An appraisal of the speech of Agathon and its aftermath in Platos Symposium

Andrew Domanski University of the Witwatersrand

Key concepts Plato; Symposium; Agathon; dialectic; eros; aporia ABSTRACT

In this article, I undertake a close reading of the speech of Agathon and, in particular, its aftermath in Platos Symposium. A spate of recent literature deals specifically with this speech, and either endorses the views expressed by Agathon or attempts to refute them. There remain, however, certain aspects which are routinely overlooked or neglected by commentators. In this article, key features of the speech are examined, and particular attention is drawn to five positive features. A number of scholarly criticisms of Agathons speech are passed in review. The primary focus here, however, is the aftermath of the speech, in which Socrates proceeds to question Agathon. In a magnificent display of dialectical interrogation, Agathon is brought with utmost gentleness to an aporia, or moment of spiritual awakening. Socrates begins by examining the link which Agathon has forged in his speech between love and beauty. The interrogation is shown to be especially valuable for the light it sheds, firstly, on the nature and qualities of eros, and secondly, on the transformative power of aporia.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Platos Symposium is as much a work of supreme literary craftsmanship as a central text of world philosophy. The dialogue explores eros in its many aspects, through a series of six speeches1, all delivered extempore. The first five of these, delivered respectively by Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes and Agathon, are carefully designed by Plato to lead up naturally to the main speech of Socrates. The first four speakers deal with eros predominantly, but not exclusively, at the physical level. Their view of love, moreover,
1

These six do not include the speech made afterwards by the uninvited guest, Alkibiades. Greek notions of love other than eros, for example agape and philia, are not explored in the Symposium.

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is largely dualistic, being confined to relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, between lover and beloved. In Aristophanes and in Agathon, we find at last the beginnings of a movement in the treatment of eros, from the physical level to the metaphysical. This movement is completed in the speech of Socrates. Plato is, before all else, a teacher, who has rightly been called the Teacher of the West. In the Symposium, perhaps more than in any other dialogue, he meets his readers where he finds them: for most of us, the experience of love is confined to dualistic relationships. Thus Plato takes his reader gently by the hand and leads him gradually and unobtrusively, speech by speech, from the physical level to the higher levels of love. The process can be likened to that of an aircraft pilot preparing for take-off. Initially, the plane taxies slowly down the runway. Then it starts gathering speed. Throughout this stage, the aircraft remains bound to the earth, in touch with the physical. Once it has generated sufficient momentum, the aircraft is ready to overcome the pull of gravity and begin its ascent into the air. Thus the strong grip of the physical is loosened. Finally, having completed its ascent, the aircraft attains its steady cruising height and speed. This final step corresponds to the experience of love at its highest level, which in the Symposium is reached towards the end of the speech of Socrates. The focus of this article, however, is not the main speech of Socrates, which expresses the teaching of Diotima, the wise priestess of Mantinea. Instead, the focus is a close reading of the speech of Agathon, and the ensuing exchange between Socrates and Agathon2. These passages immediately precede Socratess own speech. Why devote consideration to a speech which has been widely castigated by commentators, and which has generally received far less scholarly attention than the speeches of Socrates, Aristophanes and Alkibiades? An unarticulated, but erroneous, assumption which commonly underlies the academic treatment of the Symposium and other Socratic dialogues is that Plato places his true teaching predominantly in the mouth of Socrates, while casting other characters in an auxiliary or subsidiary role. The first aim of the present article is to dispel this false perception: In the Symposium, all the speakers can be shown to articulate, to a greater or lesser extent, sound principles and words of truth. I shall
2

Symposium 194e201c. I rely mainly on the translation by Benjamin Jowett (Jowett 1953: 526533), although I shall occasionally refer to other translations. There are of course, more recent translations than Jowetts. A few of these are listed below in the bibliography. These renderings are all generally clearer and more accurate than Jowetts. However, the latter translation (typically) possesses a poetic and inspirational quality which is entirely consonant with the subject matter of the Symposium, namely spiritual love in its highest aspect. In this vital respect, Jowett excels the other translators - with the possible exception of Thomas Taylor (Taylor & Sydenham 2002).

