Persons of the Dialogue
Diotima
|
Plato, the narrator
of the Dialogue
Socrates
Perifanos, a sophist
Amelés, a young nobleman of Athens
The group of young men
accompanying Amelés
Diotima, Socrates' teacher |
|
Plato: The unusual method of dialectic which Socrates engaged in is perhaps best illustrated by what occurred during a time when he was discoursing with a small group at my home and Amelés and his companions arrived, asking if they could join our discussion.
I was certainly agreeable, and Socrates and the rest of the company assented as well.
Amelés: "We were revelling at the Lyceum, when we suddenly desired to speak with you, Socrates, about philosophy. For we were of one mind that we desired very much to learn from you and to determine if we should follow the way of philosophy. And we agreed that I should be the spokesman for our group."
Diotima: "The life which philosophers desire is truly death and philosophers are deserving of the death they desire."
Amelés: "Then most surely I do not want to be a philosopher!"
Socrates: "What Diotima just recited is the slander against philosophers which their enemies, the sophists, spread among Athenians."
Diotima: "Philosophy is actually the release of the soul from the body--which in the philosophers' special language is called death. Achieving release from the body, the soul communes with Beauty, Goodness, and Justice in the higher realm of Divine Ideas."
Socrates: "Now, do you think, Amelés, that you want to be a philosopher and follow the way of searching for wisdom?"
Amelés: "Most assuredly, for it seems a most pleasant way of life, enjoying discourse with higher wisdom in all her purity."
Socrates: "How many of your company, Amelés, consider themselves philosophers? Let them stand if this be their appraisal of themselves."
Plato: "We were astonished to see the entire group which had accompanied Amelés stand as if a single man, exclaiming loudly that they were seekers of wisdom and thus philosophers in every true sense.
When they had resumed their couches, Diotima ended this part of the discourse by speaking to the entire assembly.
Diotima: "No true lover of wisdom calls himself a philosopher, for it is too high an honorific for a person to delegate to herself. If, indeed, she is a true seeker of wisdom, others may use such a title of honor and esteem in regard to her. She does not claim to be a true lover of wisdom, because it is too exalted an attainment to claim for oneself."
When Amelés and his companions had left, Plato said to Socrates and the others: "Amelés seems to be well-named for indeed he appears entirely heedless (amelés)."
Diotima: "If you observe that the wrangling of heedless people reveals the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can hold this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others."
Perifanos: "But is not humility of which one is conscious essentially pride?"
Diotima: "Most often that is true. But nothing derived from associating with ill-mannered persons is more useful than the lesson that you must endure their disagreeable behavior and must not imitate it."
Perifanos: "Nonetheless, it is wearying to hear meaningless controversy and observe widespread thoughtless behavior."
Socrates: "If you reflect and meditate on the evil of this world and perceive that it is false and fleeting, you can make your heart empty of it and ascend to that state which you possessed before coming into the terrestrial plane."
Plato (to Socrates): "I have heard you say that it is wise to avoid the company of those who waste your time. You must sometimes be lonely for association with other persons of your own rank than Diotima."
Socrates: "And what would you say is my rank?"
Plato: "That of an advanced adept in the higher mysteries."
Diotima: "An advanced adept is known only to an advanced adept. Whoever says he has attained to an advanced level has not attained, but when he says that he has been made to attain to seership by the Good, be assured that he has really attained."
Perifanos (in disgust): "You all seem like madmen to me, expatiating about wisdom and heedlessness."
Diotima: "You think I am mad and I think you are sensible. May God increase my madness and your sense!"
Perifanos: "You all pretend to be seeking this God of yours but you never seem to find him."
Socrates: "God is too manifest to admit of His being sought."
Perifanos (in disgust): "You are all too high and mighty for me, I'm afraid I must find more suitable company."
Diotima: "When God wishes a man well, He gives him insight into his faults."
Perifanos: "You are too blind to see what I am trying to say."
Socrates: "Whenever you occupy yourself with what is perishable, you are made blind to that which is eternal. And when you occupy yourself with the eternal, you are made blind to the perishable."
After Perfanos had left, Plato said to Diotima and Socrates: "I don't know why you put up with people calling you names such as 'blind" and 'mad."
Diotima handed Plato three scrolls which had been sent to her.
Diotima: "Read the salutations of these few letters and you will see that they address me as 'Teacher,' 'Seer,' and 'Sage.' Every person gives me the title which accords with his belief concerning me and his ability to discern who I really am. If poor Perfanos referred to me as 'blind' and 'mad,' why should you quarrel with him?"
Plato (to Diotima): "But it is unfortunate that people do not see you and Socrates as true lovers and seekers of wisdom--philosophers."
Socrates: "Today philosophy is a name without a reality, but formerly it was a reality without a name."
Diotima: "Realities are not affected by the names bestowed upon them."
The New Perennial Dialogue: An Enlightening Encounter