Plato's Symposium and the Cosmic Person
Presented on: Thursday, February 5, 1981
Presented by: Roger Weir
The King and the Queen in the Quest
Presentation 5 of 12
Plato's Symposium and the Cosmic Person
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, February 5, 1981
Transcript:
This is the 5th lecture of the series by Roger Weir entitled The King and Queen in the Quest. tonight's lecture is Plato's Symposium and The Cosmic Person.
This relationship is **inaudible word**. I guess that's why the young and the mature...**inaudible several words/sentence or two**
Oh, oh very good. **inaudible word or two**
I will I will do my work and I will bring music next time as example.
**inaudible chatter in background and movement**
...never able to replace it. one of these **inaudible word** circumstances become less demanding then I will **inaudible several words** the whole theory of Plato. It's about as close to Manly Hall as you can come to in terms of the, the scope and the intent throughout a long lifetime. he lived quite a long time. Plato lived to be about 83. *inaudible word or two** all these images here. Both very similar.
In one of the lectures later, **inaudible word** spiritual guide Plato and Manly Hall. And **inaudible few words** it's interesting to consider. Very similar about 2400 years apart, the society is very similar. It's just an amazing phenomenon.
And Plato, Plato requires slow simmering. you never would see in any kind of formal education the correct approach to Plato. They usually would, once you get course on Plato will give you a little dialogue that he wrote very, very early. From The Apology, The Euthyphro, The Crito, and occasionally The Theato. And if you're lucky at all you'll get a chapter of the book of The Republic and that's about it. and even if one goes on into graduate level courses, doctorate level courses you rarely ever get a full wingspread of his **inaudible word** and his method. So that he seemed to be most digested of all minds. And you read his work, especially some of the really mature great work. And next week we'll taste one of the most puzzling works at all time by anyone The Parmenides. you find yourself **inaudible word or two** of an exquisite mind whose expansive capacity simply is like a mountain range. And you realize that it would take years and years coming back to appreciate the **inaudible word** that it opens.
His, his career...and I guess I should set a few things out here. I have a classical education and I always assume some of these things that **inaudible sentence or two**...the Mediterranean. And Egypt of course. And **inaudible word** down here. And **inaudible word or two** over
Here. **inaudible word or two** and so forth there. And Crete somewhere else and Sicily there. And here. And **inaudible few words** and Jericho. And **inaudible word or two**. All of these areas in this part of the world were beginning to be civilized, nine to ten thousand years ago. And had a tremendous amount of civilization and traditions behind it.
It's a tremendous upheaval around oh 1550 B.C., which was cataclysmic in this part of the world, interrupted the continuity, the rise and fall of civilizations. To the extent that both of them actually never become. And the explosion of **inaudible word or two**, the volcano here, sent out a tidal wave and inundated all over coastlines along here. And had completely wiped out most of the civilization that was along these regions. *inaudible few words** Egypt and civilizations further up the Nile. **inaudible several words**. All these inland areas. But the world after that had suffered oppression. so that by the time by **inaudible word** time of the **inaudible word or two** city-states and **inaudible word** kingdom in Egypt and a few areas of Crete we're trying to reconstitute this era.
And before this era, the figures of importance became the mythological cities. The house of Atreus. And Aeschylus' Oresteia, the Greek **inaudible word** tragedy. Orestes and Electra, all these people were real personages who lived in this Golden Age. **inaudible few words**
And after the attempt in Homeric times to reconstitute this Mycenean **inaudible few words** from King Midas. King Midas, everything he touched turned to gold. Midas is the great king of **inaudible word** at the time of this tremendous cataclysmic event. And his empire was extremely devastated. Both **inaudible several words** up in the **inaudible word** part of Crete and **inaudible several words/a sentence**. I think in our library we have some books and materials. Some very sophisticated pieces. Large, beautiful urban areas. Well-developed families. Citizens. **inaudible word** cultural citizens. All of this, all of this was trying to be reconstituted in the times of the Trojan War and failed. And a dark age, much like the dark ages that preceed the Arthurian cycle descended on this part of the world. And most of the techniques of civilization and building and **inaudible word or two** and everything disappeared. And remembered as only mythological figures or as tales for children.
