Diotima on Immortality: A Question of Infamy

Diotima attributes several characteristics to love, including the desire to be attached to that which is good and the desire for that attachment to be an eternal one. She continues by saying that human beings naturally want immortality so that they can be attached to the good forever. This leads to the idea of immortality by generation, and pregnancy through both body and mind. Using these, men come as close as they can to immortality. In the case of Hesiod and Homer, this immortality comes from "pregnancy of mind," as they created poetry that carried their names into history. The next (and more perplexing claim) that Diotima makes is that this same pregnancy of mind led Achilles to risk his life for Petroclus; as she puts it, he would not have risked his life for his lover if that same action would not have given him an eternal, heroic name.

This led me to an interesting question: can this same drive for immortality occur outside of Love? I think it can (as many media-based bad guys have shown), but I'm wondering what the explanation would be from Diotima's standpoint. Why do I ask? Consider some of history's bad guys: Vlad the Impaler, Attila the Hun, Marquis de Sade, Elizabeth Bathory. They all have two things in common; each of them attempted immortality (from Diotima's description) in one form or another, and each of them did horrible things to attain this goal. It seems that, in these instances, these individuals are seeking an eternal attachment something....in this case, though, the "something" is not the good. So, because it is not oriented toward the good, then this kind of striving for immortality isn't based in love, despite having many of the same characteristics. My question is this: what are bad guys striving for? If heroic fame grounded in love is what motivated Achilles, then what is infamy grounded in and how does it motivate the actions of men in a similar manner to love?

Eryximachus on Love: A Parallel to Christian Love

Eryximachus's description of love is, by far, my favorite and the most familiar to me. Of the perspectives on love offered in the Symposium thus far, Eryximachus's description seems to most closely resemble the Christian perspective on love. More specifically, there are several parallels between 1st Corinthians chapter 13 and his exposition on the nature of love. Here are just a few similarities I noticed.

First, let's address all this hoop-la about love being the root of other virtues (excellence, wisdom, goodness, etc.), and the claim that love is a prerequisite to these other virtues. If indeed love inspires the other virtues, so much so that the gods could not become the masters of their individual fields without love, then there is a distinct parallel between the importance of love in this description and the following passage from 1 Corinthians chapter 13:

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
----http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=NIV

In both cases, all other accomplishments mean little in the absence of love.

Further, Eryximachus claims that love is just precisely because it is not forceful, and suggests that all the virtues for which love is a prerequisite are characteristics of love itself. This follows along nicely with 1 Corinthians chapter 13:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
----same source as previous quotation

Granted, not all of the "virtues" mentioned in this passage from Corinthians correspond with the virtues Eryximachus associates with love. In fact, there is some debate as to whether or not some of the virtues associated with love by Christians would be considered virtues at all to the Greeks (hope, for example). However, the point still stands that, in both accounts, many virtues are listed as being distinct characteristics of love, suggesting (perhaps more strongly than one should be comfortable with, in all cases) that possessing the virtue of love is not just a prerequisite to all the other virtues: it's a prerequisite to the path of the good life. Can one even set forth on the path to the good life without love? Good question. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

P.S. Ironically, Socrates believes that all the previous dialogues (including Eryximachus's) don't touch on the truth of love. While Eryximachus provided a worthy praise of love, one must wonder whether the parallels between Christian love and his exposition result (from a Greek perspective) from a romanticized conception of the thing.

Leucippus and Democritus: Atom-Smashing Parmenides!

Considering their time, Leucippus and Democritus weren't too shabby on their conception of the atom as the building block of all that is. In a flurry of philosophical theories where the elements (Avatar: Last Airbender elements, not the flashy chemistry ones), the gods or some indefinite substance called the boundless is supposed to make up the entirety of the universe, it's refreshing to see two philosophers who are a little less wide-of-the-mark. What's more, one major detail in their philosophy gives poor Parmenides (one of my least favorite philosophers of the bunch) a much-needed swift kick in the pants.....they grant their version of "what is not" (aka: the void, the nothing, the empty) to actually exist, as opposed to being simply the negation of atoms (aka: what is, the something). And, blessed relief, this move takes their theory out of the aggravating realm of rational skepticism (which is where you end up if you question the tenability of sense experience; thanks a lot, Parmenides).

With regard to Parmenides, I wholeheartedly agree.

This representation of "what is not" is highly reminiscent of the way modern folk might describe space (the final frontier). That interesting observation having been made, their basic theory of atoms is what's really impressive because (yet another bow to Parmenides) atoms actually satisfy the Parmenidian pre-requisites for existence. The characteristics of atoms that made this possible were their indivisibility, their constancy (unchanging nature), their indefinite number, their uniformity and their exemption from the coming-to-be and passing-away process. Granted, not all of the assumptions about atoms that made them Parmenides-Approved are actually accurate; after all, with today's advanced technologies, we actually can split atoms. It's just an expensive (not to mention explosive) process. Nonetheless, in a time when philosophers were struggling to meet Parmenidian standards for their understanding of coming-to-be and passing-away, Leucippus' and Democritus's philosophy is both scientifically and philosophically ahead of its time.