What did Socrates love?

(Tom Hejduk, University of Pardubice)

At the very beginning of the history of philosophy there is Socrates saying that the only thing
he really knows is the art of love.1 Nevertheless scholars until today discuss what this erotic
is, and what its reason and purpose in the philosophers life and thought is. In my paper I will
concentrate mainly on the question of what the object of Socrates eros and philia and the
purpose of his practice of curiously modified traditional pederasty are.
To answer the question for object and the concept of Socrates love, I will derive from Phdr.
dialogue, which I will interpret with regard for other dialogues, in particular the ones about
love: Lys. and Symp.2 I am convinced that the dialogues at stake and Socrates concept of love
can be mutually joined to a meaningful concept and mainly if we do not complement one
dialogue with another we will be deprived of the wealth, depth or width of Socrates concept
and these are the so-called Socrates dialogues and the dialogues from the so-called the middle
period.3

1. Plurality of the objects of love: parts of soul

When Plato analyzes the sense of love in Phdr. via Socrates (on the background of the sense
of soul movement and the whole of human life), he uses the famous picture of the charioteer,
the chariot and two horses, which is to represent three parts of soul reason, spirit, appetite. 4
Each of these parts longs for its object. The black horse or the appetitive element (in Rep.)
longs for bodily pleasures (sexual satisfaction) or profit and it is the love violating the law.
1 Symp. 177 a: ta ertika; cf. Phdr. 257a: techn ertik, Lys. 204c, Theag. 128b.
2 I am aware of the problems of this approach mainly the fact that in Phdr. and Symp. it is more
Platos rather than Socrates concept. I derive from a conviction that if we stick to the limits of accord
with Socrates from early dialogues (cf. e.g. Vlastos listing of characteristics belonging to Platos
concept), the dialogues of middle period can reveal more about Socrates concept.
3 See e.g. Jinek showing how reading these dialogues helps in understanding each of them, i.e. also
what links and coherence can be sought between them. Supplying one dialogue by another one when
trying to interpret each of them does not mean doubting the progress in the theory: Socratic dialogues
(Lys.) undoubtedly does not bring such development of likely Platos theories which are brought by
the dialogues of the so-called middle period (Symp. and Phdr.) etc.
4 Here I very much simplify in particular by the non-problematized identification of the tripartite
model from Phdr., Symp. and Rep. But I hope that even such a minimal, simplified scheme might be
helpful. On tripartite of soul by Plato, in more detail in relation to our topic see for example
Obdrzalek, p. 80 nn., Renaut.
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In Symp. it is a passion that can assert itself only on the lowest step of the ladder of love or
even only before the human being starts the upheaval: physical love. 5 The white horse or the
honour-loving spirited element longs for honour, victory and good reputation. In Symp.
analogically it is a spiritual love looking towards beautiful activities and laws. The charioteer
or the rational element (reason) longs for contemplation. The highest level of scala amoris in
Symp. corresponds with this where there are beautiful objects and great ideas and in the end