Socrates, **inaudible word or two**, who lived about 600 B.C., journey to Egypt. and was told by the Egyptians that most of the world was simply children because they had no idea of the enormity of the past. And the continuities which had been held for some time.
**inaudible few words** began sending out all this **inaudible word** to the Greek islands and **inaudible several words**. And especially along the coast of Asia Minor. And some of these places like Ephesus become a league of small independent states almost like the 13 colonies United States. And they formed a **inaudible 2 words**. And the Ionians were a pioneer group. They were really pioneer types. They're the ones who explored all the way to Marseilles France. And began setting up a trading empire that considered the Mediterranean the province of their entire world.
Because of this Athens became sort of a shrine center of a lot of wealth. And by the time of about 500 B.C. to about 450 B.C. Perhaps a little longer than that. Athens achieved a period of grandeur. Which is really **inaudible word or two** in the world. the city population was only about two hundred thousand, but we can still see the ruins today. What's left after 2,500 years with just the Acropolis alone is mind boggling. It, it starts to realize that this was achieved without any technology as we know it. Without any world empire as you know it. And by cities smaller than Fresno(?) just absolutely astounding.
They began to suffer a decline after they had met what they thought was the greatest challenge of their civilization. They twice the incursions of the, the Persian Empire. Once under Xerxes and once under Darius. Ten years apart about 490 B.C. and about 480 B.C. And the Greek just through sheer tenacity and stubbornness, incredible luck, fabled courage defeated the Persian army, which was much larger, much more powerful, both times. And it was a matter of the greatest pride. So that even the Aeschylus, who was famous for about 90 dramas, on his epitaph he said something about his great career through almost 75 to 85 years of writing. He said nothing about it. Instead his epitaph read something like, here lies Aeschylus who died on the wheat fields of Gela. Who fought at Marathon. And the long-haired Persian still remains.
This kind of excellence and balance very reminiscent of the kind of...I'm sure that all of you have seen the John Wayne movie The Sands of Iwo Jima. The registered Marines hoisting the flag on Mount Suribachi. This is as if when Plato was **inaudible word** that when there was a Greek character. And all through his long life it came unraveled. **inaudible word** so that by the end of Plato's life there was absolutely nothing in Athenian society to recognize himself in anything. And following the complete climb of the shining greatness of possibly man's greatest achievement as a society and this incredible landslide in one long lifetime into a reign of terror. Had the counter **inaudible word** into the personal place in the mind of the fantastically challenged human being. An attempt to find out how can we stop this kind of effect? How may we set up the government? How they would find out about human nature? How may we explore the world?
So that Plato we sparked a watershed. **inaudible 2-3 words** in that he brings into play for the very first time the notion that there is such a thing as philosophy. That this **inaudible word or two** human experience is not enough. That even the greatest experience, backed by the greatest tradition, if it has no understanding, no penetrating vision in its nature will buy some incredible natural phenomena suffer an inevitable decline and decay. And there is nothing that can stop it. The only antidote is that human beings must be changed from their natural naivety into philosophy. They must be able to see and to think things through to a point at which understanding **inaudible word**. And when it does by that point, we begin to make sense out of the world as a whole and as a pattern. and then begin to conceive in our mind and understanding an idea, idos. Idea. And that this idea somehow like the image of the human hands brought together, by the idea we grab our understanding and hold it firm. And in a form that we should convey to someone else. That is, it becomes teachable. So that the saying was **inaudible 3-4 words**. And it maintains that epitaph, as we call it, all the way through our time. The **inaudible word or two**. And the Greek word for this kind of a phenomenon is pideao(?). And pidaeo means that whatever we are able to understand and refine down into understanding the ideas must also be given back to persons who were like we were before we understood. Naive. **inaudible word** Or simply laboring under the level of knowledge known as **inaudible word** or opinion. And everyone knows that opinions are kind of **inaudible word or two**. The longer we hold it we more we defend it. And the more we wish others would adopt our opinion. And the bigger flaw in a democracy is to think that by simply working on a natural spontaneous **inaudible word** public opinion that stable form of human logic and intelligence may be developed. That the way democracy works is that the government is transformed into knowledge. Into ideas of understanding. And at that way then the political form known as democracy works and works better than any other form.
