From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordBetween can locate something spatially, rank it between alternatives, or describe its mediating function.
- In the SymposiumDiotima’s first intervention denies that not beautiful entails ugly.
- In this editionThe English varies between between and in the middle according to the Greek expressions.
- A place to readA counterexample in cognition blocks the false beauty/ugliness dilemma.
Meaning
Between can locate something spatially, rank it between alternatives, or describe its mediating function. These uses are related but not identical. The dialogue does not name a single separate entity called the Intermediate.
Use in the book
Diotima’s first intervention denies that not beautiful entails ugly. Her analogy is right opinion: it is not knowledge because it cannot give an account, yet not ignorance because it reaches what is. This is a positive case showing why the binary choice is insufficient. Its lesson transfers to Love without making Love itself an opinion or identifying every intermediate with the same cognitive condition.
The next contrast concerns mortality and divinity. Denying that Love is a god does not make him an ordinary mortal. As a daimon he stands between god and mortal and actively carries messages, sacrifices and returns between them. The intermediate is here not just a lesser degree of divine perfection: it has a connective task. Love’s parentage then explains the unstable combination of need and resource, dying and revival.
Finally, wisdom and ignorance are not treated as exhausting the possible attitudes towards learning. A person already wise lacks no wisdom to seek; the unreflectively ignorant person imagines himself sufficient. The philosopher occupies the middle through wanting what he does not completely possess. This description does not establish that all non-knowers philosophize. The confident refusal to recognize a lack is precisely what distinguishes the ignorant extreme. Reading the three arguments together makes intermediate a tool for understanding pursuit, not a consolation prize for remaining indefinitely indecisive.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The English varies between between and in the middle according to the Greek expressions. The apparatus at 202d11 has an alternative that assigns a reply to Socrates, but the printed text and translation assign it to Diotima.
μέσος (mesos)
mesos — Middle; an ordinary spatial expression made to articulate mediation.
- 202e — ἐν μέσῳ. The daimonic fills the interval between gods and humans.
Read: Between.
μεταξύ (metaxy)
metaxy — Between: an intermediate position that blocks exhaustive division into two opposed descriptions.
- 202a — μεταξὺ φρονήσεως καὶ ἀμαθίας. Right opinion lies between intelligence and ignorance.
- 202d — μεταξὺ θνητοῦ καὶ ἀθανάτου. Diotima places Love between mortal and immortal.
- 204b — μεταξὺ εἶναι σοφοῦ καὶ ἀμαθοῦς. A lover of wisdom is between wise and ignorant.
Read: Between.