the beauty itself and the truth. In case of reason, the situation is difficult because
contemplation, which it apparently longs for, excludes ruling the whole soul or the whole
human being as the body and the soul grown together or even the whole polis as a community
of man. To devote oneself to the government or care means to resign for the desired
contemplation or thinking (noein) and instead ta onta onts preoccupy oneself out of
necessity, not of love with earthly matters.6
2. The whole man: love for the other
5 Phdr. admits its seldom enforcement also in case of lives targeted at higher goals than only bodily
pleasures (e.g. 256a-d). The role of the black horse is not only evil here but it seems that without it
there would be no meeting with the boy and recollection of the beauty and the divine origin. The most
extreme interpretation of the left horse is the symbol of Socrates himself (R. Burger).
Methodologically it is important that palinode describes psychological movement of an individual
before an upheaval as such begins while the upheaval of Symp. begins where the description from
Phdr. ends: it is not a description of the struggle between psychic parts, but a take-off of an individual
and non-problematized soul upward; in Phdr. a soul gains feathers in the end, it does not fly
anywhere: it is a transformation of sexual lust to higher aspirations, but still within the range of a joint
venture of two earthlings. See e.g. Moore 1973; Dillon 1973; Santas 1988; Nussbaum 1986.
6 See e.g. Obdrzalek, 82. On the contrary about the desire not only to get to know but also to govern,
see Cooper. In Phdr. a similar duality of the ways of soul appears also in divine souls who are heading
to the feast of contemplation on which a charioteer (ns charioteer or charioteer of charioteer?)
rejoices, thrives and draws sustenance from it (hdsa, trefetai, eupathei, 247d), while similarly
happily souls move also inside heavens where they has charge of what is without soul (246b),
while even here there are many blessed sights (makariai theai, 247a). While divine souls in harmony
rule the body of whole cosmos and contemplate, non-divine souls rule human bodies and earthly
matters, and therefore we talk about work and struggles which are not longing-worthy, but
ridiculous and wearisome. Nonetheless the love and friendship highlighted in palinode by Socrates are
part of ruling of the earthly world or the care for the soulless and even with them there is a certain
satisfaction and bliss connected, for which it is apparently possible to long (256a-257a). We would say
that this bliss is caused by the degree of approximation or copying of the divine harmony between the
vertical and horizontal movement, between the ruling movement and the movement of thinking contemplation, i.e. harmonizing the movement of heavy horses (taming, sublimation) and the
movement of charioteer and the lightness of wings. The bigger harmony we achieve in ourselves and
between us, the more content we will be. It is therefore desirable of understanding and realization (that
is love and friendship) of mutuality in oneself and between the souls as such.
2

These symbolically-analytical analyses are beneficial nonetheless in the range of Socrates

dialogues on love, one can infer also for love of the whole soul and the whole man with the
aid of both dramatic and analytical reading. This never fully overlaps with any of the listed
desires of the individual parts of soul (Phdr.) or individual stages and directions of psychic
desires (Symp.), i.e. its object cannot be identified easily with a body or profit, or honour or
beauty or good, it is a beautiful boy in whom all the longings (of all the parts or stages) meet. 7
It is this love for the boy which is the most interesting and decisive, in our opinion, because it
has most to say about the real love of Socrates and his recommendations concerning love in
human life.8 This love cannot be reduced to the three mentioned parts of soul and their
longings. Known experience applies also here and that is that a whole is more than just a set
of parts.9 The descriptions of the longings of the three parts of soul naturally concern also the
love for the boy, i.e. the particular, mortal human being: analyze it and thus seemingly
explain, nonetheless they cannot manage alone. Individual moments of love cannot make
sense beyond its overall sense. In other words we do not think that Socrates and thus Plato
would want to explain the meaning of love to the beautiful boy as a sum of individual parts of
soul or a sum of moments of love or kinds of longings. Naturally when answering the
question what it means to love a beautiful boy, we can turn to this analysis to three parts and
answer that man always in different levels and circumstances loves the three objects, three
parts of soul craze bodily pleasures, acknowledgement and the true being in the way that the
boy impersonates. This should, however, not be all, not even the most important, because the
reverse is true: the longings of individual parts of soul can make sense only in the range of