In this development of Plato and his thought. And it seems almost unbelievable that one man should be singled out against the thousands of others who would possibly be available for inspection. But even in era of greatness which we could name a dozen people who walk the streets of Greece at about the same time who were world figures, Plato still stands out above them. And the reason for this is that as a young man in his twenties he had a teacher. And that teacher was the most extraordinary figure in Western history, outside of the figure of Jesus. That teacher was Socrates.
And Socrates is an enigma. Because he wrote nothing. And yet we have testimony, not only from Plato. We have it from Aristophanes who parodied Socrates in a wonderful comedy called The Clouds. And in The Clouds in Socrates school, Socrates is always in a basket. In a basket cage. And he's up in the rafters of the school meditating. And whenever any students come in and they begin to sort of skirt around and start to argue, they lower the basket and down comes Socrates ready to take them all on. And he's hoisted back up.
We also have the memories of **inaudible word (name)** the great general and historian.
But it's in Plato that we find the figures of Socrates. and it's in The Symposium, the dialogue that we're looking at tonight, that we find the clearest glimpses of this man and his techniques. And what to make of that technique. And why it was that he was able to transform in just a few years the mind of Plato. The minds of an entire society of young men. Many of them who failed because the conditions were simply too corrosive to be believed. Socrates himself was ordered by the state to commit suicide. And the charges laid against him were two. One was leading young minds astray. And two for teaching people to disbelieve in the official Gods of the state. And to inquire that perhaps there was only one real God after all, beyond the **inaudible word** and forms of the state God. And this of course was something that the **inaudible 2-3 words**
But very late in the symposium Plato has this portrait of Socrates. And the portrait is given individuals, we will learn later on, by a very wild figure in Greek history Alcibiades. And Alcibiades in his later days became the leader in Athens. for treasonous purposes shifted over to the other side of the war became a great figure there. And then committed treason against those people and came back. And all in all, was a sort of a desperado, but on a grand scale. But as a young man Alcibiades also was said to be the handsomest, best talking rhetorician. Just the most incredible man about town in Athens. And he gives this portrait of Socrates at a battle. Potidaea, which was a very fierce battle that the Greeks won, just barely through sheer tenacity. And he describes Socrates in this matter. That's a great description of him.
Oh, this I may say first and then supporting hardships in the army he showed himself not nearly my superior but the whole army. Wherever we were cut off, which tends to happen on such occasion. I'm compelled to go without food. The rest of us we're nowhere in the matter of endurance. Began when supplies were abundant no one enjoyed them more. At drinking especially though he drank only what he was forced to do so, and he was invincible. Yet what is both more remarkable of all known human being has ever seen Socrates drunk. You will see the proof of this very shortly if I'm not mistaken. And for the hardships of winter. For the winters there are very severe. he performed **inaudible word**. On one occasion in particular when there was a tremendous Frost. And everybody either remained indoors or if they did go out buckle themselves up in a quite unheard-of way. And ties and spas and **inaudible 2-3 words** in sheepskin. Socrates went out with nothing on but his ordinary clothes. And nothing at all on his feet. he walked over the island barefoot more easily than other people in their boots. The soldiers viewed him with some suspicion. Believing that he meant to humiliate them. Not so much for this subject. But for another exploit uncanny in the course of his military service and is well worth relating. A problem occurred to him early one day. And he stood still on the spot to consider it. when he couldn't solve it, he didn't give up. But stood there ruminating. By the time it was midday people noticed him and remarked to one another with wonder that Socrates had been standing rapt in thought since early morning. Finally, in the evening after dinner some Ionians brought their bedding outside. The summer-time is **inaudible word or two** where could take the rest in the cool at the same time keep an eye on Socrates. see if he would stand all night as well. He remained standing until it was dawn. Then the Sun rose. he made prayer to the sun and walked away.
Well it remains a character. Absolutely unheard-of unbelievable character.
