Is Platonic Love Platonic?

This paper was presented at the 58th Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference at the University of Portland in 2006

Is Platonic Love Platonic?  On the sexual orientation of Diotima’s Eros in the Symposium

Abstract:

R. E. Allen, in his commentary on the Symposium, mis-reads Plato’s general attitude toward homosexuality and pederastic mentorship, causing him to both misconstrue the relation between the speeches of Pausanias and Diotima, and to ignore important aspects of Plato’s appropriation of procreation as a metaphor for philosophy.  

In a footnote in R. E. Allen’s 1991 commentary on the Symposium, Allen criticizes Kenneth Dover’s remark that Diotima’s presence as Plato’s spokesperson in the Symposium “tends to allay our suspicion that cunning self-interest might be the mainspring of arguments for what is essentially a male homosexual foundation for philosophical activity.”[1]  Allen sees no such foundation implicit in Diotima’s speech, or, for that matter, anywhere in the Platonic corpus.  He writes:

Diotima’s own view, which Socrates accepts for the excellent reason that it is his own, is certainly heterosexual and fundamentally ascetic; sexual intercourse is by nature directed toward the procreation of children.  Plato . . . condemned homosexuality, not only on ascetic grounds, but as contrary to nature.  No doubt Socrates sometimes speaks as an admirer of the beauty of boys, for example in the Charmenides (155C), and in this he adopted the conventions of his culture; but the real meaning of it is explained in the speech of Alcibiades: it is irony (216d-e, 219c-d). As to a male homosexual foundation for philosophical activity, the Republic recognizes the intellectual talents of women as equal to those of men and therefore makes women eligible for higher education as guardians; there is a tradition that Plato’s own school, the Academy, had not only male but female members . . .Diotima’s presence in the Symposium is fully explicable without Dover’s conjecture, and inexplicable with it.[2]

Let it be stipulated that, at least for the purposes of this essay, Diotima’s view is “fundamentally ascetic.”  But is it “certainly heterosexual”?  Does the Diotiman account of Eros, usually taken to be the main source for what is called “Platonic love,” have a sexual orientation at all?  It is the primary contention of this paper that Allen profoundly mis-reads Diotima’s account of Eros--that her speech is not a repudiation of Pausanias’ apology for pederasty, but rather a transfiguration of it. As a secondary question, the essay will explore whether the Platonic conception of philosophical activity is “homoerotic” in the sense explicated in A. W. Price’s Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle, and whether this homoeroticism is at least open to heterosexual manifestations. 

Allen’s evidence marshalled for the heterosexaulity of Platonic love is roughly outlined in the passage quoted above.  It may be summarized as follows:

1.  Diotima (who Allen assumes to be Plato’s mouthpiece) describes eros as fundamentally concerned with procreation.  Contrasting Pausanias’ apologetic for pederastic love with Diotima’s account of Eros, Allen earlier writes:

Vulgar Aphrodite, “who in her birth partakes of both male and female,” is treated as Venus Meretrix; but she is also of course Venus Genetrix, by whom, as Diotima will suggest . . . men are able to achieve a kind of vicarious immortality through their offspring.  Heavenly Aphrodite, goddess, but one who “partakes not of the female but only of the male,” is inherently sterile.[3] 

2.  Plato elsewhere, principally in the Republic and the Laws, condemns homosexual activity, not only on ascetic grounds (which might also apply to heterosexual activity), but on the grounds that it is sterile and “contrary to nature.” 

3.  Socrates’ spurning of the youthful Alcibiades shows that Socrates only pretends to be interested in the physical charms of boys in order to seduce them into philosophy.  Other textual indications of Socratic or Platonic homoeroticism are thereby shown to be “ironic.” 

4.  The presence and intellectual equality of women as guardians in Plato’s ideal city, and perhaps also in the real Academy, suggests that Plato’s conception of the foundations of philosophical activity have little to do with male homosexuality. 

5.  The presence by proxy of Diotima in the Symposium, as the mouthpiece for Socrates’ own views on love, and Socrates’ tribute to her as his teacher in the art of love itself seems decidedly heterosexual, especially when contrasted with the dismissive attitude toward heterosexual love exemplified by earlier speakers in the Symposium. 

Now, none of these arguments is without its problems. 

