The aim of each speaker at Agathon’s Symposium is to offer an encomium to erôs which amounts to showing that it is a good thing and has good effects. The first task will be to outline the central claims of each speaker. This will necessarily be selective since I am concerned here with what relationship, if any, the speeches have to a philosophical account. Before exploring that relationship, though, we shall see that there is a significant degree of interplay between the previous speeches themselves.

We begin with Phaedrus (178a6–180b8), whose central claim is that erôs has the most power when it comes to the acquisition of virtue and happiness (178c3–d1; 179a8; 180b6–8). This power is apparently due to the fact that erôs can instill a feeling of shame at shameful things and a love of honor in the case of fine ones (178d1). The connection between an erotic relationship, an appreciation of the kalon, and a striving for virtue will prove crucial to a proper account of the benefits of erôs. For if it is the case that erôs can instill a love of the kalon, and it is the case that this is necessary for virtue, {24|25} then it will have been shown that erôs has positive potential. But we have little sense at this point of how a love relationship can instill an appreciation of the kalon, and what beautiful things lead to virtue, rather than, say, idle staring or sex. According to Phaedrus such relationships foster a love of honor, and it is the realization of this aim in our erotic pursuits that motivates such action (178d2–d). But it is unclear what this appreciation of the kalon involves such that it arouses this aim, and why it is that erôs aims at honor, rather than at sex or wisdom, for example. We need to know just what sort of erôs can lead to this end in particular, and why it does so.

Pausanias’ speech (180c3–185c3) builds on Phaedrus’ idea that erôs can lead to the acquisition of virtue (cf. 185b1–c1), but argues that not all erôs issues in the benefits Phaedrus claimed (180c4–5). Beneficial erôs privileges the soul over the body (183e1). Attraction to a beautiful soul will be concerned to encourage the development of the soul and its characteristic virtues (184c3–4). Pausanias suggests that cultivating wisdom is intimately related to virtue (184d1–2) and that the best relationship occurs “when the lover is able to help the man become wiser and better, and the young man is eager to be improved by his lover” (184e). If virtue is intimately connected to wisdom (a relationship that remains to be clarified), then one can begin to grasp why erôs must be focused on the areas responsible for its realization: the soul. What stands in need of clarification is the nature of this wisdom and how it is best cultivated. Why Pausanias advocates a slavish model whereby a beloved should submit himself to instruction in exchange for his charms is not at all clear (184c3).

Eryximachus agrees with Phaedrus and Pausanias that the aim of erôs is virtue (188d5–9), and with Pausanias’ distinction between erôs for the body and that for the soul (186a1–2). He adds that the correct lover must have an expertise. An expert lover is one with moderation and justice who embodies harmony and enables us to associate both with each other and with the gods (188d8–9). The medical art (186c5–6), music, prophecy, and astronomy (187c2–3) are cited as examples of such expertise. The connection between the harmonious order promoted by these technai and the development of these virtues is not so clear, however (188d5); nor are his reasons for emphasizing these technai in particular. We need more details about this knowledge of “ta erôtika” (188d2).

Aristophanes’ speech “fills in,” as he puts it, an important gap in the accounts thus far. In order to appreciate why erôs has such “healing” and beneficial effects for human beings we need an account of human nature and its needs; for erôs is a “doctor to our ills” (189d1). Human beings are apparently incomplete and needy creatures who strive towards a state of self-real{25|26}ization and happiness. If there is to be an erotic expertise, it must involve the ability to discern what these deficiencies are—what it is that we are lacking—and how they should best be remedied by finding the appropriate partner. For Aristophanes this resides in the oikeion, what is akin to ourselves, and it is to be found in another person. Union with the right other half will bring us eudaimonia (193d5). Why eudaimonia resides in the oikeion as such is unclear.

