Love’s askesis and fragility of human formation in Plato’s Symposium

Abstract

Inspired by Martha Nussbaum and taking as its guideline the discussion on the formative idea inherent to the askesis of love, this paper investigates the meaning Plato attributes to Eros in the Symposium. First part reconstructs the speech from Aristophanes, emphasizing the double comedy of the human life. The second part summarizes the formative aspect of Diotima’s speech from the perspective of a double lesson: from the priestess to Socrates, and from him to ourselves. The third part tries to point out how much the dialectic of love, by having to respond to Alcibiades’ objection, is what leads to the change on Socrates’ posture, insofar as the presence of Alcibiades makes him to back into the sensible. Finally, the formative dimension of the askesis of love is highlighted, stressing how much it leads to the reversibility of roles between erasta and eromeno, between lover and beloved.