Plato’s Symposium– Scholarship and Critical Response

When it comes to Plato’s Symposium, there is a plethora of scholarship available, both praising and critiquing the work. There are themes that come up consistently throughout scholarly discourse and speeches that are highly debated and theorized about. In this section, you can find references to a selection of scholars and their work concerning the Symposium, exemplifying the vast array of ideas that come up when exploring this piece. This information is pulled from this Bryn Mawr Classical Review as well as Notre Dame’s Critical Guide to Symposium.

Patricia Curd’s review of  “Plato’s Symposium. Issues in Interpretation and Reception”:

• Many scholars who focus on Plato’s Symposium aim to examine multiple unknowns that the readers are left wondering about and choose to focus on trying to decipher exactly what Plato is trying to say, what the greater theme is, what he wants the reader to take away, what is the purpose.
• There are many questions about the basic information regarding the event that Plato leaves out of his account, including the actual number of people in attendance, who these people were, the number of speeches given, and if any of this even happened.
• Plato, an unreliable narrator, leaves out speeches that he found “boring”, he had the ability to add or subtract what he pleased from the speeches given by the different attendees, as they became characters in his story rather than a word-by-word dictation of everything that was said.
• The scholarship also focuses on the why
  • Why did Plato decide to write this particular dialogue on love as opposed to on a different topic?
• “Unsocratic” Socratic dialogue, he shares his stage with other speakers who do not agree with his every word, they are not all “yes” men like we see in Plato’s other dialogues.
  • Someone else suggested the topic of discussion, not Socrates
  • The conversation does not begin with reference to his previous work
  • Socrates does not incessantly interject to comment on other’s speeches, listens and then speaks
  • He shows Socrates asking someone else for the answers (Diotima), not presenting Socrates as the expert
• Many scholars discount Aristophanes’ speech
• Hobbs- humans as humans, to Plato, souls are what is most important and deserve care and concern, Hobbs explains the presence of Diotima in general as a woman
• Rowe: Puts the Symposium into context with Plato’s other dialogues, aims to divide works into Socratic or Platonic, has difficulty
• Sheffield, Gerson, Lear: Is there a set of ideals that Plato is endorsing as ethically “correct”? Does he present this dialogue to convince the reader to adhere to his morals? How do his claims compare with ones he makes elsewhere?
• Sheffield: does Plato find value in the speeches prior to Socrates’? Other speeches are part of endoxic method- sets up common beliefs to be evaluated in the framework of the speech given by Socrates
• Brisson: Socrates rejects Pausanias’ speech

Scholarship on pederasty

• Explored critically, especially by more modern scholars
• “Liberating, intriguing, disgusting” (Curd)
• Plato emphasizes and advocates for intellectual as opposed to physical pederasty
• Carnes: Use of Symposium in legal battles about homosexuality from both sides, Plato’s words can be manipulated
• Plato emphasizes that a convincing speech did not mean a good argument

Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide

• Gonzalez believes that Agathon’s speech is highly rhetorical and lacking philosophical depth
• Trivigno criticizes Eryxmachus, calling him pedantic and self-absorbed and not saying anything of importance. Trivigno makes an important connection by putting the doctor’s speech into the context of Attic comedy, often satirical worksmaking fun of practitioners
• Obdrzalek proposed that Aristophanes; concept of love as lack was not intended to be read as romantic but as highly pessimistic
• Sedley in regards to Aristophanes says that humans seek to come closer to godliness, see themselves as better as one whole rather than as individuals

Mackinnon’s “Does Sexuality Have a History”

While we attempt to dissect the history of sexuality, especially through the lens of Plato’s symposium, we must remember the core concern of this study. Catherine Mackinnon outlines the question of “Does Sexuality have a History” in her article linked here. She reminds us that most of recorded history is a record only of the elite few. Unrecorded history is where we see the realities that have influenced our society the most. Mackinnon references not only the lack of discourse around topics such as sexuality but also points out that much of history was not in the discourse. Rather, she points out that we can not see the bruises and visual stories of those that were not relevant to those “elite” few. This is an important reminder to know before attempting to learn about the history of sexuality because while reading any form of history, much of what is just as important is left out, or as Mackinnon defines this issue, the “silent narrative”.

Our Critical Responses

There was discussion while creating this Pressbook about whether including the Symposium was appropriate, and if so, how to do it, what to include, and what to emphasize. Below are some thoughts we all contributed about these factors as well as direct responses to the textual content of Plato:

Jane: My group talked a lot about Aristophanes’ speech and how he describes the myth of human creation. We talked about how we found it quite beautiful, specifically the idea that love is important for making you a whole being. We discussed how this differs from the idea of the lover/beloved where there is a clear dominant and submissive partner, or even a student and a teacher. I would be interested in seeing how we can possibly include the differing perspectives of all the characters in the Symposium- those who discuss the lover/beloved but also more circular relationships.

Sophie: I think it is interesting to consider positionality—the text is written by Plato, in his words, about these men, the men are upper-class intellectuals, and the way this text has been utilized by Foucault…Censoring does not necessarily result in positive things all the time. I think in terms of the discussions surrounding the Symposium, it’s important, as someone has mentioned previously, to allow our readers to be their own critical thinkers — let them decide for themselves!

Ximena: I could see how some parts of the text could be inappropriate or counterproductive in our journey to start real and positive conversations as we educate young people on the history of sexuality. However, I do not think we should necessarily ”omit” anything. Like many other things and conversations, there is good and bad. There is no way of getting one without the other. What the Pressbook does is allow us to focus on the good while acknowledging the “bad” so we should not ignore or debunk texts because they have questionable opinions. We could emphasize things like:

• The idea of Love as a god or somewhat “humanized” presence
  • This could open the conversation and we can touch on the different ways Love manifests itself (emotion, desire, etc.)
  • The origins of Love and what that means for perspectives on what it could look like

•   The of beauty
  • Attraction to the mind and not just the physical aspects of the person

•  The speech that mentions the myth that talks about people finding their other half after being split into two
  • There is so much to discuss in just this because it seems to only highlight the idea of uniting and reproducing

Clementine: I think I am 100% on the team for including The Symposium. As I said in class, it seems vital to include the symposium if we want to include anything like Foucault’s History of Sexuality, or anything stemming from that…I am very much in support of trigger warnings and providing the tools to critically think about what they are reading, I think that is essential, but censoring or fearing that we are discussing something too problematic, is not essential…Perhaps we should stop thinking about this being an attempt to teach the history of sexuality (what is the history even!), but more as a press book of critical thinking, with these topics as our examples.

Tristen: I think that it is worth including Symposium by Plato because it is one way of engaging with the ancient world itself, instead of including and reading literature that simply just discusses interpretations of the ancient world, though those sources are helpful to include as well…Having a trigger warning would be a way to make sure that all of our viewers are engaging with our content willingly, while also making sure that we are presenting people with all the information. Speaking specifically to pederastic relationships, I think it is worth including because it was a large part of upper-class male sexuality and experiences, and it is something that we should address if we are discussing sexuality. In this sense, we should qualify it within the Ancient Greek context and also include the harmful aspects of it.

Corinne: I think that the Symposium is a crucial text in terms of Ancient Greek views on love and sexuality, especially as a primary source that provides a variety of perspectives. That being said, I also feel it is important to first contextualize this work before presenting it, as the dynamics between the characters and the period as well as other knowledge may allow for a more well-rounded understanding of the Ancient Greek attitude.