily, there isn't very much of this tendentious dialectic in The Symposium. 

Perhaps erōs shouldn't be simple-mindedly translated as "love" and this could be relevant to the third of my objections. Anyway, erōs is the topic of the evening. 

Erōs, the unconquered in battle, Erōs, you who descend upon riches, and watch the night through on a girl’s soft cheek, you roam over the sea and among the homes of men in the wilds. Neither can any immortal escape you, nor any man whose life lasts for a day. He who has known you is driven to madness.

(from Sophocles' Antigone) 

Philip Krinks points out that in such tragedies as survive to us, plays like Sophocles' Antigone and Euripides' Hippolytus, love is characterized as a force of terrible power: irresistible, invasive, catastrophic. There is admittedly a noble self-sacrificial aspect, too, seen e.g. in the Alcestis. But it seems fair to see the catastrophic aspect as predominant from the tragedians' perspective, and to note also Thucydides' use of erōs to describe the Athenians' crazy enthusiasm for their ruinous Sicilian venture. In this context love may well seem to stand in need of defence, but it's a context that The Symposium totally neglects to mention. It's as remarkably absent from the dinner-party as, on the other hand, the practice of paiderastia is remarkably absent from the tragic corpus. We seem to have crossed over into a different world, in which the love in question, until hauled by Socrates up to the heights of mysticism, is actually treated as somewhat mundane; something that aristocratic males partake in at certain ages, potentially with benefits to society, but not usually lifelong and not usually transformative or life-threatening.  The Aristophanes of The Symposium portrays sexual satisfaction as a release valve from insatiate desire, allowing people to get on with the business of life. Socrates (or rather, Diotima) indeed talks of falling prey "to a violent love-sickness" -- but s/he is only talking about beasts and birds. We seem to be contemplating love from a certain cool distance, a bit like legislators (as in Pausanias' speech) or like physicians (Eryximachus). I don't know if "avuncular" is quite the right word, but there's certainly a hint of gentleman's club about this discussion. Whether that's the kind of forum in which love is likely to be usefully discussed is certainly a question. 

[Aristophanes:]  "... There is my speech about Love, Eryximachus, and you will see that it is of quite a different type from yours.. Remember my request, and don't make fun of it, but let us hear what each of the others has to say. I should have said "each of the other two", for only Agathon and Socrates are left."

"Well, I will do as you ask," said Eryximachus; "I won't deny that your speech gave me very considerable pleasure. Indeed, if I didn't know that Socrates and Agathon were authorities on the subject of love, I should be afraid that they might find the subject exhausted by the various speeches already made. But as it is I have complete confidence in them."

"It is all very well for you, Eryximachus," said Socrates. "You have just given a fine performance yourself. But if you were in my present position, or rather in the position which I shall be in shortly, when Agathon too has distinguished himself, you would be in a panic and at your wit's end, as I am now."

"You're trying to put a spell on me with your flattery, Socrates," Agathon said. "You want to upset me by making me think that the audience has formed great expectations of my eloquence."

"I should be forgetful indeed, my dear Agathon, if, after seeing your courage and high spirit when you appeared upon the platform with the actors just before the production of your play, and faced a crowded audience without the least sign of embarrassment, I now supposed that you were likely to be upset by a handful of people like us."

"But you surely don't suppose, Socrates, that I am so stage-struck as not to know that to a man of sense a handful of wise men is more formidable than a crowd of fools?"

"I should be very wrong if I entertained any opinion derogatory to your intelligence, Agathon. Of course, I know that you pay more attention to those whom you consider wise than to ordinary people; only I am afraid that we do not belong to the former class. We were in the theatre, you know, and part of the audience of ordinary people. But if you were to meet really wise men, you would probably feel shame before them if you were conscious of doing something discreditable, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I should."

"But you wouldn't feel shame before ordinary people in the same circumstances?"

Here Phaedrus interposed and said:

"Don't answer Socrates, my dear Agathon. Provided that he has somebody to talk to, particularly if that somebody is good-looking, he won't care in the least what happens to our project. I'm very fond myself of hearing Socrates talk, but my present duty is to watch over the interest of Love, and receive a contribution of praise from each one of you."

"Quite right, Phaedrus," said Agathon, "and there's nothing to prevent me from making my speech. There will be plenty of other opportunities of conversing with Socrates ..."

(from The Symposium 193-194)

What's going on here? Socrates begins with claims about his own panic that are certainly insincere, but Agathon's bland acceptance of it as "flattery", a mind-game in the context of their speech competition, doesn't seem adequate. Mockery underlies it too; he seems to be digging at Agathon. When Phaedrus interrupts, Socrates has just manoeuvred Agathon into a tight corner. But Agathon shows no sign of being offended by Socrates. His consciousness of his own good looks and brilliance secures him; and perhaps Socrates, who is sharing a couch with him, is to be understood as coming after Agathon in a flirtatious rather than vindictive spirit. That's consistent with Phaedrus' implication that Socrates is always next to the best-looking guy in the room. Alcibiades's mock-surprise hints at that reputation too, and Alcibiades finds further cause for complaint in Socrates only playing the role of a voracious pursuer: Socrates doesn't intend physical satisfaction, and this can make his good-looking friends feel paradoxically ill-used. 