In the schools at that time, like the schools of our time, the only thing one found was a kind of a teacher called a Safin(?). Safin is someone who's very glim, very informed, dashing. Capable of enchanting use 500 different times. And who seems to know everything. Socrates was the single exception to the Safin. And a sophistic temperament of his time. He had no position in the university. He simply held forth in the public forum. That would be sort of like in one of our shopping centers. And he would stand around and he would talk and inquire with anyone who had come around. Well he had done this from his early twenties. And he lived you know nearly 80 years. So, you can see towards the end of his life this was quite a spectacle. To have this fable, tattered, unbelievable, ugly. He was ugly. He was said to resemble kindly a satyr. Or unkindly a frog. His eyes bulged. He was rather duped and short. He was **inaudible word**. you know how some bodies are not well formed. He was married. his wife, which was true. Many times, Socrates would in his dialogues say that he had to be home for supper. That it wouldn't do to anger Xanthippe, his wife. He had children. A savvy kind of a character.
But what he introduced was a concept which until that time simply hadn't been, hasn't been used in thought. And the concept, well there are many concepts. But the one I want to **Inaudible several words/sentence or so**
During the break I'll leave this open. There's a Greek dictionary here. You can look up some of the words, some of the other words for your stuff.
The peculiar thing about Socrates use of this word is that it comes from **inaudible word** which means compile or to place something. With an object in mind that you don't just put it down and leave it there. But that you position it so that your movements have a relationship to it. And with a hypothesis instead of it being simply a mental proposition which stands for a suggestion. It is a dynamic, verbal kind of a process. An examination in motion. And that we should crack **inaudible several words**
The reason for this was that, as I read you from The Symposium. That Socrates believed that we have within ourselves all of universal ideas or form of knowing already. That they are there. That they are there latent. Just as the flower is in the bud. The bud is in the stem. And the stem in the **inaudible word** that all of the universal ideas are each one of them. And the procedure is not to place something in it which is not there. Not to fill the box with things. But rather to nurture and coax out the **inaudible word** kind of intelligence which are there in speed already. And need only, as he says, a midwife to deliver them from the obscurity of ignorance into the blossoming the birth, or the rebirth if you would, of intelligence. And toward that end that all of these prophecies of development compete within into their blossom. This is a kind of therapeia. We use the word therapy today. And they used the word therapeia. *inaudible word or two** the same stuff. They meant the restoration of health. Not simply to adjust you to the circumstances as you saw them. And not simply to put you back into fairly decent shape visa-vee the average population. The therapeia ultimately to restore you to your universal form which partakes of the universal penultimate form, the good.
This requires in Socrates method a conversion. A Metanoia as **inaudible word** would say. Metanoia. Noia is the mental power. Meta the change of the eye. Going, going beyond what you thought you knew. What you thought you knew how to know. Putting all of that in some sort of a parenthetical hypothesis and stepping back from it and by moving around coming to a new definition, which is based on that. But by stepping back slip into another frame of mind, another dimension of being, we literally enlarge the web of understanding which we occupy in the universe. And that this procedure once learned can be applied over and over again. And that we may simply, daily grow in our understanding and intelligence. That as we do there occurs not just an arithmetical growth but a kind of a compounding of the growth of the mind. So that after so many of these kinds of experiences one begins to see patterns which were to please unknown or invisible before. And that finally what appears is that there is an architectural meaning in the universe to which we are certainly welcomed. And that if we will only employ a reasonable process of discovery it will reveal itself to us. And that in the process of our revealing it we become more and more tuned or in harmony with its purposes and its fundamental motion. And thus, we find ourselves changed, physiologically changed. And we find ourselves becoming closer to a universal than an individual.
This is two short quotations. It's a wonderful book. It's been in print for years. Therapeia: Plato's Conception of Philosophy. They printed about 600 copies at The University North Carolina Press Oh a long time ago. Twenty or thirty years. Its interesting. Just a paragraph.
Once Plato's diagnosis of the human situation is understood the way is rightly prepared for approaching his conception of the proper therapeia. If existing cultural incentives are predicated upon an inverted and hence perverted estimate of value and being, it follows that it is a function of education to correct this inversion.
