The Figure of Socrates
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Diotima in order to introduce some realism into the vision of love. Contrary to what the other guests assume, says Socrates, it is not the case that love is beautiful. If it were, it would no longer be love, for Eros is essentially desire, and the only thing that can be desired is that which one does not have. Eros, then, cannot be beautifuclass="underline" as the son of Penia, he lacks beauty, but as the son of Poros, he knows how to remedy his lack. Agathon has confused love with its object, the beloved.
For Socrates, love is a lover. It is therefore not, as most people think, a god, but only a daimon; a being intermediate between the human and the divine.
This is why there is something comic about Diotima's description of Eros.
In it, we can perceive the beggarly existence to which love can condemn us.
This is the familiar theme of "Militat omnis amans": 37 in which the lover stands guard on his beloved's doorstep, or spends the night sleeping on the ground. Eros is both beggar and soldier, but also inventor, sorcerer, magician, and clever talker, for love makes him ingenious. For him, life is an uninterrupted suite of discouragement and hope, need and satisfaction, which succeed one another in accordance with the successes and defeats of his love.
This is Eros in his monstrous aspect - good-for-nothing, shameless, obstinate, loud-mouthed and savage - whose misdeeds are depicted with such relish in Greek poetry, right down to the Byzantine period.88
And yet, with astonishing skill, Plato makes the features of Socrates "the philosopher" appear beneath the figure of Eros the hunter. Agathon may think Eros is delicate and lovely, but Diotima asserts he is, in reality, always poor, rough, dirty, and barefoot. In his speech in praise of Socrate.'>, Alcibiades likewise portrays Socrates as barefoot, covered only by a coarse coat which barely protects him from the winter cold.89 From the context of the dialogue, we learn that Socrates has, exceptionally, taken a bath before coming to the symposium.'111 The comic poets, too, had a good laugh at the expense of Socrates' bare feet and old cloak.91
The figure of Socrates as Eros the beggar was subsequently taken up by the Cynic philosophers, in particular Diogenes. Diogenes, who seems to have designated himself as a "furious Socrates," used to go wandering with only his cloak and knapsack, bereft of hearth and home:92 As Friedlander points out,93 barefooted Eros also calls to mind primitive man, as he is depicted by Plato in the Protagoras (32 l c5) and the Statesman (272a5).
We arc thus brought back to the figure of that purely natural being, Silenus, with his primitive strength, more primal than culture and civilization. The fact that this element enters into the complex portrait of Socrates/Eros is not a matter of indifference. Rather, it corresponds perfectly to the reversal of values brought about by Socratic L'Onsciousness. For the person concerned about his soul, what is essential is not 10 be found in appearance, dress, or comfort, but in freedom.
And yet, I >iolimn Hlrcs.o;es that Eros has inherited some features from his fnlhcr: "lw Kl'IN 1 1·111ll1 for noble 1muls, for he is bold, headstrong, and full of
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endurance. He's a dangerous hunter, always plotting some trick; he lusts after cleverness,"' is full of resources, and is always thinking up some scheme; he's a terrible sorcerer, magician, and sophist." 95 We could very well be listening to Strepsiades in Aristophanes' Clouds, describing what he wants to become after his Socratic education: "audacious, glib, daring and headstrong . . . never at a loss for words, a real fox." 96 In his speech praising Socrates, Alcibiades had called him an impudent Silenus,97 and Agathon had bestowed upon Socrates the epithet of hybristes.98 For Alcibiades, Socrates is a magician99 and a smooth talker, skilled in attracting pretty boys. 100
Eros' toughness appears once again in the portrait which Alcibiades sketches of Socrates on campaign with the army. He could, Alcibiades says, put up with cold, hunger, and fear, and hold his wine as easily as he endured long bouts of meditation. 161 During the retreat from Delion, Alcibiades tells us, Socrates walked as calmly as if he were in the streets of Athens, where Aristophanes describes him as "holding his head high . . . rolling his eyes, barefoot, looking solemn." 102 As we can see, this portrait of Socrates/Eros is not very flattering; we are clearly smack in the midst of Platonic - if not Socratic - irony. Nevertheless, this image is not without its profound psychological truth.
Eros, Diotima tells us, is a daimon: that is, a being intermediate between gods and men. Once more, we are forced to consider the problem of intermediary states, and we realize once more just how uncomfortable such a situation is. Eros the daimon, as Diotima describes him to us, is undefinable and unclassifiable: he too, like Socrates, is alopos. He is neither god nor man, fair nor ugly, wise nor foolish, good nor evil. 103 Yet he still embodies desire, for, like Socrates, he is aware that he is neither handsome nor wise. This is why he is a philo-sopher - a lover of wisdom. In other words, he desires to attain to the level of being of divine perfection. Thus, according to Diotima's description, Eros is the desire for his own perfection, which is to say, for his true self. He suffers from being deprived of the plenitude of being, and he strives to attain it. When other men fall in love with Socrates/Eros - that is, when they fall in love with love, such as Socrates reveals it to them - what they love in Socrates is his love for, and aspiration toward, beauty and the perfection of being. In Socrates, they find the path toward their own perfection.
Eros, like Socrates, is merely a call and a possibility; he is neither wisdom nor beauty itself. To be sure, if one opens up the little Sileni mentioned by Alcibiades, they turn out to be full of statues of gods. 104 The Sileni, however, are not themselves the statues. They only open up so that one can get at them.
The etymological meaning of Poros, Erm;' father, is "means of access" or
"way out." Socrat·es is only n SilenuK, opcninic up onto something beyond himsel f.
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The philosopher, too, is nothing other than this: a summons to existence.
As Socrates puts it ironically to the handsome Alcibiades: "If you love me, it must be because you have seen in me a beauty which bears no resemblance to your own physical beauty . . . But consider the matter more carefully, lest you make a mistake both about me and about me and about my real nothingness.,, 105 Here Socrates gives Alcibiades a warning. In loving Socrates, he is really only loving Eros: not Aphrodite's son, but the son of Poros and Penia. The cause of his love is that he senses that Socrates can open up to him a path toward an extraordinary beauty, transcending all earthly beauties.
Socrates• virtues - those statues of the gods hidden within the ironical Silenus
- which Alcibiades admires so much, 106 are only a reflection and a foretaste of that perfect wisdom which Socrates desires, and which Alcibiades desires through Socrates.
In Socratic Eros, we find the same basic structure as in Socratic irony: a divided consciousness, passionately aware that it is not what it ought to be. It is from this feeling of separation and lack that love is born.