7 Suzanne Obdrzalek, p. 78 above. From a different angle see Reeve, s. 16: After all, the lover
himself cannot become immortal except by giving birth in the beauty he has at last found. He does
that, however, precisely by arranging for his beloved to grow up, become truly virtuous, and be with
him in the contemplation of ... true beauty. Concisely Vlastos describing the difference between the
Socrates and Platos love, p. 38: So what he /Socrates/ loves in a beautiful boy, is a beautiful boy
8 In Symp. the aim of the speech presented by Socrates, the concept of loving boys correctly (to
orths paiderastein, 211b; cf. Rep. 403a: ho orths eros). In Lys. Socrates leads a dialogue in order to
instruct boys how to love one another duly, i.e. how to talk to each other for love to have any sense
(Symp. 204e-205a) or how to become a friend of one another (from 212a). In Phdr. it is a meaningful
search for love in the lives of human beings: see for example noble love (eleutheros eros, 243d). The
first and the last object of Socrates love and his speech in this sense are the boy and the other people.
9 The distance against analyzing can be seen in Socrates warning that he does not say what it is in
reality (the soul and thus the love) but only what it resembles (246a). Apart from that it is generally
acknowledged that Plato is responsible for fragmentization of soul (from Phdr. and Rep.) and Socrates
neither proceeded nor thought this way.
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human and personal love, the love for the beautiful boy. We will try to describe and support
this thesis and this love in the following text.
2.1 The open admirer Socrates needy love
In Phdr., in passages where a reader would expect a speech on beauty and other true being in
the range of charioteers and philosophers longing for contemplation, it is well shown how
central love to the boy himself is. Socrates still at the end of palinode at length describes
concord and blissful life of affectionately living people (256a-257a). After the end of
palinode, he then prays to Eros, may I be respected, more even than now, by those who are
beautiful (para tois kalois timion einai, 257b). The philosophers techn erotik and love hoi
kaloi both depend on favour of hoi kaloi and at the same time aid in its evocation. How does
such true love to boys according to Socrates art of love look? It stands and falls on the art of
seeing. The boy by his character resembles the god (theoids prospon) and the true lover is
the one who can see the similarity and therefore properly worships the boy similarly as the
god.10 Worshipping boys lies in the care of their godly character, its development both in the
beloved and in oneself (252c-253c).11 The presupposition of this techn is obviously gods
10 Historical Socrates is not far from Gaitas interpretation of the meaning of Weils words love sees
what is invisible. It seems that Socrates polemizes with traditional pederasty in which the boys had to
accept subordinate passive position and satisfy the loving. Instead of love they were allowed to
experience maximally a certain form of friendship to the loving experiencing love. Socrates attacked
asymmetry, imbalance of relationship: the relationship does not bring any satisfaction to the boy who
is consumed by the loving as by a predator (Chrm. 155d-e; Phdr. 241d1) or a community where the
boy is accepted by the act of subordination. Socrates associates the boy with god to whom the lover is
in many aspects subordinate and obliged. Simply Socrates in his time proclaimed what Gaita in his
concept perceives as the nature of true love: treat me as a human being, fully as your equal, without
condescension. In Socrates time children, here specifically boys, were invisible to the moral
faculties of their fellows and Socrates notified of wealth (divinity on which only one can base
humanity), which is in them. The fear for loss of erotic techn as a fear for loss of sight (243a) shows
that love for Socrates is the thing that enables to see divine preciousness in the young. The lover can,
however, lose sight not only by being blind to the divine (by not seeing anything) but also the
contrary by absolute falling for a beauty in a specific particular form. Socrates art of love is an art of
dealing with many forms of love and the ambivalence of love, i.e. to devote, but not allow it to be
controlled, not to seize it himself, but to broaden it infinitely and to enrich the horizon of life. Gaita, p.
xxxx. With Socrates polemics with traditional pederasty see Vlastos, p. 39.
11 Phdr. 259ab, 273d-274a: only human mutuality in speech in a form of demanding dialectic
examination can lead us to getting to know the truth, himself and divine dimension of the world, i.e. to