That is a dependence on, on opinion or upon placing information into people from the outside.
"Therefore, Plato taught that what is required is as an antidote to counteract the distortion. Which presently warps and misdirects the souls' vision. And the words for conversions or to convert appear at least 21 times in book seven." He means of The Republic. "It is a momentous revolution which Plato has in mind. And there is little possibility of understanding Plato's therapeia without full assessment of its meaning. For," And here's another Greek word...metostrokus. **inaudible several words**
"Education as revolution of the entire soul presupposes the accessibility of reality to the knowing mind. The faculty of cognition is designated as the order of knowledge. As an instrument that is conceived after the analogy of the eye." Plato speaks of Neuse as the eye of the soul. I think you may have seen some of the **inaudible word** drawing from time to time. **inaudible few words** used to do a thing where a human being had his eyes closed and on his forehead was kind of a **inaudible word or two**. The inner eye. The Neuse.
And he apparently conceded the knowledge process after the analogy of direct sensible intuition. He observed, however, that in the case of the eye vision is not inserted into it. For according to the then existing physiology of sight, vision occurs when the fire and the organ of sight coalesces with light from outside the organ. And likewise, in the case of Neuse, the eye of the soul, it is equally true that vision is neither inserted nor conveyed. The light is already in it. but the event of knowledge has subjective conditions which are not satisfied merely by the presence of available reality.
"And in this process," and I am skipping over to give you another short few sentences. "in this process there is a motion." An ascent. "In the light of the foregoing we are in a better position to understand the offending nature of dialectical logic as contrasted with the descending nature of deductive logic in the abstract sciences." Dialectics as a lens coat(?) **inaudible several words** and come back to this ten years ago. **inaudible few words** or understand them. Don't be put off by them. And you can just see them as these as seeds of **inaudible word or two** illuminate them all. Dialectics that is the conversation in specific kind of form, the Socrates, Socratratic form as **inaudible word/name** says, "Examines his own assumptions or hypotheses. A procedure illustrated in every dialogue where Socrates is shown. Appraising insisting the well or ill-considered opinions of men. respecting courage, justice, holiness, virtue, whatever the case may be."
That is to say there is constantly a motion in Plato's dialogue in the character of Socrates in the techniques of this dialectic. To create a hypothesis, to step back from it, to examine what we know among ourselves in terms of this. And to find out whether or not in that process we come to a point where we simply say this is absurd. It is not so. It could not be so. Or we come to a point where we say we don't believe what we arrived at. So that we can see that wrapped up in the hypothesis was an error, a flaw, an ignorance, which we did not know. And to go back and correct it. In certain simplistic terms, if man is a machine man is a self-correcting machine. And the function as he does pre-eminently is to correct himself. That his protectability is a purpose that he has. And his life to correct himself to perfection. Very simplistic language but perhaps it helps at this point after all these words and phrases and so forth.
Quite often instead of getting into these messes on the blackboard. All these words and so forth, Plato wise man he was refuses to get into this shape of understanding. And instead says through Socrates quite recently, let's put this aside for a moment and let's tell a story. Let's tell myth which will illustrate this. And that the myth will take the place of all this kind of meandering and investigate.
And there are some wonderful books on the uses of myths in Plato. One of the best little ones published by the shrine of Lisbon called Human Soul in the Myths of Plato. **inaudible few words** a lot of it to the shrine of wisdom and they put out little additions of Pythagoras and Plato and Plotinus. Dionysius the Areopagite and so forth. **inaudible word or two**
There is another book called The Myths of Plato by J.A. Stewart. J.A. Stewart The Myths of Plato.
But the purpose of myth, the visa, the plotline, the storyline, is like the dialogue. Is like the thought credit inquiry. To put at rest that deductive critical faculties whose habitual categorizing of information gets in the way. In fact, usurps the way of natural discovery and puts in its place a kind of a sophistic parallel. Which we in our state somewhere between ignorance and wisdom mistakes for progress. Because we have no way of telling the difference in the process as it's happening whether it your true spiritual discovering. Or whether it is **inaudible word** meandering. We have no way of telling. And a coellary of Plato's style of wisdom and Socrates style of inquiry that we have to do it together. That a person by themselves, unless gift, unless gifted by the Gods, is inadequate. We have to talk to each other. It's the only way we have. And we have to in this companionability have to be absolutely honest with ourselves and with each other. Because it is only there in the trust of companions along the way that philosophy can actually happen and be born. There's no other way other than the gift of the Gods if they so choose.
