Socrates' account of beauty in the Symposium is bound up in his account of Love. Love is the pathway whereby we are able to recognize Beauty, and while Socrates does not provide his listeners with an interpretation or definition (in any strict sense) of Beauty, he instead provides a way. By recognizing and clarifying the nature of Love, one finds the path to Beauty. This path cannot be followed in a theoretical way, but only through the exercise of love itself.
Socrates is, as always, interested in the truth, and so temptations to declare love beautiful, good, eternal and the like must be set aside if they are not established properly. Love has four features which Socrates lays out in order to clear away any enthusiastic praise of Love which obscures its object. First love is love of something rather than of nothing. Love does not stand on its own, it is never mere “Love”, but always “Love of...”. Secondly, and less obviously, desire is always of what one does not have. This seems to be obvious in some cases, for example a poor man desiring wealth, or a single person desiring a partner. But what of a wealthy man who desires wealth which he already has, or a married person desiring his spouse? Socrates does not say these cases are impossible, but that that way of expressing them is misleading. The wealthy man does not desire his present wealth, but the perpetuation of his present wealth, wealth in the future which he does not yet possess. The married man does not desire his wife now, but desires the continuation of their relationship. The third feature is that Love desires to make the object of ones' desire ones' own. Fourth, the object of Love is beauty. This is sometimes made obscure when Socrates refers to the object of Love as the good, yet the difficulty may be resolved by understanding that the good is desired because it is beautiful.
After making these initial clarifications, which prevent false praise and provide a direction for the investigation into love, perplexity arises. If love is not beautiful, is it then ugly? And if it is ugly, does it not belong to the mortal realm? Socrates asked these same questions to Diotima, the woman who instructed him in the art of love. Diotima cautioned him against such blasphemy, and showed him that a thing is not always beautiful or ugly, but sometimes something in between. Likewise, Love does not belong to the realm of the mortal or the immortal, but to the spiritual, through which the two are mediated. Love is then the conduit whereby the things in the realm of the mortal are enabled to strive towards immortal beauty.
The process Socrates sketches whereby beauty comes to be known is often called the “ladder of love.” One begins at the bottom rung with the love of bodies. One finds a body to be beautiful, and loves the beauty he finds in it. Then he realizes that it was not the body he loved, but the beauty found in the body. This beauty is present in other bodies as well, and so the lover loses his exclusivity to merely one body. Beauty is found in a muted way in bodies, and the lover finds that it is manifested more in souls than in bodies. Bodily beauty is largely forgotten, as the object of the lovers desire is found better in souls. Yet the lover is not content to rest on this rung, but propels himself upwards where he finds beauty even more in customs, and laws, and then in knowledge. At each stage the lover becomes more and more conscious that it is not the beauty of particular things which is his object, but the beauty common to all of them. He is able to gaze at a “sea of beauty”, and he begins to develop beautiful ideas until finally, having turned ever more from the particular instantiations of his object, he sees his object in its unadulterated radiance. Finally, the lover knows Beauty itself.
The way to beauty then, is through Love. Socrates does not provide a theoretical understanding whereby we maintain our objectivity, where we are mere disinterested spectators analyzing Beauty. Disinterestedness is devoid of desire, and as beauty is known through desire, this prevents one from understanding beauty. Instead, Socrates describes the progressive realization of Love, and it is in this realization that we mortals are able to encounter something immortal—Beauty.
Socrates is, as always, interested in the truth, and so temptations to declare love beautiful, good, eternal and the like must be set aside if they are not established properly. Love has four features which Socrates lays out in order to clear away any enthusiastic praise of Love which obscures its object. First love is love of something rather than of nothing. Love does not stand on its own, it is never mere “Love”, but always “Love of...”. Secondly, and less obviously, desire is always of what one does not have. This seems to be obvious in some cases, for example a poor man desiring wealth, or a single person desiring a partner. But what of a wealthy man who desires wealth which he already has, or a married person desiring his spouse? Socrates does not say these cases are impossible, but that that way of expressing them is misleading. The wealthy man does not desire his present wealth, but the perpetuation of his present wealth, wealth in the future which he does not yet possess. The married man does not desire his wife now, but desires the continuation of their relationship. The third feature is that Love desires to make the object of ones' desire ones' own. Fourth, the object of Love is beauty. This is sometimes made obscure when Socrates refers to the object of Love as the good, yet the difficulty may be resolved by understanding that the good is desired because it is beautiful.
After making these initial clarifications, which prevent false praise and provide a direction for the investigation into love, perplexity arises. If love is not beautiful, is it then ugly? And if it is ugly, does it not belong to the mortal realm? Socrates asked these same questions to Diotima, the woman who instructed him in the art of love. Diotima cautioned him against such blasphemy, and showed him that a thing is not always beautiful or ugly, but sometimes something in between. Likewise, Love does not belong to the realm of the mortal or the immortal, but to the spiritual, through which the two are mediated. Love is then the conduit whereby the things in the realm of the mortal are enabled to strive towards immortal beauty.
The process Socrates sketches whereby beauty comes to be known is often called the “ladder of love.” One begins at the bottom rung with the love of bodies. One finds a body to be beautiful, and loves the beauty he finds in it. Then he realizes that it was not the body he loved, but the beauty found in the body. This beauty is present in other bodies as well, and so the lover loses his exclusivity to merely one body. Beauty is found in a muted way in bodies, and the lover finds that it is manifested more in souls than in bodies. Bodily beauty is largely forgotten, as the object of the lovers desire is found better in souls. Yet the lover is not content to rest on this rung, but propels himself upwards where he finds beauty even more in customs, and laws, and then in knowledge. At each stage the lover becomes more and more conscious that it is not the beauty of particular things which is his object, but the beauty common to all of them. He is able to gaze at a “sea of beauty”, and he begins to develop beautiful ideas until finally, having turned ever more from the particular instantiations of his object, he sees his object in its unadulterated radiance. Finally, the lover knows Beauty itself.
The way to beauty then, is through Love. Socrates does not provide a theoretical understanding whereby we maintain our objectivity, where we are mere disinterested spectators analyzing Beauty. Disinterestedness is devoid of desire, and as beauty is known through desire, this prevents one from understanding beauty. Instead, Socrates describes the progressive realization of Love, and it is in this realization that we mortals are able to encounter something immortal—Beauty.
2 comments:
Awesome analysis of the Symposium
I don't really understand why love is the pathway for recognising beauty. I thought beauty stands up for itself more so than truth or good?
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