bring us adoration and favour of gods. In other words, hoi kaloi, whose favour Socrates cares to keep,
are both boys and gods themselves taking most part in beauty (expressly for example Socrates being
anxious to please gods in 273e). Against this is a fact that apart from favour or disfavour of gods
Socrates nowhere speaks of gods being able to experience anything like inter-human mutual
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gift, inspiration or fulfilment by god when the beloved boy is surprised by devotion
(eunoia) of the loving, then he does not know that it is because that the loving is governed by
god through the boy (entheos philos, 255b). The favour of the boys ensures the same to
Socrates as is ensured by the favour of gods: by mimicking the behaviour of gods which lies
in the opposite of unilateral flattering and complacent rocking to sleep, i.e. in dialectic speech
and examination led for the purpose of self-knowledge, understanding ones own beauty and
life possibilities to overcome the blindness by earthly perspective, particularity and relation to
the whole.
Generally it can be said that also these erotic passages represent the highest goal of life
proclaimed by Socrates: be pleasing to the gods and homoisis thei kata to dynaton.12 That
even in the most perfect, i.e. philosophers love it is not (only) about charioteers
contemplating of the true being, but a relationship to god and his imitation. This is proved not
only by the description of hectic and unceasing worry of the true lover of his and his lovers
similarity to god, but it is a pattern and background of this worry: also god who is the cause of
all this in the end turns the attention away from himself, that is he himself represents at least
in the same strength contemplation as care for the world, for which neither charioteer nor any
part of soul obviously long.
The object of Socrates love in this sense is thus god as an infinite source of inspiration and
philosopher thus represents a kind of needy love, which is in fact a love for practical,
beneficial, prudential wisdom that enables a human being to live well.13 By loving the boygod, the lover is drawn to an ideal of psychic harmony, a life in which contemplation and
self-care can be balanced without conflict and regret.14 This might indicate that the love for
the boy is primarily and egocentric desire to reach harmony in ones life. 15 Nonetheless as we
have already shown above, the harmony and leading a balanced meaningful movement as
interpersonal love nor about a similar relation with gods would play any role for the souls of the loving
who got rid of body. See Obdrzalek, p. 91 above, which concludes that the most perfect existence
does not experience interpersonal love, nonetheless implies benevolent care for the cosmos. Lets
add that this care shows strong agapic or Gaitas connotations Socrates erotic love.
12 In Phdr. see 273e-274a, 259ab, 257a and passages from palinode where erastes tries to appeal to
eromenos. Also remember lyricist boys are our gods.
13 Rudebusch: Socratic Love, s. 187.
14 Obdrzalek, p. 88 above
15 Cf. Phdr. 279b-c, where Socrates is praying while he begs in connection to Eros pleas at the end of
palinode concerning techn erotik: grant that I may become good in my heart. May my external
possessions not be at war with what is within.
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such implies mutuality as imitation of gods mutuality between people, gods and the whole
of the world. The love for the boy cannot be perceived as instrumental for this necessary
mutuality. As an including whole one must keep also to the ground, i.e. its goal to be similar
to god together with others is the goal for this world.16
It is apparent from the above-mentioned that for Socrates loving, love is not a transfer from
this world to the world of the true being. The ideas not taking care of anything naturally do
not lead a charioteer striving for them and in better case viewing them back to people. God
not the idea must be a benchmark for Socrates. 17 To paraphrase Sedley we can say that
Socrates is not facing erotic relativism (in Phdr. represented by Lysias speech defending that
all benefits of love are best achieved when we agree on them with the not loving) by referring
to the true being but religious conviction. Socrates as a man looks with hope to gods as the
idols of just, harmonic, beautiful or virtuous life and not to the true being like charioteer.
Besides like there is not idea of soul, it is not possible to imagine and Plato nowhere even
speaks about the idea of love the only inspiration or idol to a life of man can be lower,
more humane or lively level of the lives of gods, residing according to Phdr. dialogue
somewhere between the true being and the local world (247e). Socrates loving may love, look