In The Symposium one of the beautiful things that we find here, there's a dinner. I guess we should get to this dialogue. There's a dinner and....
END OF SIDE ONE
And one of the beautiful things that we find here, there's a dinner. I guess we should get to this dialogue. there's a dinner. And invited to this dinner are **inaudible word or two** at the home of Agathon, who won first place in Greek tragedy. The eloquent beautiful individual. Everyone that was typically there. And this dialogue was given to a second hand by someone who was not there but had heard the stories and **inaudible word or two** And that someone **inaudible few words** their understanding of **inaudible word or two**.
And progressively Tuesday these dialogues different persons would give their ideas of love. And then we get **inaudible few words** and someone who is described simply for sexual love. And describes it in terms of the ideal mate. And someone who's described it in terms of that was prophetic, the first one. Eryximachus, the physician describes it in terms of a kind of physiological aspiration toward the **inaudible word** of the body and so forth. And finally, they turn to one of the great honored guests Aristophanes. One of the great writers of comedy. The early comedy. And Aristophanes has the hiccups and cannot talk. And somebody else comes in and gives a version with Aristophanes, gives his version of love. He says that a long time ago human beings were quite different than what they are now. That they have been two backs. And had four legs and four arms. In fact, they were a couple as we would **inaudible word** them in our fine imagination today. The Gods were jealous of this. Of course, they couldn't **inaudible few words** creatures totally happy and **inaudible few words**. and so that man finds himself **inaudible word** spending all of one's time looking for the other half.
After this wonderful speech of Aristophanes and everyone is laughing and carrying on, Agathon delivers a very elegant kind of a effect to the **inaudible few words** honor of his greatness with language. and he also describes love as being some sort of a god-like quality. Pristine in its beauty. Strong. Capable and he uses the kind of language, just fantastic. And it's elegant. And let's see...he ends up saying that it is love that empties us of the spirit of estrangement and fills us with a spirit of kinship. It makes possible such **inaudible word or two** mutual intercourse as this. It presides over festivals, dancing, sacrifice. The same good humor and **inaudible word or two** a gift is the gift of good will. And never **inaudible several words** kindness. Contemplated by the wise. Admired by the Gods. Coveted by men who possessed not. The treasure of those who have left by his possession. Father of daintiness, delicacy, voluptuousness, **inaudible word**, longing, desire etc. And ends by saying wherewith to cast a spell over the minds of all gods and all men.
Socrates is disgusted. **inaudible several words**. I mean blasted by **inaudible word** of this. Coming unfairly at the tail end after all these great **inaudible word** whatever could he possibly say. And in fact, he would sleep if he knew there was any place for him to go. But he would try his best if they would permit him perhaps simply to be himself. And being himself, he has to get a few issues out of the way. So, he turns to his host Agathon and says well I really know very little about this. **inaudible several words** To know that he does not know. And this is unheard of. Because then there are other things that he may not know. What is it that you know that permits him to know that he does not know? well you have to **several inaudible words** unknowable of all things.
And he says, my dear sir **inaudible 2-3 words** how could anyone who had to speak after so splendid **inaudible word**good correlation to that which we have just heard. **inaudible few words** not so remarkable as the rest I know but a beauty of the words and phrases in that passage at the end would have taken anyone's breath away. For my part when I reflected that I should not be able to come anywhere near that standard of eloquence why I want to flee. I felt that with a great orator would somehow use this but a Gorgon(?) peasant had reduced me to silent speech.
And then he says, **inaudible few words** Agathon may I ask you a few questions, small question, so that I might obtain is agreement before I begin. **inaudible sentence or two**.
