Symposium: Alcibiades

In my last blogs on the Symposium, I talked about the way that each character displayed their own view of love in their speech based off of their personal romantic relationships with one another. The only one who was not in a relationship there was Aristophanes, which was the inspiration of my first blog on the Symposium. Then I spoke on Diotima and her explanation of the different levels of love:

1. Recognition of the beauty of physical bodies, mostly one in particular.
2. Then you begin to realize that all bodies are similar and love them all.
3. Then comes the recognition of beauty of the mind
4. Then the recognition of beauty in institutions and laws and sciences, in this all beauty and not just physical beauty will become equal.
5. Then, the love of knowledge comes and that person reaches the goal of love

I found it quite fascinating that Socrates used Diotima to explain what love is and for once he doesn’t display himself to be on another level. But, then I wondered if this was actually true?

In the appearance of Alcibiades, I believe that Socrates is shown to have reached the goal of love that is explained by Diotima.

In Alcibiades speech, he displays Socrates to be cold towards him and reject all of his advances, taking no interest in them.

“Know you that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him”

He warns the people at the symposium that Socrates is not swayed by the wonders that other people have. And while rejecting Alcibiades, Socrates gives him a glimpse into his state of mind:

“Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you. And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me; you will gain true beauty in return for appearance”

Here, I do not believe that Socrates is calling himself beautiful in looks (for he is known to be quite unattractive) but I believe that he knows that he carries the knowledge of true beauty and so he doesn’t feel that he will receive a fair exchange in Alcibiades.

This is apparent when Alcibiades tries to make advances towards Socrates and he rejects them all because he doesn’t believe that only Alcibiades has beauty but he seeks beauty in and of itself and not just in physical things.

“And yet, notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations, so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty”.

So although Socrates does not give an actual argument for Diotima’s speech, in the speech of Alcibiades, Plato shows Diotima’s accuracy in speech in the life of Socrates.