From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordBody and soul organize differences within human life without making every contrast a claim about two independently demonstrated substances.
- In the SymposiumAll human beings are described as pregnant in body and soul.
- In this editionThe translation’s both in body and in soul expresses the paired construction.
- A place to readThe paired dimensions of pregnancy and birth.
Meaning
Body and soul organize differences within human life without making every contrast a claim about two independently demonstrated substances. The repeated in respect of specifies the dimension in which pregnancy, alteration or beauty is considered.
Use in the book
All human beings are described as pregnant in body and soul. When Diotima differentiates those whose bodily pregnancy draws them towards women from those who carry psychic offspring, she immediately explains that some are pregnant in their souls still more than in their bodies. The comparison preserves overlapping capacities rather than defining two exclusive biological groups. Psychic children are intelligence and other virtue, embodied in teaching, poems, inventions and laws.
Both body and soul undergo change. Hair, flesh, bones and blood renew; so do dispositions, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains and fears. Even knowledge requires replacement through memory. This passage cannot be cited as a proof here that the individual soul is an immutable immortal entity. The wider argument concerns how mortal beings participate in immortality through renewal and offspring.
The ascent ranks beauty of soul above beauty of body. This does not make care for an individual disappear at the first transition: Diotima explicitly says the lover loves, cares for and produces improving speeches for a person fine in soul even with little bodily bloom. Later the scope broadens beyond one body, person or practice. At the summit, the beautiful itself is not a face, hands or bodily constituent. The sequence must be followed without treating the initial bodily stage as already the final object or assuming the dialogue explicitly resolves every question about the continuing value of particular love.
Places to read
- 206b–206e2The paired dimensions of pregnancy and birth.
- 207d–208b2Body, soul and knowledge share the mortal pattern of change.
- 208e–209cBodily and psychic generation are distinguished comparatively.
- 210a–210d2The ascent ranks psychic beauty and expands the field of concern.
- 211a–211e2The final beautiful is not a bodily shape or mixture.
Translation in this edition
The translation’s both in body and in soul expresses the paired construction. At 209a still more than is indispensable: replacing it with only would create a distinction the printed text does not make.
σῶμα (sōma)
sōma — Body, the living and changing embodied condition and an initial object of erotic education.
- 206b — κατὰ τὸ σῶμα. Birth in beauty occurs in respect of body as well as soul.
- 211c — τὰ καλὰ σώματα. Beautiful bodies are recalled as the ascent’s initial rungs.
Read: Body and soul.
ψυχή (psychē)
psychē — Soul, the locus of character, desires, opinions, knowledge and productive understanding.
- 206b — κατὰ τὴν ψυχήν. Psychic generation is paired with bodily generation.
- 209a — ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς. Some are pregnant in their souls more than in their bodies.
Read: Body and soul.