Agathon also sees an important omission thus far. The previous speakers have discussed the benefits to human beings for which erôs is responsible, but they have failed to explain the sort of nature responsible for those benefits (194e5–8). Eros is in every way supremely beautiful and virtuous (196b5); he mentions justice (195b–c), moderation (196c5), courage (d1) and wisdom (d5). Agathon “takes his turn in honoring his own expertise as Eryximachus honored his” (196e1–2) and picks out wisdom in particular, which he identifies with poetic expertise. Because Eros is so beautiful himself he pursues beauty and induces others to good and beautiful things, such as wisdom and virtue (196e5–6)—particularly to poetry, or some other creative endeavor (196e1–2). According to this account, then, it is the intimate relationship between erôs and beauty that leads to the productive effects the speakers praised. Although this will prove to be a promising idea, we have little sense at this stage why erôs for beauty issues in the production of good things, rather than in their possession. Further, since lovers are here characterized as already in possession of almost all the good things one can imagine, it is not clear why they should engage in such erotic-cum-creative endeavor at all. This aspect of the account is certainly inconsistent with the needy nature of desiring agents described by Aristophanes. Are we to suppose that we desire the beauty we already possess? Or (with Aristophanes) the things we lack?

In addition to their incompleteness, there are many puzzles and inconsistencies for those who would like to have a clear and consistent account of erôs. Phaedrus presents the idea that erôs can lead to the acquisition of virtue by instilling a sense of shame and a striving towards the kalon. But he leaves us wondering just what the connection is between an erotic relationship, an appreciation of the kalon and a striving for virtue. Pausanias agrees that erôs can lead to virtue, but goes on to argue that it is only erôs which privileges the soul over the body and, as a consequence, is concerned to encourage the devel{27|28}opment of the soul and its characteristic virtues—particularly wisdom—that can lead to that end. But we are left wondering about the relationship between wisdom and virtue, and how a love relationship is supposed to foster that end. Eryximachus argues that the correct application of erôs must be governed by knowledge. But it is not clear what knowledge of ta erotika consists in, nor why it is associated with the particular technai he cites. Aristophanes’ account of human nature and its deficiencies leaves us wondering why we should desire the oikeion, and whether there is anything particularly beneficial about being welded together with another person. And Agathon invites us to consider why erôs for the kalon is productive of good things, and whether (and, if so, why) it is a state of plenitude that motivates this beneficial and productive erôs. If lovers are already in a state of plenitude it is not clear why they should engage in such erotic endeavors at all.

Although Socrates criticizes and responds to his predecessors, he does so in such a way that some have wondered whether his account fits into their intertextual web at all. For he claims that all the speakers (note the “you” plural):

Since Socrates says that he will speak differently from his predecessors (199b2–5), in a way that privileges the truth, we may be tempted to see a sharp break in the text between the “rhetorical and poetical [and] the dialectical” (Jowett; cf. Bury1932, Dover 1980, and Rowe 1998a). If there is such a break, then does this imply that, from a philosophical perspective, the previous accounts are “fanciful performances,” with little to offer to our understanding of erôs? Since such a break might make it difficult to entertain the possibility that Socrates’ speech is continuous with those of his peers, I need to examine this critique with care.

Socrates’ central claim is that the speakers have not made the truth their priority (198e1–6). He does not say that the accounts are actually false, just that the question of their truth or falsity seems to be of no importance to the speakers. This leaves room for the possibility that they may have hit upon the truth, but if they did, it would have been a happy accident since they did not aim for this goal (198e2). But Socrates does imply that the speakers have no knowledge. They have been more concerned to appear to be offering an encomium to erôs than with actually offering one (e4). The speakers seem more concerned with “the probable,” rather than “the necessary,” as Socrates puts it later (200a9; cf. 201a8). This concern with appearances rather than truth motivates the attribution of all sorts of characteristics to erôs, without any clarity about whether and, if so, how these characteristics actually do apply to erôs.