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demonstrate this in the case of Agathon, whose speech, its undeniable weaknesses notwithstanding, has been too easily dismissed by critics3. Here I shall draw attention to five positive features. First, his speech elevates eros at last to a cosmic level, where the earlier speakers had hardly taken the concept beyond the confines of a dualistic lover-beloved relationship. Secondly, his speech properly addresses the nature of love before going on to extol its fruits and benefits (as Socrates is quick to acknowledge and applaud). Thirdly, it formulates a key principle that love has beauty as its object which will later provide a launching-point for the speech of Socrates. Fourthly, it convincingly forges a connection between eros and the four cardinal virtues of justice, temperance, courage and wisdom. Fifthly, the speech closes with words which leave Agathons listeners inspired and uplifted. In terms of the metaphor drawn above, in Agathons speech the aircraft has already left the ground and has commenced its ascent. Agathon4 was an Athenian tragic poet, perhaps the most important apart from the three great tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophokles and Euripides. Less than forty lines of his work survive. His first victory in the dramatic competitions was gained before 30,000 Athenian citizens at the Lenaea in 416 BC, when he was about thirty years old. It is the banquet held at his house to celebrate this victory that provides the setting for the Symposium. Agathon was considered an innovator in the field of drama5. He is the lover of the older Pausanias, who is present at the banquet and has already delivered a speech.

2.

ACADEMIC VIEWS ON AGATHONS SPEECH

Mention has been made of the generally poor reception of Agathons speech by academic commentators. I shall now pass in review a number of academic views penned during the past two hundred years. I shall then proceed to evaluate their merits in the light of the response to the speech by those present at the banquet, and of a close examination of the speech itself and its aftermath6.
3

Agathons speech and its aftermath have come under extensive scrutiny in recent literature. See, for example, Mooney 1994, Payne 1999, Hunter 2004, Robinson 2004, Lesher and Nails 2006, Stern-Gillet 2008, Obdrzalek 2010. For the most part, these authors either endorse or attempt to refute the views expressed by Agathon. However, it is arguable that none of them, with the possible exception of Mooney, engages directly with the main thrust of this article, namely the inner transformation induced in Agathon by Socratic aporia.
4 5 6

c.447c.401 BC. Howatson 1997: 16. Symposium 194e201c.

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2.1

Thomas Taylor

In the early nineteenth century, the English Platonist Thomas Taylor (Taylor & Sydenham 2002) wrote that Agathons speech:
abounds with wit . . . of a rambling and inconsistent kind, without any fixed idea; so far is it from aiming at truth . . [H]e uses the word love in no fewer than four different senses. In the first place, he means, as Socrates afterwards observes of him, that which is loved, rather than that which loves; that is, outward beauty, rather than the passion which it excites. Immediately, he changes this idea for that of the passion itself. Then, at once, without giving notice, he takes a flight to the first cause of orderly motion in the universe. And this he immediately confounds with the harmony of nature, the complete effect of that cause7.

It is difficult to assess the validity of Taylors comment, for he fails to cite specific line references for the sequence of changes he detects. The absence of proper referencing weakens his case considerably.

2.2

Benjamin Jowett

The late-Victorian scholar, Benjamin Jowett (1953) not only translated all of Platos dialogues, but revised his translations more than once. This prolonged, close contact with the texts gave him a special insight into the thought of Plato. Jowett holds that the speech of Agathon is:

conceived in a higher strain [than that of the previous speakers] and receives the real, if half-ironical approval of Socrates . . . It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him. . . . Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the works of love, and also hints incidentally that love is always of beauty, which Socrates afterwards raises to a principle. While the consciousness of discord is stronger in the

Taylor & Sydenham 2002: 90 n30.

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comic poet Aristophanes, Agathon, the tragic poet, has a deeper sense of harmony and reconciliation, and speaks of love as the creator and artist8.

Of the views considered here, this one comes closest to doing justice to Agathons speech. 2.3 Walter Hamilton

For Walter Hamilton (1951), Agathons speech is:

a rhetorical exercise . . . the emptiness and preciocity of which stand in strong contrast with the speeches both of Aristophanes and of Socrates . . . Agathon . . . is at his best cold, superficial and conventional, and at his worst a mere verbal trickster . . . Agathon claims to improve upon the methods of his predecessors, who have talked of the gifts conferred by love rather than of its essential nature, but his own method is simply to heap upon Love all desirable qualities and all virtues, and he closes with a tremendous purple passage, of which Socrates subsequently remarks that the beauty of its words and phrases [not, be it noted, of its thought] has taken his breath away9. Even Agathon is allowed to contribute one positive idea, that the object of love is beauty, but otherwise the importance of his speech is purely negative in that it provides material upon which Socrates dialectic may work in order to establish certain preliminary conclusions. Socrates with characteristic irony professes to be overwhelmed with admiration at what he has heard10.

