From the book
Symposium
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHaving, acquiring and having present are not interchangeable in every construction.
- In the SymposiumThe healthy person’s wish to remain healthy is the central test of the lack thesis.
- In this editionThe repeated English present preserves the connection between what is now possessed and what is available.
- A place to readExisting strength, health and wealth are redescribed as desires for future continuance.
Meaning
Having, acquiring and having present are not interchangeable in every construction. Present possession can be contrasted with the future continuance of the same possession. The future is an essential component of what is wanted.
Use in the book
The healthy person’s wish to remain healthy is the central test of the lack thesis. Socrates does not deny the ordinary statement that such a person desires health. He reconstructs its content: the person wants present health preserved into a time not yet at hand. An unqualified statement that love can never concern anything one has would erase the argument’s own solution.
This temporal distinction prepares Diotima’s addition of always to the possession of good. The question moves from whether a beautiful thing becomes the lover’s to what that acquisition does for him. With good things, Socrates can answer happiness; Diotima then specifies that everyone wants the goods always. In mortal life, however, simple permanent retention is not available. Generation and renewal answer that limitation. What is kept safe does not remain materially or psychologically unaltered: the mortal leaves another new thing behind.
The vocabulary of possession can sound proprietary in English. Here its objects include health, wisdom, happiness and virtue, not only material property or a beloved person. The construction should not by itself decide the ethics of possessing another human being. Socrates’ final description of the desired attainment as a possession at 212b reaches back to this argument, while naming Love its fellow-worker rather than a commodity to be stored.
Places to read
- 200b–200e2Existing strength, health and wealth are redescribed as desires for future continuance.
- 204d–206a234Acquisition, happiness, and the demand that good be one’s own always.
- 207d–208b2Mortal preservation operates through renewal, not strict unchanged retention.
- 212bLove assists human nature in the desired possession.
Translation in this edition
The repeated English present preserves the connection between what is now possessed and what is available. The phrase in the time to come must not be omitted when summarizing the lack argument.
ἔπειτα (epeita)
epeita — Afterwards; with time, future continuation rather than repetition of present possession.
- 200d — εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον. The temporal qualification resolves the apparent counterexample.
ἔχω (echō)
echō — To have or possess; the object and temporal qualification determine whether desire has been satisfied.
- 200c — ἔχουσιν. The people already have these qualities at present, whether they want them or not.
κτάομαι (ktaomai)
ktaomai — To acquire; perfect forms can denote possessing what has been acquired.
- 200d — κεκτῆσθαι. The imagined healthy or wealthy person wants to possess the goods in the time to come.
κτῆσις (ktēsis)
ktēsis — Possession or acquisition; a noun related to the acquire/possess verb.
- 205a — Κτήσει. Possession of good things explains happiness.
πάρειμι (pareimi)
pareimi — To be present or available; not merely spatial proximity in the desire argument.
- 200d — τὰ νῦν παρόντα. Things present now are desired as present also in the future.