How, then, if at all, are the speeches used in the philosophical account? I want to begin by laying out some interpretative options to navigate us through the continuity I will outline shortly. Now it could be the case that any continuity between the speeches serves a rhetorical purpose in the dialogue. There could be artistic reasons that motivate the remarkably inclusive finale of the philosopher. Although I am concerned here with whether they play any significant philosophical role, any continuity between the speeches in itself need not be indicative of that. So let us entertain the possibility of a purely rhetorical view, option (1). It could also be the case that there are deeper epistemological convictions underlying any such continuity. Plato could be indicating in the construction of this dialogue that philosophical understanding emerges ultimately through a process of working through the endoxa. Let us call this the endoxic view, option (2). If the latter, then this could be taken in a weak or a strong sense. It could be the case that the speeches raise the right sorts of ideas and issues to be resolved for a proper explanatory account, and so they need to be attended to and worked through as part of philosophical progress. The speeches on this view could include useful falsehoods, that is views that are not true, but whose underlying puzzles prompt the inquiry in a relevant direction. But the salient point is that they are relevant and significant for a philosophical inquiry. Let us call this the weak dialectical reading (2 [a]). Rather more substantially, it may be the case that the speeches not only contain “nuggets of truth,” but as such they play a role in grounding the course and nature of the inquiry. Let us call this the strong dialectical reading (2 [b]). Consider, for example, the following from Aristotle on his procedure in ethics as a possible parallel for this category:

Only when a viable definition of erôs is reached does Socrates proceed to build up his account and move on to the aims and activity of erôs. Socrates considers what follows from this proposed definition: If erôs’ nature is intermediate, then what use is erôs for human beings (204c6–7)? What does erôs aim to achieve in this deficient, yet resourceful, state (204d1–206a12)? Now, the needy nature of erôs was a central feature of Aristophanes’ account. Because erôs had a needy nature Aristophanes inferred that erôs was after the pursuit of the whole: the oikeion. Although Socrates does not engage Aristophanes in an elenchus, he explicitly refers to this view and uses it to argue towards a clarification of the aim of erôs (205d10–206a1). The claim that erôs desires the oikeion is rejected when a further premise is introduced: that we are happy to relinquish diseased limbs (e3–5). If we are happy to relinquish diseased {34|35} limbs, it cannot be the oikeion as such that attracts. If we want only to possess healthy limbs (implicit), then there must be a connection between our desires and our good. Unless the oikeion and the agathon are the same, we will not aim to replenish a lack of the oikeion as such, but the good (206a1). For it is by the possession of good things that we are made happy, and we all want that (205a1–7). Aristophanes had given the wrong account of what it is that we are lacking, but since it is true that erôs desires what it lacks, and Socrates provides additional arguments for this claim, this seems to be a useful falsehood. Constructive dialectical work is being undertaken here, too, and notice that in this instance, we can see a view being modified on the basis of a further—and perhaps more basic—view also held by the speaker in question: that erôs has a connection to eudaimonia (193d5, cf. 180b7, 188d8, 194e6, 195a5 for the same view in the other accounts).

Socrates moves on from the aim of erôs to its activity. Phaedrus and Agathon had claimed that good things (e.g. the virtues) arise from the love of beautiful things (178d1–2, 196e4–5), but their accounts left the relationship between erôs’ characteristic pursuit of beauty and this goal unclear. Socrates considers this next in the account. The desire for good things manifests itself in the pursuit of beauty (206b1), because it is in the pursuit of beauty that we can be productive of the good and beautiful things we value (206c1–2), as Agathon had held (197b8–9; cf. Phaedrus at 178d1–4). There is a nugget of truth here. And we now have an answer to why the pursuit of beauty is typically creative. Desiring agents are not in the abundant state Agathon envisaged; we are, in fact, needy creatures subject to flux and change who require productive work to attain anything at all. Unlike the divine, human beings cannot possess things in any straightforward way (207d5–208b5). Production is the mortal approximation to a state of divine possession (208b5). So erôs manifests itself in creativity as the distinctively mortal way in which we can possess good things. Agathon was right that creative activity is central to erôs, but wrong that this issues from a state of divine abundance.

Socrates then considers the kinds of creative activity that are, in fact, productive of the happiness that we desire. We pursue beauty because beauty arouses us to realize ourselves in certain ways and to make manifest whatever good we take to be central to our happiness (206c1–207a5). Phaedrus was right that some desiring agents, but not all, manifest this productive tendency in a love of honor (178c5; cf. 197a3–6 with 208c5–e3). These are the lovers of the lesser mysteries among whom are mentioned Admetus and Achilles and Patroclus (208d3), examples taken from Phaedrus’ speech (179b5–7, e1–5). If the desired good end is honor (208c3), then desiring agents will pursue beau{35|36}tiful cities and souls in which they can realize themselves as honorable law-makers, poets, educators and craftsmen (209a1–e4), all activities cited in the previous accounts as expressions of erôs (182a7, 186d5, 197a–b).