So, Socrates says I was very much struck by your introductory passage my dear Agathon. Where you said that the right thing was first to describe the actual nature of the Gods. And afterwards to demonstrate the effect which he produces. I like that way of beginning very much. I would be very grateful if you would supplement the otherwise splendid and magnificent account of love nature by consuming this question. And he goes on to say, isn't, isn't love always love of something. One doesn't **inaudible few words** it's always love. You love your father. And you love your mother. Isn't love always a relationship? And they allow that this is **inaudible few words**.
It occurred to me to say that love is **inaudible 2-3 words** That it seems to me that love is always needing, wanting something that it does not possess. If possessed, it would have no need to desire it. it would have it. But is love not really the lack of beauty, strength etc. and he spins it out. And finally, he says, well it seems that we have a problem here today. That love is in fact something quite different from what we've been exposed to. And that all of our thinking has somehow approached this in the wrong way. That we discovered nothing except the fact that we can tell exactly what we're doing are nothing about love. And if you allow **inaudible few words** I was instructed by a woman from a little town what kind of love. And I have I think very good conversations with her. Because I choose at one time how **inaudible word or two** the same opinion about how she felt about love. And permit me relate to how she instructed me.
And so, Socrates relates, and this is his method. He relates what he knows in a dialogue. He never comes out this **inaudible word or two** it's always set up so that as durational term goes on more and more elements of a form began to occur. Until it's almost impossible to ignore that in the mind of the holder, the mind of the listener that the **inaudible word** that's being portrayed before you, occurs. So that long before Socrates draws the conclusions you yourself would draw the conclusion. in colloquial words you know damn well what he would say because you already figured it out. He'd like to detective who's laid all the facts of the case out. You know who's guilty. And you just almost impatient that hasn't get on with it and get you **inaudible few words**. But Socrates **inaudible word or two** and he says that love is always a middle ground state. It is never wisdom. It is never ignorant. And that in fact, the person who is in love or is a lover is always someone who is in this quandary of being suspended between wanting to know the real truth and not being so ignorant as to not know that there is something to know. And that such a person who persists in pursuing this becomes a philosopher. A lover of wisdom. Because the very process of recognizing over and over again that one is always in the middle, that we haven't **inaudible word** to the absolute of wisdom in any area whatsoever in life. We increasingly find ourselves **inaudible several words** somewhere in the **inaudible word**. And our location can be identified by the fact that it's always in between ignorance and knowing. And that the lover is **inaudible few words** because he will not give up. Will not, not be a lover. Always want to know. Keeps the desire to know alive. And by constantly running against the unknown and the unknowing in all areas slowly defines his real position in the world as being someone for whom **inaudible word** could never be a refuge. Wisdom cannot be attained. And so, he is left with the process. With the method. With growing old.
And that as he says here, "Well if you believe that the natural object of love is what we have more than once agreed the answer will not surprise you. The same argument holds good in the animal world as the humans. as mortal nature speaks as far as may be **inaudible word or two**. And become immortal." Because only at this final quest for immortality can this process go on indefinitely. So that finally an equality that emerges out of the love of wisdom out of this wonderful dinner party and Socrates, is that the quest for immortality, a wisdom which would be synonymous with immortality, is finally at the bottom of the whole issue. And that the lover is one who expects that that is somehow solved. Knows this to be true. Does not know though how it is true for one. And that he is not ignorant normally but simply suspended in **inaudible word or two**.
The man who is pursue the right way to this goal as they say must begin when they are young. And apply themselves just at that time simply to the concentration of physical beauty. And if properly directed by a God he will first fall in love amongst **inaudible few words**. And to get noble sentiments and partnerships and so forth.
Later on, we observe that physical beauty in any person is closely akin to the physical beauty in the person one loves. And that if he is able to make Beauty of outward form the object of his quest, it is his great folly not to acknowledge that the beauty exhibited in all bodies is the one and the same. And when he's reached this conclusion, he will become a lover of all physical beauty. And will relax the intensity of passion for a particular person or his people. And he'll realize that such limited passions are beings of small account.
