§ vii. The Dialogue as a Whole: its Scope and Design.
No small degree of attention has been paid by the expositors of our dialogue to the
question regarding its main purport—“de universi operis
consilio.” It is plausibly argued that there must be some one leading
thought, some fundamental idea, which serves to knit together its various parts and to
furnish it with that “unity” which should belong to it as an
artistic whole. But wherein this leading idea consists has been matter of controversy.
Some, like Stallbaum, are content to adopt the simplest and most obvious view that
Eros is the central idea, and that the design of the whole is to establish a doctrine
of Eros. Others, again, have supposed that Plato was mainly concerned to furnish his
readers with another specimen of the right method of handling philosophical problems.
But although either of these views, or both combined, might be thought to supply an
adequate account of the design and scope of the dialogue if it had ended with the
speech of Socrates, they are evidently inadequate when applied to the dialogue as it
stands, with the addition of the Alcibiades scenes. In fact, this last part of the
dialogue—the Third Act, as we have called it—might be construed as
suggesting an entirely different
motif,—namely,
laudation of Socrates in general, or perhaps rather (as Wolf argued) a defence of
Socrates against the more specific charge of unchastity. That this is
one purpose of the dialogue is beyond dispute: many indications testify, as has been
shown, that Plato intended here to offer an
apologiam pro vita
Socratis. Yet it would be a mistake to argue from this that the main design of
the dialogue as a whole lies in this apologetic. Rather it is necessary to combine the
leading idea of this last Act with those of the earlier Acts in such a way as to
reduce them, as it were, to a common denominator. And when we do this, we
find—as I agree with Rückert in believing—that the
dominant factor common to all three Acts is nothing else than the personality of
Socrates,—Socrates as the ideal both of philosophy and of love, Socrates as
at once the type of temperance and the master of magic. Our study of the framework as
well as of the speeches has shown us how both the figure of Socrates and his theory
dominate the dialogue, and that to throw these into bolder relief constitutes the main
value of all the other theories and figures. This point has been rightly emphasized by
Rückert (p. 252): “utique ad Socratem animus advertitur; quasi sol
in medio positus, quem omnes circummeant, cuius luce omnia collustrantur, vimque
accipiunt vitalem, Socrates proponitur, et Socrates quidem philosophus, sapiens,
temperans. Quem iuxta multi plane evanescunt, ceteri vix obscure comparent, ipse
Agatho, splendidissimum licet sidus ex omnibus, ut coram sole luna
pallescit.”
It seems clear, therefore, that the explanation of the
“Hauptzweck” of our dialogue which was given long ago by
Schleiermacher is the right one—“propositum est Platoni in
Convivio ut philosophum qualem in vita se exhiberet, viva imagine
depingeret”: it is in the portrait of the ideal Socrates that the main
object of the dialogue is to be sought.
The theory of Teichmüller and Wilamowitz as to the occasion on which the
dialogue was produced has no direct bearing on the question of design. They suppose
that it was written specially for recital at a banquet in Plato's Academy; and,
further, that it was intended to provide the friends and pupils of Plato with a model
of what such a banquet ought to be. But it would be absurd to estimate the design of a
work of literary art by the temporary purpose which it subserved; nor can we easily
suppose that Plato's main interest lay in either imagining or recording gastronomic
successes as such. Equally unproven, though more suggestive, is the idea of Gomperz
that this dialogue
περὶ ἔρωτος was inspired by an
affection for Dion.