The love of honor is a manifestation of erôs (Phaedrus was right about that), but it is not the only (or the best) one. Both the having of children and the procurement of a name for oneself by poetic production are unstable goods (eidola, 212a1–6) that will not satisfy the desire for the sort of good around which one’s happiness can revolve. For the desire for eudaimonia is a desire for a stable and enduring good (206a12). But such productive activities depend on whether or not one’s children turn out well, or one’s books are well received; for only so can one secure honor for oneself. Virtue is, in fact, the real end of the desire for good things and happiness, this is not dependent on cults or shrines set up in one’s honor (cf. 209d6–e4), but is a good of one’s own soul, not dependent on any further event for its acquisition. The goods of the soul are desired for their own sake and not for the sake of a further end, just as the beautiful object that occasions such a good is chosen for its own sake (210e5–6). Again in this case Socrates preserves the view expressed by many speakers that eudaimonia is an end of erôs (180b7, 188d8, 193d5, 194e6, 195a5, 205a1), and virtue its proper outcome (179d1–2, 184d7, 185b5, 188d4–9, 196d4–e6). It is his account of the nature of these things that differs, and which grounds his arguments against the claim that honor is the privileged value.

According to Socrates to be able to produce genuine virtue is to know and love the cause of all beauty: true virtue is, in fact, knowledge of beauty (212a1–6). Pausanias had already suggested that there was a connection between virtue and wisdom (184d7–e1), and he was evidently right about that, though the slavish nature of his educational model suggested a misguided conception of this wisdom and virtue. If wisdom is required for virtue, then we need a method to achieve this end (viz. the ascent to the form), an expertise (technê) of the sort mentioned by Eryximachus as required for the proper expression of erôs. Pausanias’ claim that erôs can only achieve virtue if it is focused on the soul and not the body (210c1–2) is also employed by Socrates. But the account of that erôs will, again, be different. The love of soul is important because it encourages one to turn to other bearers of beauty—those things that are responsible for the creation of beautiful souls—and so to continue searching into the nature of beauty (210c5–6). For if one is interested in the beauty of soul one will be interested in the kinds of things that are responsible for the creation of beautiful souls: laws, practices and knowledge. This expansive encounter with different kinds of beauty encourages reflection upon the nature of beauty in a wide variety of cases. And if one is to produce something {36|37} beautiful oneself (kaloi logoi about virtue, or true virtue itself), then one must understand the cause of all beauty in the world: the form of beauty.

So, if a relationship is to lead to the virtue previously praised, it must be one that leads to the form. In the contemplation of the form of beauty a desiring agent will no longer see an individual as the ultimate source of value—so that he is ready “to stop eating and drinking and just gaze at them and be with them” (211d5–e1), like Aristophanes’ copulating lovers. But, as Aristophanes suggested, he will at last find a paidika in accordance with his nous (cf. 193c7–8): the form. This union issues in the creativity praised by Agathon (196d7–e2 with 212a4), and this time not for the sake of fame, as Phaedrus and Agathon claimed (197a3–6), but for its own sake. If what we want is a good whose possession delivers eudaimonia (205a1–3 with 180b7, 188d8, 193d5, 194e6, 195a5, 205a1), this is found, above all, in the life of contemplation—of the beautiful (211d1–3 with 212a1–5). This is the best human life (211d1–3), and a god-like life, which issues in friendship between gods and men, as Eryximachus had rightly claimed (188c1–d1 with 212a6).

This brief survey of Socrates’ speech should suffice to show that there is a great deal of continuity between the philosophical account and the previous speeches. We have seen many cases where things said by the previous speakers are taken up as they stand. Consider, for example, the following claims: that erôs desires what it lacks (191a5–6); that erôs is of beauty (197b8); that erôs for the soul is more valuable than erôs for the body (184a1); that good things arise from the love of beautiful things (197b8–9); that erôs aims at virtue (178c5–6, 179a8, 180b7–8, 188d5–6, 178c5–6, 179a8, d1–2, 180b7–8, 184d7, 185b5, 188d4–9, 196d4–e6), the good (188d5) and happiness (180b7, 188d8, 193d5, 194e6, 195a5); that erôs must be governed by knowledge (188d1–2; cf. 184d1–e1); that it has some intimate relationship to phronêsis (182b7–c2, 184d1) epistêmê (187c4–5) sophia (196d5–6), and that erôs brings together the human and the divine (188d8–9). The inclusion of such views in an account that professes to “speak the truth” suggests that these are indeed “nuggets of truth.”

