Abstract

The received interpretation of Plato's Symposium holds that the ideal lover does not love individuals for their own sake, nor in their particularity, and that he ultimately abandons them for the sake of loving the Form of Beauty. I oppose this interpretation, offering a new reading which puts the eros and philia of the Socrates of the early dialogues at the heart of Plato's theory in the Symposium. Uncontroversially, Socrates is Plato's ideal lover in the Symposium; I argue that eros and philia remain basic to Socrates' practice as the Symposium portrays it. Plato's account of love must be reinterpreted in light of Socrates' practice and character in the early dialogues. ;I argue that the eros and philia Socrates has for his fellow Athenians provide a way of reconciling personal and civic dimensions of the moral life. To establish the context for Socrates' thinking about these concepts, my first chapter explores Greek pederasty in Aeschines' speech Against Timarchus, and also examines Greek political philia. I then argue against the usual interpretation of Socratic ethics as "intellectualistic," as ignoring the role of the affections in the acquisition of virtue. I maintain that Socrates uses the elenchus, not only to search for definitions, but also to channel the passions of eros and philia. I argue that Socrates uses and reacts against central aspects of greek pederasty, as well as the defensive political alliances of Athenian households. I focus on the Charmides and Lysis to elucidate Socratic eros and personal philia, while examining the Apology and Crito for Socratic political philia. ;Although the Symposium is a middle period dialogue, I show that it in fact presents a Socrates essentially continuous with the Socrates of the early dialogues. I maintain that Plato retains Socrates' quasi-pederastic approach to philosophic education, as well as his concern with restructuring relations of philia. An intimate personal relationship is necessary continuously through the ascent to the Beautiful. I conclude that eros and philia for individuals, as Plato persuasively redefines them, are not devalued, but are instead presented as fundamental to ethical and political well-being