Week 5

Agathon: Love of beauty or the noble

October 14, 2025 6:30 PM - 8:00 pm

Before Agathon even begins to speak, Socrates provokes him (194a). What does Agathon’s love of the applause of crowds reveal about his soul? Agathon gives a polished, ornate, and rhetorically and stylistically sophisticated speech (194e-195a). Is it erotic? What essential elements of love does Agathon present that were missing from Aristophanes’ account? What darker elements of love does he hide or deny? In what way is love voluntary and gentle, and what things are left unsaid (195c-196c)? Agathon paints Eros as a beautiful being that is young and arises only after harsh necessity ends (197b)—how does this compare to Aristophanes’ punitive gods? Does love imply a softened awareness of one’s mortality (197e)? Agathon, in describing Eros, gives it the qualities of the beloved (195b, 196a-b). Can love lead the lover to lose himself in the beloved? Do the gifts of Eros disguise, not “what sort,” but what eros is (195a)?

Reading: 193e – 198a

Readings are from Plato’s Symposium, trans. Seth Benardete (Univ. of Chicago, 2001).