up and pursue Zeus, Apollon or Eros gods but even here already only in a mediated way
through boys impersonating them , but it is hard to imagine a similarly exciting or
leading relationship towards a colourless, shapeless and intangible idea (247c).18

16 See Sedley. Love does not deprive soul of the gravity, there is not transformation in god and flying (this is
only how inexperienced boys feel), only painful growth of the feather (252b). Similarly in Symp. (202e-204c)
Eros is not god, but daimn, i.e. creature closer to man than in comparison with ideas - gods named in Phdr.
In this sense one can say that Socrates follows the footsteps of Eros (rather than Zeus, Phaedr. 252e), which is in
the middle of ignorance and wisdom (202a).

17 Cf. Sedley indicating also in wider context that for Socrates the measure of justice is not the idea of justice
but god. While we long to imitate gods and they are our measure, we long to contemplate ideas, but there is
nothing to imitate. Also therefore I think that the whole man necessarily must in the moments of contemplation
reproach the neglect of earthly matters (Zeus manages to take care of all also with contemplation (epimeleitai,
246e5-6), but a loving earthling when looking to ideas necessarily neglects the things at the bottom (amelei,
249d8)).

18 We think that double stepping of human from non-human: first of all there is distance against
ideas which is expressed by their absolute dialectic to matters under-heavens and their
characteristics derived from negation of characteristics of all the earthly; and secondly there is a
distance against being inaccessible to sight The sharpest of our physical senses is sight. It cannot
help us to see wisdom that would arouse an awesome love indeed, if it allowed so brilliant a likeness
of itself to come before our eyes. The same goes for whatever else arouses love, leaving only beauty
with the property of being wholly visible and wholly able to inspire love. (Phdr. 250d).
6

Thus while charioteer and perhaps also Plato see the goal of love (telos of feathers or wings)
in achieving the true being and love thus takes the nature of a mere tool, an instrument to
something else, more important, in Socrates the love itself is a goal as a mutuality with god 19
or an infinite way to his imitation via an erotic and later a friendly relationship with the boy.
The thing that Socrates is not talking about god-creator but god idol and a guard of world
order, i.e. god who can be imitated belongs to this naturally. And as in Apol. where Socrates is
also talking about philosophy as a service to god, it also applies in erotic passages that serving
god (latreia) means strenuous acquisition of his virtues in case of love and friendship it is
principally the ability to be generous and open to one another and the treasures hidden
inside.20
Socrates reaches the same conclusion in next dialogues. It is shown in Lys. that a friendship of
two people cannot be a direct relationship, but it is conditioned by mutuality with
gods.21 In Symp., similarly, Diotimas love story is not about a lover who abandons the
individual boys he loves, but about someone who comes to love boys successfully by coming
to love something else as well. 22 The contact with the divine is necessary both because of
the lift-off of the loving and also to hinder him to value his beloved appropriately to see his
beauty in the context of other beautiful things and divine beauty, i.e. to also appreciate him in
all aspects, to see not only his physical beauty but also spiritual, thus to deepen their
relationship to the highest degree possible, i.e. to incorporate a whole in it.

19 Apart from the already mentioned references cf. Symp. 212a: theophiles.
20 Unstinted philosophising: Symp. 210d; unenvious gods as idols of human souls and unenvying
love: Phaedr. 247a, 253b. Socrates serving to god: Apol. 29d-30a. Cf. Sedley, who identifies serving
god generally with acquiring virtue.
21 Here many assert that the third angle of love or friend triangle is the good, nonetheless in Lys. (similarly as
in Phdr.) it is about what is familiar to us or our own (oikeios), therefore gods and not ideas which are strange
to us (see above). The goal of love can be called agathon (Symp.) and eudaimonia (Lys.), but it is about what
one thinks by this life similar to gods. In other words only gods or Socrates and other perfect (perfectly
striving for wisdom) here on earth can by their behaviour give living meaning to terms or conceptions like
goodness or wisdom (see Gaita, p. 3). Socrates favoured hypothesis of Lys. and Symp., that only the not good
not bad (NGNB) can be friends, and only to the good (Lys. 216e7-217a2; Symp. 205d etc.) give sense right in
this nature: one can love man, but only good no-one is good by himself or he is good only by participating
in flowing good (like beauty in Phdr., 255c) between good (beautiful) creatures, i.e. is filled with good
(openness) but at the same time lets him further and by this imitates god in his giving love. When Socrates is
talking about deprivation (endeida) of what our nature is being the cause of love, then our nature is nothing
what we can share with gods, i.e. what is only potentially our nature and what is escaping us all the time, what
we have is only incessant striving for it.