2.4

AE Taylor

According to AE Taylor (1960), Socrates:

thinks intensely where Agathon, and fine gentlemen like him, are content to talk prettily . . . We see, of course, as Plato means that we shall, the barrenness of thought which all this euphuism cannot conceal . . . The discourse has all the insincerity of the conventional petrarchising sonneteer . . . Agathon is so intoxicated by his own fine-filed phrases, that he is evidently not at all clear which Eros he is
8
9

Jowett 1953: 494.

Symposium 198b. Hamilton 1951: 1718.

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belauding, the heavenly or the vulgar . . . [T]he theme of his discourse is to him no more than a peg on which to hang his garlands of language11.

Agathons verbosity, if such it is, is surely exceeded by Taylors own.

2.5

David K OConnor jun.

Finally, and most recently, David K. OConnor jun (2002), in his introduction to the poet Shelleys translation of the Symposium, notes that Agathon was the youngest and bestlooking man at the drinking-party. Agathons speech, he says:
begins by characterising the god of Love in a way that amounts to self-praise. . . . He is presenting himself as the exemplar of Love, and making a claim for his own expertise in erotic affairs, an expertise founded in his poetic art and his ability to create beauty. He is the first speaker to identify himself so boldly with the very god Eros Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus and Aristophanes were all content to present themselves as erotic heroes rather than gods12.

3.

EVALUATION OF THESE ACADEMIC VIEWS

These five views make up an arguably representative sample drawn from a large number of scholarly responses to the Symposium. How much substance is there in the selected views? To what extent does each of them reflect merely the values and prejudices of its proponent, taken as a product of his age and his society? To what extent are these views merely generalised statements of personal opinion as is commonly the case with academic commentaries on Plato rather than the fruits of a close, word-by-word engagement with the text of the dialogue? In answering these linked questions, I shall consider the responses to Agathons speech, first by the assembled company, and then by Socrates. These responses provide clear and reliable pointers to the quality of Agathons speech.

11 12

Taylor, A.E. 1960: 2212. OConnor 2002: xxxixxxii.

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The immediate and spontaneous response to the speech is general applause13. This is significant, for there was no similar response from the company to any of the earlier speeches. Socrates proceeds to evaluate Agathons speech and the earlier ones; he then turns to interrogate Agathon before embarking on his own speech14. In his evaluation, Socrates begins in heavily ironic vein: he praises the richness and variety, the diction and style of Agathons words, but says nothing about their substance and truth15. The implication is clear. Socratess comment on all the speeches delivered thus far is that they attribute to love every kind of greatness and glory, without regard to truth or falsehood; they make love appear to be a paragon of beauty and excellence to those who have had no direct, personal experience of it. Socrates, not surprisingly, declares himself unable to deliver a speech of this nature, divorced from truth16. However, as Socrates goes on to interrogate Agathon17, his ironic tone gives way to admiration of, and affection for the young man: his praise of Agathons ideas now becomes plainly sincere. Socrates prefaces his questions by proposing to take as the premises of his own speech what Agathon has accepted18. This in itself is high praise indeed. Socrates gives his approval to the manner in which Agathon has structured his speech, in which he speaks first of the nature of love, and afterwards of its fruits19. But the notion which Socrates will take as the starting-point for his own speech is the link which Agathon forges between love and beauty, and in particular the subjectobject relationship between them20. And when Socrates, the master dialectician, finally brings Agathon to an aporia, or moment of awakening, he does so with utmost gentleness and love21: there is not a trace of irony in this process. None of the academic views presented earlier, with the notable exception of Jowetts, accurately represents, or even begins to do justice to the actual responses to Agathons speech just described. In order to gain a proper appreciation of the quality of the speech, it is necessary at this point to examine its content systematically.
13 14

Symposium 198a. Symposium 198a201c. 15 Symposium 198b. 16 Symposium 198d199b. 17 Symposium 199b201c.
18 19

Symposium 199b. Symposium 199c. 20 Symposium 197b, 201ab. 21 Symposium 201c.

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4.