The next stage is to reckon that beauty of the soul is more valuable than beauty of the body. And the result will be that when he encountered the virtuous soul in a body which has little of the bloom of beauty, he will become **inaudible word** to relevant cherishes and bring forth such notions as may serve to make **inaudible word** people better. And in this way, he will be compelled to contemplate beauty as it exists. in activities, institutions, architecture, sculpture, **inaudible word** whatever it is. that the love of you, questing for ultimate and an immortal form of understanding, the eternal good. That this question leads us from the observation of individual persons or just people, to see that any kind of parentheses as it were. As being only a small portion of the true picture. So that as we mature and **inaudible several words** of fantastic differentiation on the one hand and synthesizing our form on the other. Through this dialectic of inquiry that we begin to know more and more that all of the forms of love and **inaudible word** in nature exhibit the same principle and allow us to investigate in the same way. So that from mortal you must be directed into the sciences. Contemplate their beauty also. so that having his eyes fixed upon beauty in the widest sense, he may no longer be displayed of the base and mean surge of devotion to mean examples of beauty. But by gazing upon the vast ocean of beauty, which his attention is now turned, may bring forth in the abundance of his love of wisdom. He loves to see then many beautiful and magnificent ideas. Until at last, strengthened and increased in stature by this experience he catches sight of one unique science whose object is the beauty of which I'm about to speak. And here you must I asked you to pay the closest possible attention.
This is the fulcrum at which The Symposium **inaudible word or two** Socrates makes him at **inaudible word or two** who have been guarded thus far in the mysteries of love. And who has directed his thoughts for examples of youth and do an orderly succession will suddenly have revealed to him, as he approaches the end of his initiation a beauty whose nature is marvelous indeed.
The final goal of all his previous efforts. The duty of **Inaudible word or two** either comes into being or passes away. Either waxes away. Not beautiful in any particular part but in the whole of ugly. It's not corporeal. But beauty like a **inaudible word** or science. Not like beauty that has to seek something other than itself. He is a living thing for the earth of the sky or anything whatsoever. He will see it as absolute. **inaudible word or two** within itself unique eternal all of the beautiful things participating in its order.
This quest is discovery of the nirvanic state in the mind beyond the capacities of experience. Beyond the process of self-reflecting parentheses of order. **inaudible several words** and the discovery is phenomenal.
Well Plato is a very wise man and does not leave us on this grand wonderful end. And The Symposium follows through and gives us like a true artist gives us a coda to bring us back to the **inaudible word or two** bring us back from the top of Mount Everest, put a staff into a thesis base camp with a glass of hot rum and **inaudible word or two** so that we may leave it not shocked by expectation or mystified by a potential. But rather may come full circle back some human place. Where we may freely put it down, turn away and walk away from it. And hopefully come back to it again some other day.
So **inaudible word or two** in The Symposium introduces the figure of Alcibiades first into the party, drunk as all get-out. The bunch of friends **inaudible word or two** playing the flute. Alcibiades tells them all to sit down at the table and **inaudible few sentences** let me sit down here **inaudible word**. And he jumped up in the table because who is sitting next to him but Socrates. And this is how Plato describes it. And this is right after this beautiful, incredible, refined insight of the ultimate reality experience. **inaudible word** the first time in Western thought this mysticism has been put into a **inaudible word** form.
And he says, take off the **inaudible word or two** shoes off **inaudible word** so that he can put his feet up and make a third at this table. Well **inaudible word or two** says Alcibiades that was our table companion with these words. And he twisted himself around and saw Socrates. Then he looked to his feet and said good God what have we here Socrates lying there in wait for me again? How like you to make a sudden appearance just when I least expect to find you. what are you doing here? Why are you taking this place? You ought to be next Aristophanes or some other buffoon instead you managed to become right next to me. Sit next to me **inaudible word or two** You see everyone has been quote **inaudible word** just outside of **inaudible several words**. How one time he tried to lure Socrates into a situation of **inaudible 2-3 words** to see if he really was a philosopher. And see if he couldn't just get Socrates to make some kind of a social swap. He did not. And Alcibiades on top of it all he kept me up all night talking about philosophy and I felt like a complete fool. Me the most eloquent man in Athens. And the dawn came he simply walked out of my house and instead of going to sleep even then walked down to the forum and spent the whole day arguing with other people.
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