Abstract Scholarship on the Symposium is dominated by a debate on interpersonal love started by Gregory Vlastos in his article, `The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato.' This paper argues that this debate is a misguided one, because it is not reflective of the central concerns of this text. Attention needs to be turned to the broader ethical questions posed about the ends of life, the nature of human happiness, and contemplation. Failure to do so will mean that (...) the Symposium continues to be eclipsed as a key resource in central debates in Platonic ethics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In the Symposium Socrates shows how Diotima initiated him into the mysteries of love in two stages. Yet, at first sight, the teachings offered at the two stages seem divergent and discontinuous. In this article I argue that we can understand the continuity between them if we regard Diotima’s notions of spiritual pregnancy and birth-giving as metaphors suggesting that the metaphysical horizon looming in the background of her teaching is that of Plato’s theory of recollection.RÉSUMÉ: Socrate explique dans le (...) Banquet comment Diotime l’a initié aux mystères de l’amour en suivant deux niveaux. Pourtant, de prime abord, les enseignements dispensés à ces deux niveaux semblent divergents et séparés par une solution de continuité. Je soutiens dans cet article qu’il est possible de comprendre la continuité entre ces deux niveaux si on considère les notions de grossesse spirituelle etd’enfantement avancées par Diotime comme des métaphores qui laissent entrevoir la théorie de la réminiscence à l’horizon métaphysique de cet enseignement. (shrink)

: Like the goddess Demeter, Diotima from Mantineia, the prophetess who teaches Socrates about eros and the "rites of love" in Plato's Symposium, was a mystagogue who initiated individuals into her mysteries, mediating to humans esoteric knowledge of the divine. The dialogue, including Diotima's speech, contains religious and mystical language, some of which specifically evokes the female-centered yearly celebrations of Demeter at Eleusis. In this essay, I contextualize the worship of Demeter within the larger system of classical Athenian practices, and (...) propose that Plato borrowed Eleusinian language because it criticized conventional notions of the divine, thereby allowing him to reimagine the possibilities for the philosophical process among humans. (shrink)

Like the goddess Demeter, Diotima from Mantineia, the prophetess who teaches Socrates about eros and the “rites of love” in Plato's Symposium, was a mystagogue who initiated individuals into her mysteries, mediating to humans esoteric knowledge of the divine. The dialogue, including Diotima's speech, contains religious and mystical language, some of which specifically evokes the female-centered yearly celebrations of Demeter at Eleusis. In this essay, I contextualize the worship of Demeter within the larger system of classical Athenian practices, and propose (...) that Plato borrowed Eleusinian language because it criticized conventional notions of the divine, thereby allowing him to reimagine the possibilities for the philosophical process among humans. (shrink)