CONTENT AND EVALUATION OF AGATHONS SPEECH

The first point to note is that Agathons speech, viewed in its wholeness, proceeds in two stages: A rhetorical stage, which is the speech proper, is followed by a dialectical stage, in which Socrates questions Agathon and so brings him at last to an aporia, with its concomitant confession of ignorance. I shall consider these two stages in sequence. The speech opens unpromisingly with a number of statements which are at best suspect, at worst unsound: Agathon attempts, firstly, to forge an exclusive connection between love and youth22. This view is untenable: it constrains love within very narrow limits, for it excludes those who are past their youth from the experience of love, whether of another human, an animal, an inanimate object, or anything else. Equally suspect is Agathons assertion that love, as the youngest of the gods, did not exist and therefore did not exert its influence over the realm of the gods in earliest times. Before the advent of love, he says, it was the force of necessity (anank) that ruled the divine realm23. This view, by requiring love as a cosmic force to have had a beginning in time, is unsustainable24. Thirdly, eros is described as taking up his abode in places that are tender and soft, and avoiding hardness, whether of the soul or otherwise25. To the extent that, by speaking of softness and tenderness, Agathon means to connect love with the strong qualities of gentleness and compassion, his view is sustainable. If, however, he is equating tenderness and softness with weakness of some kind, it is again open to question. The former construction is probably correct, for Agathon proceeds directly to link love first with the positive attributes of flexibility, symmetry and grace, and then with the four cardinal virtues of justice, temperance, courage and wisdom26. On the face of it, there is little to admire in Agathons speech up to this point: it appears to be both shallow and unsound, and the critical views of it quoted above appear to be well-founded. A closer examination, however, reveals a different picture: Plato has, through the mouth of Agathon, taken the treatment of love to a new level which was not

22 23 24

Symposium 195ab. Symposium 195c: Agathon relies here on the authority of Hesiod and Parmenides.

This of course, is not to gainsay the accuracy of Hesiods account of the mythological origins of the Greek gods: see, for example, Karen Armstrongs detailed retelling of the myth in Armstrong 2006: 5361.
25 26

Symposium 196a 197a. Symposium 196a197a.

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attained by any of the previous speakers. All of these confined eros within the narrow limits of a dualistic and predominantly physical relationship between a human lover and a human beloved. In such a relationship, the parties are either of the same or of the opposite sex. These speakers present very little evidence of a deeper or wider conception of love. But Agathon has moved decisively away from the field of human relationships: he plainly conceives of love as a cosmic, universal force. He has already, at this early stage of his speech, deepened and broadened the debate, thus preparing the ground for the speech of Socrates that will follow. Agathons speech must therefore, on this ground alone, be seen as a major turning-point in the dialogue. That Agathons speech possesses genuine substance is revealed above all by the manner in which he relates love to each of the four cardinal virtues in turn. He turns first to justice27, to which he gives a meaning altogether different from that of the Socratic notion presented in the Republic. The essence of justice for Agathon is a state of voluntary agreement in which there is not a trace of force or coercion. In the service which everyone renders to it freely and willingly, love is just. In its command over pleasures and desires, love is also temperate28. The unexcelled bravery of love is illustrated by its domination of Ares, the god of war29. Loves wisdom is shown by his ability to instil the poetic gift in those who lack it, and to engender the arts of medicine, divination, the Muses, metallurgy and divine governance30. But Agathons most significant contribution to the discourse in the Symposium is to establish beauty as the object of which love is the subject31. This is a point on which Socrates will seize in the sequel. In his inspiring and sonorous closing words, Agathon holds his audience spellbound as he describes how love brings goodness, unity, kindness, grace, counsel, light and succour into human affairs32. It is arguable on the strength of this analysis that the depth and substance of Agathons speech outweigh its weaknesses. And that is not all, for in the dialectical
27 28 29

Symposium 196bc. Symposium 196c.

Symposium 196d. Of particular interest in the illustration chosen by Agathon is the phonetic similarity between Eros, his father Ares, his aunt Eris (strife), and his grandmother Hera. These relationships suggest that Eros has his origins not in peace and harmony, but in violence and strife. The detailed exploration of this topic, however, would be a mythological rather than a philosophical study.
30 31 32

Symposium 196d197b. Symposium 197b. See on this relationship, Melling 1987: 100. Symposium 197ce.

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exchange which follows the speech, and to which I shall now turn, Agathon reveals a humility and modesty far removed from the shallow foppishness of which many commentators have accused him.

5.

