Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 179.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
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Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 06:18:49 +0100
From: cmess@lib.drury.edu
Subject: re 17.173 nesting and linear narratives
Re. the Symposium and nesting ...
The comments made so far might be helpfully complimented with the following.
> By the way, has anyone written on this aspect of the Symposium?
>
> Gerda Elata-Alster
Yes - Stanley Rosen (one of my teachers long ago at Penn State and now of
Boston University) wrote a masterful analysis, _Plato's Symposium_ many
years ago. Rosen comes out of the Leo Strauss school of Platonic
interpretation, and so has much to say about Plato's "salutary rhetoric,"
starting with his comments in the 7th letter that highest philosophical
truth cannot be written down, nor has he ever written what he himself
thinks.
What I find most interesting in this turn in the Symposium, however, is that
it accomplishes two (correlated) shifts - one logical and one having to do
with the obvious issues of gender in a party / symposium intentionally
devoid of women (the flute-girls are kicked out at the outset, in a striking
inversion of the usual social structure - along with the slaves being told
that they are to be the masters).
Logical: the earlier speeches in praise of _eros_ , including those of
Agathon (in whose honor - as the winning poet/playwright of the previous
day's competition - is held), are marked by a simple dualism: as Socrates
points out, their strategy is simply to affiliate eros with everything good,
in sharp contrast with everything bad. By contrast, Socrates prepares the
introduction of Diotima by demonstrating the limitations of that logic - and
thereby undermining the authority of the poets. He further attributes his
understanding of this to Diotima, and the first stages of their recounted
conversation consist of her in turn leading the young Socrates away from his
(youthful / male) logic of dualism to a complementarity logic - one that
places eros squarely in the middle between the previous polarities (or, in
PM jargon, binaries) of Beauty / Ugliness, Good / Bad, Divine / Human, and
Wisdom / ignorance. (Eros, as a daimon, is thus the intermediary and bridge
between the two - and philosophy is the eros for wisdom, marked by a
recognition of one's ignorance and the desire to move towards wisdom, while
not claiming to possess it.)
Gender. Much has been made of Diotima, whose presence here is striking for
many reasons, especially among the (relatively early) analyses of "Plato as
a feminist" in the 1970s. There is something, I think, in Diotima being
represented as a wise woman, and in the affiliation - remarkably
contemporary, in my view - between her more complimentary logic vis-a-vis
the more dualistic logic of the male protagonists. But she is, of course, a
fictive creation by a male author, etc.
[For that - Socrates in the Republic presents the first philosophical
argument in the Western tradition for the equality of males and females;
it's a start, at least.]
This immediately plunges us into unending debate as to whether a male author
can ever present an authentic woman's voice, etc., etc.
However all that might turn out - it remains of interest, I think, to note
that Diotima is re-presented here as a perfect Sophist - one whose teaching
accomplishes a significant move beyond that of the poets. At the same time,
however, especially if she is a poetic creation of Plato - the point is made
that, unlike more commonplace readings of Plato as opposing philosophy and
poetry, philosophy and sophistry (i.e., binary oppositions) what happens
here, in keeping with the non-dualistic logic Diotima (and Socrates) teach,
is rather the (erotic) conjunction across these polarities. That is, as in
the Republic, the dialogue - including its critiques of poetry (in this
case, because of the poets' dualistic logic) - is itself a poetic (in the
Greek sense of _poeisis_) creation that fosters a philosophical critique and
discourse that seeks to incorporate rather than separate the two.
This is a long way of getting around to agree with Ryan's reading that Plato
is not undercutting his own philosophy. On my view, at least, the reading
of Plato as a dualistic idealist simply opposed in binary fashion to
rhetoric, sophistry, poetry, etc., can emerge only by failing to take
account of Plato's use of all of these in the dialogues. This reading turns
that one on its head, and instead sees Plato as incorporating rhetoric,
sophistry, poetry, etc. And I think it particularly brilliant to have some
of those central teachings re-presented by a female figure in anotherwise
all male audience - thereby instantiating the more abstract argument for the
equality of men and women in the Republic.
I don't know what all of this does with regard to the original question
regarding nesting and linear narratives - but I'll be interested in seeing
what others make of it?
Cheers,
Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave. Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO 65802 USA FAX: 417-873-7435
[from August 20 - December 19, 2003:
Visiting Professor
Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication
IT-University of Copenhagen
67 Glentevej
DK-2400 Copenhagen NV
Denmark]
Home page: http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/catac/
Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23
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