Plato’s Symposium, on Love (Live Reading)

The Symposium is a heavily fictionalised account of a convivial gathering supposedly taking place sometime around 416 BC and given by the young poet Agathon to celebrate his recent victory in a poetic contest. The guest roster reads like a who is who of late 5th century Athenian society. Symposium’s influence has defied the confines of philosophical discourse throughout the history of thought. It consists of series of speeches on Love (Eros) and offers an exploration of its variety from its most mundane to its most divine forms.

Love, however, is no mere code-name for the attraction between human beings but rather a primordial cosmic force that manifests itself in that attraction. Hence the use of myth is utterly justified in this context. Performativity plays an unusually substantial role in the unfolding of the dialogue. For a Platonic dialogue, there are many light-hearted moments that occasionally culminate in peaks of intensity.

Reference will be made to Xenophon’s Symposium, Ficino's Commentary on the Symposium as well variety of modern works such as Leo Strauss's seminal work bearing the same title.

This is a relatively early work by Plato probably composed, according to what the indications you can find in the work between 385 and 378 BC and thus belonging to his late early or early middle period.

The Symposium, along with the Republic and Timaeus is a major influence on the development of European thought.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is a live reading of Plato's Symposium. No previous knowledge of the Platonic corpus is required but a general understanding of the questions of philosophy in general and of ancient philosophy in particular is to some extent desirable but not presupposed. This Plato group meets on Saturdays and has previously read the Phaedo, the Apology, Philebus, Gorgias, Critias, Laches, Timaeus, Euthyphro, Crito and other works, including ancient commentaries and texts for contextualisation such as Gorgias’ Praise of Helen. The reading is intended for well-informed generalists even though specialists are obviously welcome. It is our aspiration to read the Platonic corpus over a long period of time.

The host is Constantine Lerounis, a distinguished Greek philologist and poet, author of Four Access Points to Shakespeare’s Works (in Greek) and Former Advisor to the President of the Hellenic Republic. November 8 is the introductory session for the Symposium and hence an ideal opportunity to join the group without having to do any catching up.

The translation we are using is by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff and can be found here.