The eros problematic in Plato and the question of philosophy: An interpretation

This dissertation analyzes the eros problematic in Lysis and Symposium in the context of Plato's effort to reveal the essence of the philosophical. Against the predominant view in contemporary Plato scholarship (particularly in the English-speaking world), which takes the Platonic treatment of eros as fundamentally motivated by the ethics and psychology of interpersonal relations, it is argued that the real thrust of the Platonic concern is to unveil the distinctive character of the philosophical endeavor vis-a-vis other forms of aspiration within the traditional Greek cultural milieu. The philosophical appears in Plato less as a body of doctrines than as a peculiar way of living; the Platonic concern, therefore, is shown to be directed towards the philosophical life or, alternatively, towards the philosopher qua incarnation of this life.; Socrates appears in Plato as the one who best incarnates the philosophical life, and a prominent feature of his personality was his eroticism. Guided by the reflection on the Socratic personality, Plato arrives at the idea of competing paradigms of striving embedded in the Greek culture. Of these, the philetic paradigm---in which the object of striving (the good) is represented as dear (philos)---reveals itself as the dominant form of striving among the Greeks. In its most basic determination as philo-sophos 'that to whom wisdom is dear,' the philosopher appears to embrace too the philetic paradigm. In Lysis, however, Plato criticizes the idea of philetic striving in general, showing it to be anchored in an instrumental mentality for which the whole of human aspiration is reduced to the need to escape from the many evils that assail it. The philetic conceptualization of the philosophical (wisdom being sought in order to escape from ignorance) needs to be overcome by a different one in which the philosopher appears adhering to a different paradigm of striving: the erotic. In Symposium, Plato seeks to show this, but not before presenting a compelling defense of the two other forms of striving that rival the erotic: on the one hand, desiderative (epithumetic) striving, defended by Aristophanes; on the other, philetic striving, defended by Agathon and, surprisingly, also initially by Diotima. The priestess, in a highly rhetorical speech, first upholds the validity of the philetic projection, only to replace it later with the genuine erotic one, whose most accomplished exemplar is the philosopher.