THE INTERROGATION OF AGATHON BY SOCRATES

5.1

Overview

In the conversation between Socrates and Agathon, the master dialectician leads the young playwright to concede that love is essentially dualistic in character, that love has an object, that this object must be something which love lacks, that this object is beauty, which is also the good, and that, therefore, it cannot be true to assert, as Agathon has done, that love is good and beautiful33. This realization brings Agathon to an aporia, which he expresses in the words: I fear that I said what I did without understanding34. Aporia, that glorious product of Socratic spiritual surgery, is the sudden realisation that one does not know the things one thinks one knows: it is the awakening of wisdom in the individual35. In his readiness and willingness to undergo a transformative experience of this nature, Agathon reveals qualities of humility and spiritual maturity which are manifestly lacking in, say, Callicles in the Gorgias, Euthyphro in the eponymous dialogue, and Thrasymachus in the Republic36. The speech of Agathon and its aftermath provide, by Socratess own admission37, the springboard for the latters own noble speech which follows. However, in order to gain a proper appreciation of the remarkable transformation which Socratic dialectic brings about in Agathon a transformation which is often overlooked by commentators in their haste to engage with the ensuing speech of Socrates38 it is necessary to examine Socratess interrogation of his host, one step at a time.
33

Symposium 199c201c; 197b. In his masterful engagement with Agathon, Socrates uses Agathons own insights concerning the nature of love (especially in relation to beauty) to build his own dialectical and phenomenological account of love as lack. See text to note 49 below. 34 Symposium 201c.
35

See, for example, Armstrong 2009: 6570. Aporia has been interpreted in poststructuralist literature as an impassable road, a way on which one cannot proceed further.
36

It is true that in the last instance cited, Thrasymachus is eventually brought to silence, but the process resembles a Vedic brahmodya more than a Socratic aporia: See Armstrong 2006: 25. 37 Symposium 201e.
38

See the literature cited in note 3 above.

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5.2

The interrogation step-by-step

5.2.1 The nature of Eros

It is highly significant that Socrates begins by obtaining permission from Phaedrus, the master of ceremonies, firstly to speak the truth about love in any words and in any order which may happen to come into his mind at the time; and secondly, to question Agathon39. Socrates is well aware that his conversation with Agathon, grounded in present-moment awareness, will mark a radical and decisive shift in the character of the proceedings, as the predominantly rhetorical tone of the earlier speeches is swept aside by the force of his dialectic. The first question posed by Socrates, for whom the unexamined life is not worth living, is one of great moment: is eros intrinsically dualistic, in the sense that it invariably possesses an object, or is it non-dualistic40? Must love, in other words, necessarily take the familiar form of a subject-object, or lover-beloved relationship, as in, for example, I love my dog? Should not love rather be seen as inherently non-dualistic, for example, as a universal and primal force, power or energy which is entirely self-contained and has no object41? Socrates invokes an analogy in order to bring Agathon to accept that eros is inherently dualistic in nature: He shows that terms like mother, brother and sister, all of which denote family relationships, have meaning only in relation to another, whether sibling or descendant. In the same way, Socrates argues, love must of necessity have a second, namely an object that is loved42. But is this analogy valid? Is it permissible to draw a parallel between family relationships, which are inherently dualistic, and the nature of love? The question is crucial, for upon the answer to it rest the subsequent steps in Socratess argument. It is true that at least one passage in Socratess own speech can be read as lending indirect support to a non-dualistic view of love: At a certain point, Diotima defines love as a great spirit (daimon) which is an intermediary, mediator and interpreter between the divine
39 40 41 42

Symposium 199b. Symposium 199d. And why should these two kinds of love not co-exist? This is a question which Socrates does not address at all. Symposium 199e200a.

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and the mortal realms; it is by love that the universe is bound together43. This authoritative view of the nature of love as constituting the very fabric of the universe seemingly rules out any dualistic, subject-object relationship44. The contradiction, however, is more apparent than real, for a passage soon follows45 in which the dualistic character of eros is decisively affirmed. 5.2.2 Agathons experience of Aporia

Having brought Agathon to accept the essentially dualistic nature of eros, and that, consequently, love must in every case have an object, Socrates proceeds to explore the nature of the relationship between love and its object, whatever that object may be46. Agathon readily agrees that love desires its object47. Thus there is established from the outset an inescapable link between love and desire. From the fact that love desires its object, it necessarily follows that we do not possess that which we love and desire48. Already at this early stage of the conversation, new vistas are opening up, as Agathons and our own conventional ideas of love are completely overturned by the force of Socratic dialectic. Eros now stands revealed, not as a state of bliss, harmony and tranquillity, but as a troubled, restless condition of longing, lack and incompleteness. If we love someone or something, it must ineluctably follow that we do not possess that person or thing. And if we protest in reply that we do possess the object of our love, be it a person, a quality or a thing, Socrates shows that we nonetheless remain in a state of lack and unfulfilled desire. What we lack in such cases of apparent fulfilment is the continuation or prolongation of our experience of bliss and fulfilment in the future: We desire, and therefore lack the certainty that our present condition of bliss will endure forever49. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, love as eros can never be a stable condition of peaceful, everlasting contentment.
43 44

Symposium 202de.

