Socrates and Greek Philosophy

Reading: Plato, Symposium, pp 1-31.

Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:

1. The dialogue opens a “frame narrative,” in which Apollodorus responds to a friend’s request that he recount a bunch of speeches in praise of love that were spoken years earlier by Socrates and a number of other famous Athenians. Pointing to a particular detail or phrase, what does this frame tell us about followers of Socrates?
2. Phaedrus’ argument about love in the military focuses on the importance of what today we call “unit cohesion”: “the social bond that gives rise to that intangible feeling which causes a man to dive on a grenade to save his buddies, or to risk his life simply because his leader tells him to.” Yet, strangely, this leads him to precisely opposite conclusion as source from which I took that quotation. Whereas Phaedrus argues that an army of lovers could not be beaten, the Heritage Foundation back in 1993 worried that allowing homosexuals to serve in the army would weaken, not strengthen, unit cohesion. Attending to Phaedrus’ language, by contrast to the words chosen by the Heritage Foundation, explain how they reach such opposite conclusions from the same starting premise.
3. Eryximachus, a prominent Athenian doctor, explains love as a natural phenomenon. Point to something in his speech that surprises or puzzles you.
4. We encountered Aristophanes’ story about love a week ago, in Hedwig. Reading the original, what do you find surprising or otherwise of interest?