Allen stresses procreation as the “procreation of children,” while failing to mention (at least, in the note cited) Diotima’s distinction, paralleling that of Pausanias’ Earthly and  Heavenly Aphrodites, between those “pregnant in body” and those “pregnant in soul.”  In language echoing Pausanias’ concerning those inspired by the Earthly Aphrodite, she tells Socrates that those pregnant in body only gravitate toward women.  That leaves implicit (but clearly implicit, as later statements show) the idea that those “pregnant in soul” may seek out others of the same sex.  The language of lover and beloved, and pronouns used, seem to leave the culturally assumed paradigm of pederastic mentorship unchallenged.  The big difference from Pausanias is the application of procreative language to relationships that produce progeny other than children. Reproductive imagery is of necessity derivative of the heterosexual paradigm, and Eros is always procreative, but procreation isn’t limited to producing children.  Heavenly Aphrodite isn’t sterile.  It produces phronesistic progeny: poetry, inventions, and laws (209a).  Diotima does not so much rebut Pausanias as complete him. 

When Allen does bring up this latter, metaphorical form of procreation, the implication is that it is entirely non-sexual, but only “the product of friendship.”[4]  That such relationships would be entirely non-sexual cannot be supported from the text of Diotima’s speech itself, the claim rests enthymemically instead, I think, on Allen’s interpretation of other texts, principally the Republic and Laws, to which we will shortly turn.  Allen also neglects to comment on the fact that, while the procreative metaphors are derivative of heterosexuality, Diotima holds the latter, phronesistic form of reproduction to be of higher value (209c).  Page duBois argues that Plato’s adoption of procreative metaphors including seduction, insemination, pregnancy, giving birth, midwifery (in Theatetus 149a ff) , etc., to describe education and philosophical dialectic blurs the lines between the masculine and feminine and“reinscribes the female by locating her powers within the male.”[5]  Once proper consideration is given to the superiority Plato ascribes to intellectual procreation as a sphere of activity assumed to be dominated by male-male relationships, Diotima’s account of Eros does not look so heterosexual. 

Moving on to Allen’s appeal the Republic and the Laws, it first needs to be pointed out that the significance of these passages from outside the Symposium for our understanding of Diotma’s speech depends on the assumption that Diotima represents not only Socrates’ but also Plato’s mature views on love.  To the extent that there is reason to think that Diotima expresses a view not entirely congruent with Plato’s own, the relevance of these other passages is called into question, at least with respect to whether Diotima means “the right kind of boy-love” (211b) to be an entirely sexless affair.  Such questions about Diotima’s voice have indeed been raised.  Allen himself cites a couple.  Then there is Nye. 

If the Republic and Laws can be used to properly interpret Diotima’s model, then Allen’s case looks strong, at least initially. Republic 403b-c is specifically directed to the erastes/eromenos mentoring relationship that is to obtain in Plato’s ideal city.  It states that the level of intimacy between lover and beloved should go no further than that which the beloved might experience with his father.  The reason is purely ascetic; it is not that such passions are unnatural but that they are so intense and disorderly as to derail reason and the contemplation of higher things.  Homosexual relationships are not singled out for special blaim because they are homosexual, rather, it is being assumed (at this point in the dialogue at least) that the standard mentoring relationship would be a male-male one, following cultural conventions.  If an opposite-sexed mentorship had been considered, the same restrictive reasoning would have equally applied.  So if we take the Republic as a key, Diotima’s account of Eros may indeed be “fundamentally ascetic,” but not so “certainly heterosexual.”

The Laws provide what seems to be a clearer condemnation of homosexual activity.  The Laws are discontinuous with the much of the rest of the Platonic corpus in a number of ways, suggesting Plato has changed his mind a number of key points, which makes using it to interpret Plato’s meaning in the Symposium anachronistically problematic even if Diotima is assumed to be his mouthpiece. Laws I 636c attributes the homosexual activity to the practices of exercise in the nude and taken common meals.  Older translations render same-sex relations a “crime,” it is the opinion of Dover, Nussbaum and others that the word tolmema should be rendered not ‘crime’ but rather ‘daring’ or ‘venture.’  Both here and at 836a appeals are made to the example of animals in nature, who allegedly do not exhibit homosexual behavior.  Nussbaum finds this is oddly at variance with Platonic reasoning in earlier dialogues, She writes, “In dialogues as diverse as in date as Gorgias, Republic, and Philebus, [Plato] shows himself to be resolutely opposed to such appeals to the animal kingdom, which would establish norms for an ethical thinking creature by appeal to the behavior of a nonthinking creature.”[6]   Animal behavior is referenced in the Symposium, both by Diotima and also Eryximachus, but its relevance for humans is a matter of necessity, not the “fine.”  Laws VIII 837c-d returns to the Republic’s theme of chastity between lover/teacher and beloved/student.  Again, the emphasis is on ascetic restraint that would seem to apply in any mentoring relationship, not only in same-sex ones.    

