Renewal and identity · Lexicon

From the book

Symposium

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe contrast is between being called the same living being and continuously having the same constituents.
In the SymposiumDiotima does not wait until death to introduce replacement.
In this editionThe English preserves called and seems in the relevant claims about sameness.
A place to readDesired future preservation first appears in the argument about lack.

Meaning

The contrast is between being called the same living being and continuously having the same constituents. New does not simply mean young in age: it marks what replaces what has departed. Preservation names continuity achieved through such change.

Use in the book

Diotima does not wait until death to introduce replacement. The person called the same from childhood to old age never retains the same bodily materials throughout. Hair, flesh, bones and blood supply concrete cases. Psychic dispositions and experiences likewise come and go. Knowledge then sharpens the account: not only do different items replace each other, but even one apparently identical item of knowledge needs refreshing through memory.

The series supports the claim that everything mortal persists by leaving another new thing similar to itself. It is not a modern biological account of every cell’s lifespan, nor does it enumerate numerical identity criteria. Called the same and seems to be the same are part of the wording, so the difference between ordinary attribution and underlying alteration must remain visible. At the same time, it would go too far to make the passage a blanket denial that any mortal is one enduring person: Diotima explains the way mortal preservation works.

The contrast with the divine is explicit. The divine is entirely the same always; the mortal partakes in immortality by a different device. This prepares the later description of beauty itself as neither growing nor diminishing when beautiful particulars arise and pass away. Continuity through replacement and invariance without replacement are therefore distinct routes in the dialogue, not two translations of one claim.

Places to read

200dDesired future preservation first appears in the argument about lack.
207d–208b2Bodily, psychic and cognitive replacement explain mortal continuity.
209c–209e2Enduring cultural offspring extend the leaving-behind pattern.
210e–211b2Beauty itself contrasts with changing participants.

Translation in this edition

The English preserves called and seems in the relevant claims about sameness. These qualifications are philosophically significant and should not be smoothed into an unqualified assertion of either strict identity or total discontinuity.

αὐτός (autos)

autos — With the article, the same; the dictionary headword also has other pronominal functions, which must not be imposed on these identity constructions.

207d — ὁ αὐτὸς καλεῖται. The person is called the same despite continual replacement.
208a — τὸ αὐτὸ ἀεὶ εἶναι. Being always the same is distinguished from mortal preservation.

Read: Renewal and identity.

καταλείπω (kataleipō)

kataleipō — To leave behind, including offspring and replacement contents.

207d — καταλείπει. Mortal nature continues by leaving something new behind.

Read: Renewal and identity.

νέος (neos)

neos — New or young; here the replacement left behind by the departing old.

207d — ἕτερον νέον ἀντὶ τοῦ παλαιοῦ. Another new thing takes the old thing’s place.

Read: Renewal and identity.

σῴζω (sōzō)

sōzō — To preserve or keep safe, without necessarily preserving every constituent unchanged.

208a — πᾶν τὸ θνητὸν σῴζεται. All the mortal is preserved by the described kind of renewal.

Read: Renewal and identity.