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The Symposium
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ERYXIMACHUS
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- brings the body back into the center of the
discussion (Eryximachus is a physician)
- agrees that there is a noble love and a bad
love:
- health/good is harmony/balance; the good love
causes things to come together in harmony ("I'd
like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. .
."?)
- strife is what causes things to come apart
- QUESTION: Does Eryximachus' abstract speculation
take the ethical aspect of love/pederasty sufficiently
into account? Does he offer physics of love without
metaphysics?
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ARISTOPHANES
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- brings the relationships between individuals back
into focus; shifts from the effects of eros to the
nature of eros.
- Speech is original in two respects
- in its portrayal of reciprocal love between
individual (as opposed to the 'one way' love of
pederasty
- strong 'essential' argument for preferences as
to gender of object of eros
- story of origins that accounts for the human
condition and for the nature of love as 'longing': the
human condition is that we are lacking, that is, we are
separated from another 'half' for which we search until
we find him/her
- the gender of the other half for which humans
search is determined the gender from which each
originated: male/male, female/female, or
female/male
- I point out that this is the only reference in
the Symposium to female desire or to female
same-sex love.
- sets up privation view of love, which Socrates
picks up
- QUESTION: Does Aristophanes' story account for the
institution of pederasty (a kind of serial
bisexuality)?
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AGATHON
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- although Agathon is a tragic poet, the effect of
his speech is comic because of its unrestrained parody of
sophistic style and argument (not to mention use of
double-entendre)
- he proposes to praise Eros first for what he is,
and secondly for his benefits
- Agathon emphasizes aspects of love that relate
most to him: love is delicate, of extraordinary beauty,
and outstanding in virtue
- It is here that Socrates will attack his
speech!
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