22 Reeve, p. 14.
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2.2 The Unstinted Tutor Socrates giving love

The previous analysis of Socrates needy love, the love lying in active acceptance of divine
gifts already indicated that it is not only the needy love in the philosopher, but already from
the nature of these gifts which Socrates is interested in so much it is also about giving
love.23 Those gifts imply mutuality and generosity or the recipient distributes them further,
specifically takes care of the beloved and thus takes part in (divine) care for the world
(similarly he himself was gifted or is still by the care of divine souls and the gifted loving will
in his maturity similarly cultivate his maturing beloved ones). The lover analogically to Zeus
and his administration of cosmos (diakosmei, 246e) administers (katakosmei, 252d7) the
beloved and with the aid of the divine gift (techn erotik) leads to orderly (kosmioi ontes,
256b) life of his own and the beloved.24 By this he gives the boy similar gifts as god (and boy)
to him: on the model of god he does not seize the boy,25 he reinforces and develops his beauty
and divine character by the fact that he as much as possible takes their habits and behaviour
from him, to the fullest extent that a man can have a share in a god and if they draw their
inspiration from the well of Zeus, they pour it over the soul of the one they love, making him
as much like their own god as possible. (253a). Apart from other character similarities to
god, the loving evokes also the love in the boy (anteros, 255e), which he has himself to the
beloved and by which in the end they both imitate generous behaviour of gods. The boy thus
develops for other (spiritual) dimension of life, ideally to beauty and nature of life loving
wisdom, the philosophical life. (256a-b). Socrates giving love then lies again in enabling to
see more, it is the imitation of the unstinted behaviour of god.
Dramatic level of dialogues is a proof of giving love Socrates is always concerned with
educational transformation of the boy no matter whether it is Phaedrus ( Phdr.), or even
more youngsters from the dialogues of Lys. or Symp. Tragic nature and irony of Socrates love
lies in the fact that he can never become a pleasant lover or a friend, for his eros lies in
lowering eromenos so that he became modest: The educator, whose goal is to make students
good and wise, cannot despite being self-ironical be a pleasant friend. Being a genuine

23 To gift see Phdr. 244a, 256e. More generally about Socrates philosophy and eros as primarily
other-regarding agency see S. Abhel-Rappe.
24 Cf. Obdrzalek, p. 91 and above
25 In the descriptions in previous speeches in Phdr. love is reversely probably as a reflection of
traditional pederasty described as jealous seizure and holding the beloved the goal of this
predators love is saturation: as wolf loves lamb, so lover loves his boy (241d).
8

educator he asks difficult questions, corrects and supervises the students. 26 Socrates
loving impersonates a generous, giving love only in the paradoxical sense of transferring to
others what they do not want; he enables them to get to know their insufficiency and he drafts
a demanding way out of this distress.27 In Phdr. both in dramatic level of Phaedrus and Socrates
relationship and in terms of dialogues content, the loving is pleasant to the beloved only
seemingly just to seduce him he shows only the best sides, his divinity, nonetheless at last it
is an unflattering notification of a self-centred boy of insufficiency, i.e. a mere imperfect
similarity to perfect gods, even an imperfection against the loving himself, the philosopher
drafts in the end, as a provocation to the unattainable, the most difficult thing ensuring
victory, in the true Olympics. Greater good than this can neither human virtue nor divine
inspiration offer to a man. (256b).
As unpleasant Socrates giving love corresponds to parental love, the philosopher only rids it
of the limitation to family members and copying Zeus widens it to all people striving for
virtue: he feels parental love as an educator to all his foster children (just like everyone who is
wise, who can help him on the way to wisdom and living well should be his lover). 28 The

