Characterizations of Philosophical Dialectic in the Symposium

As I mentioned in class, one of the main purposes of the Symposium is to contrast a conventional ritual that involves having a male-only pajama party, where each participant gives a speech praising something or someone, to another kind of activity, which is using conversation as a means to truth. To use the Greek terms, this is a contrast between rhetoric and dialectic. Here are some more particular points in the book where this becomes clear:

Rhetorical symposium is for men. This doesn't automatically make it intellectual, since they are still drinking and since we know these men like to have sex with each other, but from their standpoint it makes it MORE intellectual. "Let us dispense with the flute-girl who just made her entrance; let her play for herself or, if she prefers, for the women in the house. Let us instead spend our evening in conversation." (176e) Plato is actually kind of a prude - symposia parties typically had prostitutes in addition to flute girls. It may help to imagine them dismissing the prostitutes.

Rhetoric is successive, dialectic is digressive: "At that point Phaedrus interrupted: 'Agathon, my friend, if you answer Socrates, he'll no longer care whether we get anywhere with what we're doing here, so long as he has a partner for discussion'..." (194e)

Socrates contrasts rhetoric to dialectic: "I know nothing whatever of this business of how anything whatever ought to be praised. In my foolishness, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever you praise... the proposal, apparently, was that everyone here make the rest of us think he is praising love - and not that he actually praise him." (198d-198e)

The point of rhetoric is to speak fancy (like Agathon); the point of dialectic is to find philosophical truth: "You will hear the truth about Love, and the words and phrasing will take care of themselves." (199b)

Class #2 Review

Despite the time we had to devote to housekeeping issues, we accomplished quite a bit today. We even learned (some of) each other's names. I want to praise you guys for asking so many good questions and contributing so much to the dialogue. That's what we're here for.

Concepts we addressed pretty well
-Thinking/making/doing overlap in all but the most hypothetical real-life scenarios, but the way that we define their interaction is what matters. Plato, Aristotle, Schwab, you, me, etc. are going to define them in somewhat different ways.
-Speaking of defining things, philosophy (a.k.a. thinking) means trying to produce more coherent and accurate definitions of concepts. This is what Socrates wants his buddies at the party to do, this is what Schwab wants us to do, etc.
-How do we do that? It's messy. It won't follow a set order in the way that the conventional symposium ritual is supposed to. It will be digressive rather than successive in other words. It will have a proper medium, which is dialogue, or what Plato terms "dialectic." Not every kind of conversation is a dialectic. A dialectic is when smart people (for Plato, men only) talk about abstract concepts like "love" and attempt to reach better definitions of them.

Concepts we didn't address
-Which of these guys would you prefer to hang out with if you had to choose?
-Is this a dialogue about sex or about philosophy? (Hannah's q.)
-Is this dialogue supposed to be funny or philosophical? (Shae's q.)

Agenda for Wednesday
-Finish meeting each other
-Close analysis of Introduction, Phaedrus, Pausanius, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates-Agathon... as much as we can

Concepts we didn't address
-Complete survey (Bryan & Florence only)
-If you haven't successfully posted the listserv and/or to this blog, try again
-Re-read Symposium 1-44 and answer one of the questions assigned to your row. Pick the one you actually find most interesting, not the one that's fastest to answer, OK? Also, it would be helpful if you print out all the study questions and bring them to class.
-Read Guide 21-22
-Do Discovery Task #1

What is Love?

This is the fundamental question that the Symposium asks.

Therefore you may find this short educational film helpful in interpreting the book and today's lecture.



These would probably be helpful as well.

Welcome to the Trailer!

So here is the blog I was talking about. Please post a comment below so I can make sure it's working. It was nice meeting all of you today!

Reminders:

-Read Symposium
-Read Course Guide 1-19
-Read Trailerology syllabus
-Familiarize yourself with the flagship Core website
-Ask a question to the class listserv
-Take the EEE quiz on Core policies