It is, of course, equally arguable that the two kinds of love, dualistic and non-dualistic, postulated in the Symposium may co-exist, for the dialogue provides clear authority for the existence of both kinds: see notes 4143 above.
45 46 47 48 49

Symposium 204bc. Symposium 200a201c. Symposium 200a. Ibid. Symposium 200be.

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Socrates, having undermined one of the fixed ideas about love expressed by Agathon in his speech, now proceeds to demolish another. This is Agathons idea that love is beautiful. Since the object of love, as Socrates shows, is beauty, it must follow from the conclusion established above that love lacks and does not possess beauty. Further, in lacking beauty, love lacks also the Good. Agathon is thus driven to concede that love as eros is neither beautiful nor good50. The gentleness and affection with which Socrates brings Agathon to this surrender are as moving and as admirable as the humility and resignation with which Agathon accepts his correction. Thus is Agathon brought to his aporia, the culmination of Socratic dialectic. The subtle scalpel of Socrates, the skilful spiritual surgeon, serves in this instance to rid not only Agathon himself, but perhaps also the others present at the banquet, and even some of Platos readers, of their easy, comfortable certainties and assumptions about eros, its nature and its qualities. For it is the function of a true teacher like Socrates to kick away all our comfortable props, in order to bring us to aporia, the shock of awakening: Only in that present-moment experience can true self-knowledge arise. Only in aporia can we begin to appreciate the meaning of Socratess ever-puzzling credo: ''I know one thing that I know nothing'' ( ). Only in aporia, which leaves us bewildered, lost, alone and bereft of all props, can we surrender to truth, die to ignorance, and be reborn in humility and wisdom.

6.

CONCLUSION

Agathon, in conclusion, emerges from his speech and from his subsequent interrogation by Socrates as very far removed from the shallow, one-dimensional figure drawn by his detractors. Moreover, this portion of the dialogue sheds important light on the nature of eros, and provides a clear, graphic example of the transformative power of aporia induced by the dialectical questioning of Socrates. Agathons contribution to the Symposium thus turns out to be one of major significance.

50

Symposium 200e201c.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, K. 2006. The great transformation. London: Atlantic Books. Armstrong, K. 2009. The case for God. London: The Bodley Head. Hamilton, W. (trans). 1951. Plato: the Symposium. London: Penguin Books. Howatson, MC. (ed). 1997. The Oxford companion to classical literature. 2ed. Oxford University Press. Hunter, R. 2004. Platos Symposium. Oxford University Press. Jowett, B. (trans). 1953. The dialogues of Plato. Vol 1, 4ed. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Lesher, J. & Nails, D. (ed). 2006. Platos Symposium: issues in interpretation and reception. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Melling, DJ. 1987. Understanding Plato. Oxford University Press. Mooney, TB. 1994. The dialectical interchange between Agathon and Socrates: Symposium 198b201d. Antichthon 28: 16-24. Obdrzalek, S. 2010. Moral transformation and the love of beauty in Platos Symposium. Journal of Hellenic Philosophy 48: 415-444. OConnor, DK. (ed). 2002. The Symposium of Plato: the Shelley translation. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustines Press. Payne, AB. 1999. The refutation of Agathon: Symposium 199c201c. Ancient Philosophy 19: 235253. Robinson, SR. 2004. The contest of wisdom between Socrates and Agathon in Platos Symposium. Ancient Philosophy 24: 81-100. Stern-Gillet, S. 2008. Poets and other makers: Agathons speech in context. Dionysius 26: 9-27. Symposium. See Jowett, B. (trans). 1953. Taylor, AE. 1960. Plato: The man and his work. 7th ed. London: Methuen & Co Ltd. Taylor, T. & Sydenham, F. (trans). 2002. Plato: the Symposium. Frome, Somerset: The Prometheus Trust.

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