Socrates finds that Agathon has made a fabulously shallow speech, one that

uses beautiful imagery to mask shoddy ideas. Socrates thinks that one should
always tell the truth about whatever one praises. Socrates comments that the
general theme of the speeches so far has been to apply the most beautiful
qualities to Love whether they are true or not. And if they are false, that is no
objection; for the proposal, apparently, was that everyone here make the rest of
us think he is praising Love and not that he actually praises him.
Socrates interrogation of Agaphon
1. Love is of something in the same way that a brother is a brother of a sibling, or

a father is a father of a daughter.

2. Love desires that of which it is the love (of).

3. Something desires something of which it is in need of, otherwise it wouldnt

desire it. Would somebody who is strong want to be strong? If they do, its
because they want the things they have now to be theirs in the future as
well. (might compare with Boethius argument on material goods)
4. Therefore, love desires that of which he has a present need.
5. Agathon says: the gods quarrels were settled by love of beautiful things.
6. If that were so, then love would be a desire for beauty, since love is of

something.
7. Love needs beauty then, and does not have it.
8. Love is not beautiful then.
9. If all beautiful things are good things, then love needs good things too.

Socrates speech Note that he is merely relating what Diotima has said, in the
same way the Symposium opens as a relating of what Aristodemus told
Apollodorus.
1. Not all things not-beautiful are ugly, therefore love isnt necessarily ugly.
2. Love could be somewhere in between. For example, the in-between of wisdom

and ignorance is is Judging things correctly without being able to give a

reason (true opinion)

3. If all gods are good and beautiful, and love desires good and beauty, then love

cant be a god.

4. Doesnt necessarily mean love is a human he is somewhere in between, a

great spirit.

5. Spirits communicate between gods and men, and are the beings through which

all divination passes through.

6. At Aphrodites 0th birthday party, Poros (way, resource) son of Cunning is date-

raped by Penia (poverty) since Penia wanted to cure her lack of resources.
They have Love as a child. Since Love was conceived on Aphrodites
birthday, he is destined to follow her, and by nature a lover of beauty since
Aphrodite is especially beautiful.

7. Since he is a mutt, he is always poor, hes tough, shriveled, shoeless,

homeless, basically somebody you would pick off the shadier streets in
New Haven. His father contributes the qualities of scheming after the
good/beautiful, and he is brave/impetuous/intense/cunning, lover of
wisdom, etc.
8. Love is neither immortal/mortal he springs to life, he dies, but always comes

back to life. Anything he gets he always loses, thus in-between poverty and
resource.

9. Love (the spirit) is in between wisdom and ignorance. People who love wisdom

fall between the two extremes of wisdom and ignorance.

10.

The mistake being made thus far in the speeches given beforehand is that
they think of love as being loved instead of being a lover.

11.

The point of loving beautiful things is so that they become his own. If we
exchange beautiful for good then the lover of beautiful things wants to
have good things.

12.

Once he has these good things, he has happiness. And they agree that is
the ultimate end, happiness.

13.

Desire for happiness is universal among humans.

14.

Love has a wide variety of meanings, in the same way poetry has a wide
range of meanings the love we are talking about is a special kind of love.
Although poetry (which means creation/production in greek) encompasses
a great deal of things, poets are those who create things with melody and
rhyme. In the same way, out of everything that can be loved, lovers are
only those who devote themselves to a special kind of love, not love for

money/property/power etc.
15.

Takes a stab at Aristophanes here, saying that people dont desire their
other halves unless they are good, for a person with gangrene would be
willing to amputate the infected limb.

16.

People love the good, and want it to be theirs forever.

17.

Love, therefore, is wanting to possess the good forever.

18.

People pursue this by giving birth in beauty, whether in body or soul.

1.

(This may mean either giving birth in presence of a beautiful person or

that a lover causes a newborn to be in a beautiful person.)

2.

All of us are pregnant in body/soul, and as soon as we come to a certain

age we naturally desire to give birth (puberty anyone?)

3.

Nobody gives birth in anything ugly. They turn away/shrink back and do
not reproduce, and because they are constipated, the labor is
painful. Since reproduction is godly, it cant occur in the presence of
something out of harmony with the divine; therefore it must occur in
the presence of beauty

4.

Love wants reproduction and birth in beauty.

1.

Love wants reproduction because it is akin to immortality.

2.

Even animals (winged and footed!!) want immortality.

3.

In the same way studying preserves knowledge by replacing the

knowledge we lose, so reproduction preserves animals by
well, you get it.

4.

Achilles and Alcestis both died for the honor and glory of which the
memory we still preserve. (<-- that is a godawful sentence
btw)

19.

People who are pregnant through the soul bear wisdom and virtue (which
he says all poets beget contrast with Republic).

1.

The most beautiful part of wisdom deals with the proper ordering of cities
and households, and its called moderation and justice. <-- direct
quote

2.

Whenever somebody who is pregnant comes in contact with a beautiful

body who has a beautiful mind, they will give birth.

3.

These children of the soul (laws of Lycurgus, Homers poems) are

superior to your piddly human children.
"Is love of something, or of nothing?"

1. How to get to the Form of Beauty, aka Form of the Good

1.

Start by loving one body.

2.

Realize beauty of one body is brother to another and hence, one should
love all bodies.

3.

Becomes a lover of all beautiful bodies, and realizes that a body-specific

love is foolish

4.

After the above, must think that peoples souls are more valuable than
beauty of bodies. Beauty is skin-deep. Should give birth to ideas that
will make young men better; thus will be forced to look at beauty of
activities and laws, and will come to disregard beauty of bodies.

5.

After customs comes knowledge, and through looking at knowledge he

comes to look at a sea of beauty and will eventually come to gaze
upon the Form of the Beautiful, that which always is, neither comes
to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes, is purely beautiful
etc.

2. To sum up the above with a quote: from one body to two, from two to all, from

all to beautiful customs, from customs to beautiful things, from those

lessons to the form.

3. Only after one has seen the true form can he give birth to true virtue instead of

images of virtue.
Plato says that it's not about PEOPLE. It's about people being the imperfect
representation of the concept of love and beauty. They are the form of our ideals.