As we have seen, the speakers have differing conceptions of what constitutes eudaimonia, or wisdom, for example. It is partly because of such differing, and often inconsistent, accounts of virtue, or erôs’ relationship to beauty and wisdom, that many things said previously appear in a substantially modified form. For example, Phaedrus was right that erôs aims at virtue, though wrong that the pursuit of honor is the only, or best, way to achieve it. Pausanias was right that there is an intimate relationship between wisdom and virtue, though wrong about the slavish transmission of wisdom and virtue. Eryximachus, though right that expertise is essential to the proper activity of erôs, mistak{37|38}enly identified this with the medical art, and music, prophecy and astronomy. Aristophanes was right that erôs pursues what it lacks, but wrong that this is the oikeion. And Agathon was right that erôs has an intimate relationship to beauty, though wrong about the details of this relationship.

Although it seems to be the case that much said previously is employed in some shape or form, one can also find cases where a specific view is disregarded, and cases where there is no attempt to preserve a grain of truth in the view in question. For example, Eryximachus’ claim that the medical art best characterizes erotic expertise is neither employed nor refuted, but it is in tension with Socrates’ argument that philosophy is the best expression of erôs; it is philosophy that establishes the relationship between the human and the divine that Eryximachus praised (212a1–6 with 188d8–9). But rather more charitably perhaps, such a case could be seen as one which is modified (wrong identification of expertise), though preserved (expertise of a certain kind is central). Such nuances of classification will depend ultimately on how charitable one wants to be. But the above should be sufficient to show that many of the speakers’ most central views are either subjected to critical re-figuration on the basis of further arguments, or otherwise employed in some shape or form. There is no sharp separation between the things said by the previous speakers—what they say about erôs in a muddled or incomplete form—and Socrates’ account. Furthermore, many of the puzzles and inconsistencies are clarified by Socrates’ account and put on a more plausible rational foundation.

There are considerations that do not sit comfortably with supposing that the previous views, or some sub-set of them, have such status. For Aristotle, ethics is something we are all supposed to know something about in some {40|41} way; ethical knowledge reflects the accumulative wisdom of generations of intelligent people. This does not sound very Platonic, at least if we suppose that Plato (at the time of writing the Symposium) held similar views to those expressed in the Republic. For there ethical knowledge is an axiomatized deductive system grounded in knowledge of the form of the Good. It is not clear whether we should bring such considerations to bear on the Symposium. But there is little evidence internal to the text that the speeches are taken up because they are reputable and seen to be authoritative. There is no explicit statement, for example, to the effect that a good theory of erôs must respect and preserve ordinary, or reputable, views about erôs. Nor is Socrates’ account littered with “we all believe that p” statements that serve as authoritative grounds for his arguments.

But we need not opt for the strong reading in order to see the philosophical value in the previous accounts. So far I have argued the following. The speeches are more than just a sequence of equally arbitrary claims that provide a rough and ready survey of how people discuss the topic at hand. The central claims of each speech are reasonable, and the disputes worth solving. The evidence for this is that many of the ideas are, in fact, taken up, and the disputes resolved, in the account of the philosopher. After all, as Apollodorus {44|45} said at the start of the dialogue, the speeches at Agathon’s banquet that were preserved were those “worthy of mention” (178a4). The speeches are worthy of inclusion in the dialogue, not because they justify the results of the inquiry (the strong dialectical reading), but because they are a useful tool towards those results (the weak dialectical reading). The detailed speeches provide the opportunity to examine a variety of puzzles and issues arising from the topic, and this enables one to discern more clearly where the resolutions might lie. The speeches lay out the issues that a philosophical account needs to, and does in fact, explain.