26 Lys. 210e, cf. 206b. Jinek, p. 120, 111-2. Jinek also shows well that we can understand the
dialogue and the thoughts included in the dialogue better when we take also dramatic context into
account in which Socrates attitudes are motivated by more things apart from getting to know
friendship or love there is a great role played by the effort to get to know youngsters and to benefit
them (p. 119 ff.).
27 Lys. 210e. Cf. Rudebusch, who defines Socrates love as a religious benevolence towards other human
beings. God commands Socrates to turn non-philosophers to philosophy while one cannot do anything better for
the other (Apol. 29d-30a). The philosopher himself is suffering from needy love for gods wisdom, which he
can ever satisfy (Apol. 23a), nonetheless he is pervaded by god and his character so much that he masters certain
giving love as religious duty (Apol. 23b, 37e). Rudebusch then with reference to Lys. 218a-b asserts that it is
philosophers duty to make NGNB people out of bad people the ones who believe they have prudential
wisdom people who know that they do not have prudential wisdom but they are getting closer to it. We agree
with Rudebusch that Socrates perceives his religious duty and his greatest conceivable happiness (Apol. 41c34) in transforming people from not knowing to knowing nevertheless we do not think that it can be said within
dialogues that it is a transformation of bad into NGNB. In accordance with the previously mentioned we believe
that it is a change of worse to better (for example by broadening their physical virtues by spiritual) or less mature
to mature. As we have shown, Socrates develops something which is already included in the beautiful me, he
selects whom he will tempt; moreover if they were bad they would not listen to him (Lys. ).

28 Lys. 207d-210d. Parents handover prudential wisdom to their children (cf. Apol. 20a-c); they try for them to
be free and happy for which they should first know how to live well as a human being. (cf. Euthyd. 282ab).
Socrates love to boys as education corresponds to this parental love and they cannot be reproached for
humiliating others. See Apol. 20a-c, 29d, 31b: philosopher feels affection (aspasmos) for his fellow citizens and
helps them like father or older brother.

difficulties associated with this love are compensated by the above-mentioned un-envious
monitoring of the good and blissful life.29
Although from the long-term perspective or the perspective of the whole unselfish,
ungrudging and the greatest good and happiness bringing (agathon, eutychia, 244a, 245b)
Socrates love and friendship are very difficult or unbearable (see the most famous Alcibiades
testimony in Symp.). Also Socrates suffers this way because he knows very well that
fulfilling the divine idea of love he is not able to love in the way of common people, does not
fulfil the conditions of common love and friendship. First of all his philosophical love will
be always education and thus always from the respect of momentary view of a particular
young person humiliating. What is worse is that it will not comply with any reasonable idea
of friendship then (see traditional scheme helping friends/harming enemies, or Aristotles
concepts of friendship). In this sense we do not think that it is a problem that Socrates rids the
youth of self-esteem, personal dignity etc.,30 because he offers them creation of a better self: it
is not about the loss of self, but about the transformation of self similarly then also
transformation of self-respect: we value something else than before about us. In this sense it is
not true that Socrates would not be a beneficial friend and that he would intentionally harm
the beloved and friends. The critics are right more about Socrates promising something, about
which he knows in advance that he will not fulfil (he knows what boys on the basis of his
behaviour expect but he disappoints their expectations) and that is what a true friend does not
do It can be excused by Socrates not having a choice: this deceptive means enables the boy to
be brought to experiencing the divine, after which he can truly freely decide for the
particular life. Until he has a clearer idea of the second possibility, one can hardly offer a
possibility to decide. Such method is acceptable without reservations in parental love and
nobody doubts that it is love or friendship. And Socrates cannot know how the boys selection
will end up in the end.31
Probably the deepest level of Socrates love impossibility is expressed by the fact that
knowing of friendship implies inability of it. 32 Socrates can maximally envy the
29 As Lysias speech and first Socrates speech in Phdr. show, numerous and often very fundamental
difficulties (maliciousness, importunity, flattering etc.) are connected also with common love nonSocratean and phthonos plays a central role here (239ab, 240a).
30 So for example McCormic, who well described how Socrates does not fulfil conditions of
traditional friendship and surely is not a good friend of Aristotelian concepts.
31 So for example Vlastos, p. 41.
32 Jinek, p. 120-1.
10

