OK - been looking.
The English title of El Banquete is 'The Symposium' - it was a
discussion at the banquet to honour Agathon.
Diotima was not present and was not one of Socrates' opponents.
Rather, he is recounting what she told him - she was one of his
teachers and a priestess. So, we do not get Socrates destroying her
as usual.
Her argument was that there was an intermediate position between
reason and experience - rationalism and empiricism. And that position
was love - eros. That is, the appreciation of beauty which, once the
erotic urge fades, leads to an understanding of the beauty of the
true forms.
"Diotima taught Socrates that love was the child of Poros and Penia,
lack and plenty, a spirit of the between. Love was one of the daimon,
the spirits that held the world together as a whole, the force that
relayed messages and prayers between the gods and man. Eros was also
known best through wisdom. The love of wisdom is the love of eros.
As we progress in our lives, Diotima told Socrates, we grow in our
conception of love. First we are stirred by the beauty of the young
body. Then we begin to see the beauty in all bodies. At this point we
look to the beauty of the soul. As man is able to identify the beauty
in all souls, he soon appreciates the beauty in the laws, and the
strucure of all things. Lastly we discover the beauty of the forms,
the divine ideas. Love is important for it starts and continues us on
our path."
Not something that we can easily deal with now, lacking the Greek
religious context. Useful for starting an erotic cult if the mood
takes you - personally I'm too old and tired. Nothing to do with the
validity of opinion - Plato didn't have much time for anything so
unreasonable as mere doxa. Diotima on the other hand was a priestess
and had to accept the value of an unreasoned and 'evident' religious
truth.
Andrew
On 10/10/2005, at 11:15 PM, Jaime Garmendia wrote:
> Well, that roughly translates to:
>
> - Diotime: "...Have you observed that there is a midpoint between
> wisdom and
> ignorance?"
>
> - Socrates: "Which is?..."
>
> - Diotime: "...To have formed a true opinion without being able to
> give a
> reason for it. Don't you know that is neither being wise, because
> science
> has to be based on reason, nor ignorant, since that which
> participates from
> the truth cannot be called ignorance?
>
> The true opinion, then, occupies that midpoint between science and
> ignorance."
>
> Enlightened perspective, even more so nowadays, after witnessing
> the absurd
> manipulation of the events in the US Gulf Coast by both news
> agencies and
> government, and after reading the proceeedings of the "Intelligent
> Design"
> case, running not 20 miles from where I am.
>
> Jaime
>
>
>
>> From: Fernando Gonzalez Gentile <fgnzalez@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Well I don't know the name of this Plato writting in English, it's
>> known
>> in
>> Spanish as 'El Banquete'. There, Socrates discusses this topic with
>> Diotime.
>> In my Spanish translation, it's as follows (sorry folks, I don't
>> have such
>> a
>> biligual library):
>>
>> Diotime-..., o ¿no has observado que existe un término medio entre la
>> sabiduría y la ignorancia?.
>> Sócrates- ¿Cual es?.
>> Diotime-Tener formada una opinión verdadera sin poder dar razón de
>> ella; ¿no sabes que eso no es ni ser sabio, porque la ciencia
>> tiene que
>> fundarse en razones, ni ser ignorante, puesto que lo que
>> participa de la verdad no se le puede llamar ignorancia?.
>> La opinión verdadera ocupa, pues, el justo término entre la
>> ciencia y la
>> ignorancia.
>>
>> Platón, "El banquete" .
>> (pp117. Austral Espasa-Calpe 1973)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Fernando.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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