It makes you wonder. A drinking-party, after all, is not only a place for discussing love, it's also a place for transacting love. (An aspect well captured by the atmosphere of Feuerbach's painting, with its mix of distinguished older men and attractive youths.) By the end of the night, according to a drowsy Aristodemus, the only people who are still awake are Socrates, Aristophanes and Agathon. A striking trio, given Aristophanes' ridicule of Socrates (in Clouds, 423 BCE) and Agathon (in Thesmophoriazousae, c. 411 BCE); the former perhaps contributing to Socrates' condemnation in 399 BCE, as the Apology asserts. (The dinner described in The Symposium takes place in 416 BCE.)

Socrates was compelling them to admit that the man who knew how to write a comedy could also write a tragedy, and that a skilful tragic writer was capable of being also a comic writer. They were giving way to his arguments, which they didn't follow very well, and nodding. Aristophanes fell asleep first, and when it was fully light Agathon followed him.

(from The Symposium, 223)

Assigning terms to the tone and genre of The Symposium isn't easy, but it isn't tragedy, even though we're darkly aware of Alcibiades being on the brink of a turmoiled future, and that Socrates' eventual fate is connected with just the kind of social tittle-tattle that is portrayed in its pages. There is nothing statuesque or classicist about this banquet. The hubbub and chaos increase towards the end, but quotidian intrusion is there from the beginning; for instance in Aristodemus turning up uninvited, Socrates half-way through dinner, Aristophanes' hiccups, etc. Should we call this comedy, or naturalism maybe? I keep thinking of Proust; the parties, the upper class, the semi-autobiographical material, the philosophy of love, the personal transactions that Marcel witnesses but doesn't understand until later. 

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Martha Nussbaum, "The Ascent of Love: Plato, Spinoza, Proust", New Literary History Vol. 25, No. 4, 25th Anniversary Issue (Part 2) (Autumn, 1994), pp. 925-949.  

In Proust, the "ascent of love" is towards, not contemplation of ideal forms, but "narrative art". 

Nussbaum makes the point (perhaps from a basically Aristotelian perspective) that these three philosophical transcenders of love are themselves driven by an infantile longing for totality. "There is an odd irony in this situation. For the teachers of the contemplative ascent all claim as the chief benefit of contemplation that it delivers a condition free from dependency. They depict contemplative creativity as a free act, chosen in pure positive joy, without the pressure of need. But why do they choose such a radical goal? Why do they give up the daily world and its people? We have to say, because of need. Because their anguish about the condition of infantile dependency was so acute, so unendurable, they could brook no compromises with life. Because human life was so excruciating they had to become godlike" (p. 946). 

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Luc Brisson, "Agathon, Pausanias and Diotima in Plato's Symposium: Paiderastia and Philosophia" (Chapter 10 of Lesher, James, Debra Nails, and Frisbee Sheffield, eds. 2007. Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Hellenic Studies Series 22. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.)

(Includes a brief but comprehensive description of what we know about the practice of paiderastia; significant differences between the Greeks' and our assumptions about sex; significant differences, too, between paiderastia and the modern connotations of "pederasty". Even so, I find it hard to think dispassionately about the notion of supplying (supposedly voluntary) sexual favours to an older man in exchange for education and influence. My sense of the scope for coercive abuse in such an arrangement overwhelms other thoughts.  At the same time, Pausanias and Agathon seem to have been an example of a successful lifetime partnership arising out of paiderastia. But then, this was not the way it was usually meant to go, and they were apparently criticized for it.)

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“Look at her next Sunday at church—she sits with her father on the left of the reading-desk. You needn’t look quite so much at Hetty Sorrel then. When I’ve made up my mind that I can’t afford to buy a tempting dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and inclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my wisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom has become cheap, I bestow it upon you.”

“Thank you. It may stand me in good stead some day, though I don’t know that I have any present use for it. Bless me! How the brook has overflowed. Suppose we have a canter, now we’re at the bottom of the hill.”

That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from Socrates himself in the saddle. The two friends were free from the necessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane behind Adam’s cottage.

(George Eliot, Adam Bede, end of Ch 9)

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The rest is a purely technical matter. They give you a careful going-over in the Sexual Bureau labs and determine the exact content of the sexual hormones in your blood and work out your correct Table of Sex Days. Then you fill out a declaration that on your days you'd like to make use of Number (or Numbers) so-and-so and they hand you the corresponding book of tickets (pink). And that's it.

So it's clear -- there's no longer the slightest cause for envy. The denominator of the happiness fraction has been reduced to zero and the fraction becomes magnificent infinity. And the very same thing that the ancients found to be a source of endless tragedy became for us a harmonious, pleasant, and useful function of the organism, just like sleep, physical work, eating, defecating, and so on. From this you can see how the mighty power of logic cleanses whatever it touches!

(Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, Record 5, translation by Clarence Brown)