著者

高橋 雅人

出版者

神戸女学院大学

雑誌

神戸女学院大学論集 (ISSN:03891658)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.55, no.2, pp.31-42, 2009-01

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Plato's Symposium is one of the most puzzling dialogues among his works to interpret. It has many diverse parts such as the followings: the introduction, which shows that this dialogue is a report of the reported dialogue: different people's eulogies to Eros in different styles; Socrates' report of Diotima's Speech on Eros, in which the form of beauty is told; and Alcibiades' eulogy to Socrates. Not only each of them but also the unity of the whole dialogue is difficult to grasp. In the section 1 of this paper, I suggest that Symposium is "the second apology of Socrates", as it were, because the dialogue explains why Socrates is always with young handsome guys, and yet he is not responsible for their corruption. As an Eros, he pursuits beautiful youth and wisdom (because it is also beautiful) and is on the "ladder" to the form of beauty. In the section 2, by examining how ordinary people in ancient Greece think about ' the boy-loving' or homesexuality, I point out that loved boys (eromenoi) who are expected to play a "passive" role but in reality take an "active" one between their homosexual relationship may not take any political office or action. In the last section, by analyzing Alcibiades' eulogy to Socrates, I clarify two points. First, although Alcibiades may not take any political activity because of his seduction of Socrates, he will take a decisive role in the fall of the imperial Athens. This is why the corruption of Alcibiades is due, not to Socrates, buto to himself. Second, it is Alcibiades' knowledge and ignorance about Socrates that leads him to call his master "hybristes". He knows that Socrates is superior to himself in wisdom; but he never knows that this wisdom is the awareness of ignorance.