The Shoeless Philosopher
A reflection on Diotima's portrait of Love in Plato's Symposium, where the philosopher turns out to be the one who knows he lacks wisdom and wants it anyway.
Orientation
At a Glance
- Love Is In BetweenDiotima places Eros between wisdom and ignorance: he lacks wisdom, recognizes the lack, and desires what he does not possess.
- The Child of Poverty and PlentyLove is needy and homeless like his mother, yet bold, inventive, and always searching like his father.
- Philosophy Begins With LackThe wise do not seek wisdom because they have it; the complacently ignorant do not seek because they feel no need for it.
- A Different Measure of ProgressThe narrator stops treating uncertainty as mere failure and asks whether the desire for wisdom is still alive.
I have a bad habit of wanting to be finished. Finished deciding what I believe, finished becoming whoever I'm supposed to be, so that I can get on with living from a settled place. Not knowing feels to me like a waiting room. I keep checking whether my name has been called.
So I was not prepared for how Plato describes Love. In the Symposium, Socrates recounts what a woman named Diotima once taught him, and her portrait of Eros is nothing like the pretty boy with wings. Love, she says, is the child of Plenty and Poverty, and he takes after both. He "is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in." He sleeps in doorways. And yet, like his father, he is "bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter," and also "a philosopher at all times."1
That last phrase is there for a reason, and a few lines later Diotima explains it. "No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already." Fair enough: nobody hunts for what is already in their hands. But then comes the part I have read about ten times now. "Neither do the ignorant seek after Wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want." Socrates asks the obvious question: who is left? If the wise don't seek wisdom and the foolish don't either, who does? Diotima's reply has a little sting in it. "A child may answer that question. They are those who are in a mean between the two."1
In between. That is where the text puts the philosopher, and it puts Love there with him: not having, but knowing that he doesn't have, and wanting anyway. What unsettles me is that this reverses the way I'd been keeping score. I had assumed the wanting was the problem and the answers were the cure. On Diotima's account, the people to worry about are the ones who feel no lack at all. The ache is not evidence that something has gone wrong. It is what separates the seeker from the satisfied.
I should be careful here. This is Diotima speaking, as reported by Socrates, in a dialogue by Plato, at a drinking party where everyone is showing off. I can't say it is Plato's last word on anything, and I'm suspicious of how neatly it flatters someone in my position. "My confusion is secretly noble" is a very convenient thing to conclude. But I notice that it has changed the question I'm asking. I used to ask when I would finally arrive. This week I'm asking something smaller: whether I still feel the want, and whether I'm still walking. Shoeless, apparently, is allowed.