Whether we grant that the language of the Laws condemns homosexuality in general, or simply sexual license with wards and pupils, what of other texts where Plato seems to speak of homoerotic relationships in tolerant or even approving tones?  In the Phaedrus, both heterosexual and homosexual impulses, insofar as they resemble pleasures of the animal and not of man as an intellectual, form-perceiving creature, are together said to be “against nature”–(250e).[7]  But the paradigm of love extolled is once again pederastic in nature–it is the lover’s arousal at the sight of a youth’s body that constitutes the catalyst of the soul’s ascent–and couples who sometimes succumb to the desire for physical consummation are “second-best,” but certainly not condemned (256c-e).  

Allen sees passages such as this as showing only that Plato adopts conventions of his culture for rhetorical purposes.  He uses Socrates’ spurning of Alcibiades to suggest Plato is employing a kind of ironic misdirection when he has Socrates nearly swooning over a glimpse inside  Charmenides’ tunic. But Alcibiades’ experience of rejection really shows nothing one way or the other about the sexual orientation of Socrates, much less “philosophical foundations” although it does illustrate something about them.  One need only ask, what if the would-be seducer had been a would-be seductress?  If, Athenian cultural conventions notwithstanding, the part of Alcibiades had been played by a beautiful young woman, would Socrates have been any more vulnerable?[8]  There is no reason to think Plato would write the outcome any differently.  Sexual orientation is simply not the point. 

As for Plato’s treatment of women in the Republic, or in his Academy, this is also a red herring.  Even if Vlastos’s assessment of Plato as a “proto-feminist,” is correct, this would not falsify Dover’s “conjecture,” as Allen calls it.  To show that Plato is less misogynistic than the Athenian culture he comes from is certainly not to show that he is “straight”(!)  Moreover, several feminist philosophers have argued that Socrates introduces females into the ranks of the Guardians by effectively de-sexing them, minimalizing their female qualities and making them as much like men as possible. 

Finally, there is Diotima herself.  If Plato can be seen as a critic of his own culture’s misogyny, Diotima’s presence as Socrates’s teacher in the art of love can, perhaps, be seen as a rhetorical corrective to the disparagement of women and heterosexuality shown in the earlier speeches.  Plato at least allows that an intellectual woman could take the place of a male lover or beloved in a relationship characterized by intellectual rather than physical reproduction.   That being said, there is nothing about Diotima’s presence that negates the dialogue’s decidedly homoerotic overall tone, even if we suppose that her relationship with Socrates was implicitly sexual.  She still operates within a male-male paradigm, even so far as to refer to the “boys and youths, which you [Socrates] now look upon dumbstruck” (211d).  True, the point of the passage is to say how negligible their beauty is when compared to Form of the Beautiful, but isn’t it odd how, in an account of Eros that is “certainly heterosexual,” the beauty of girls is never mentioned?

[1]Quoted in R. E. Allen, Plato: The Symposium.  The Dialogues of Plato, vol. 2.   New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991; 46 n.76.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Allen, 16. 

[4]Allen, 76. 

[5]Page duBois, “The Platonic Appropriation of Reproduction,” in Nancy Tuana, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Plato (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 145. 

[6]Martha C. Nussbaum, “Platonic Love and Colorado Law,” Sex and Social Justice, 319.   At Laws VIII 839d, women taking meals in common with men is said to be “outside the bounds of nature.” 

[7]I am relying here on an interpretation suggested by Christopher Rowe and accepted by both Dover and Nussbaum.  See Nussbaum, 319.

[8]See Nussbaum, 312, for a further analysis of this point.