spontaneous relationship between Lysias and Menexenos, which he will not be capable of as a
knowing philosopher. The knowledge equals to the knowledge of divine form and also the
imperfection of human beings which is not compatible otherwise than as knowledge of the
impossibility to realize an ideal friendship or love. And at the same time to reflect (get to
know) friendship means to neglect it in its practice: we will either be friends or we will
mediate about friendship.
Despite this or because of this it needs to be said that Socrates proposes to combine both. He
discovered love as such combination and handed it over to people as a new form of love
and friendship norms, laws and awareness of people of his time did not concede to it yet.
Nonetheless the young generation surrounding Socrates and longing for his friendship and
love is a proof of its credibility and success. Moreover Socrates was not surrounded only by
all the time new boys but also life-long committed friends (philos hetairos), which indicates
for the width and richness of this love and friendship.33

3. Love itself as the object of love

3.1 Aporia (the Lys.) and the middle position of eros (the Symp.)
But not only boy-god is the object of Socrates love. A similarly respectful object of love is
the love itself. Socrates apparently loves to fall in love.34 The evidence being first aporetic
dialogues in particular for example in Lys. Socrates demonstrating to Hippothalos how to
speak to the beloved, does not demonstrate anything else than elenctic examination of the
beloved (Lys. 206c ff.). Such examinations do not lead to any results, the beloved left in
puzzlement (aporia) apart from the fact that result is awakening the lust for other speeches,
asking questions and looking for answers, arguments and counter-arguments. Simply said,
Socrates speeches induce or reinforce Lysis is already in love with sophia when he meets
Socrates (213d) love (to wisdom). In this sense, in Symp. it is said about Eros (who is
identified with the philosopher, 204b) that he lacks wisdom, but mainly that he can fight with
this insufficiency and destitution (endeia, aporia) and overcome them, which is a different
sign: non-destitution, resourcefulness (euporia) in thinking of ways to acquire what he lacks
33 Contrary to Jinek I believe that it was Socrates life and respect which he evoked not only in youth
but the whole of society is testament of a success (and not a failure as Jinek thinks). Naturally it is a
tragic (in old-Greek sense) success, but it is a deal of man in general. We, on the other hand, strongly
agree with Jinek in Socrates awareness of his own tragedy gives evidence that he was far from
ignoring personal love, as Vlastos puts it. (p. 122)
34 See for example Carson.
11

(204b, 203d4-7).35 Eros just like Socrates are condemned to thought experimenting (204d) and
unceasing dialectics of reaching the unattainable: In one and the same day he can be alive
and flourishing , then at deaths door, later still reviving as his fathers character asserts itself
again. But his resources are always running out, so that Eros is never either totally destitute or
affluent. Similarly he is midway between wisdom and folly... 36 In this sense, nobody can
expect more from Socrates philosophy than love itself: Socrates may be the master of
foreplay, of arousing desire, and may to that extent be a master of the art of love, but when it
comes to satisfying desire, he is a failure.37 But to satisfy desire is something different from
satisfying eros. Philosopher will really not satisfy any particular desire (of horses, of chariot,
etc.), but this is not his task. There is no other satisfaction of (Socrates) love but love itself,
continuing love. Because of that sometimes it is just Socrates who tries harder and harder to
find anything to argue against his own conclusions that sound good to his friends who would
be satisfied with them. When it comes to satisfying both love and cognition, Socrates is
completely successful. The satisfaction means to manage to keep staying face to face with
beloved (or the object of cognition) without being absorbed by him: the gap in between them
is the place where it is possible to live, to develop your conceptions and ideas, to let the
beauty fluctuate or truth to emerge (see in previous chapter).38
3.2 The uniqueness and irreplaceability of love
I consider Socrates emphasis on love not being the way to friendship but rather another love
the strongest proof of the concept of love for love itself. The first dimension where this
applies is inducing anteros in the beloved as demonstrated above. The second dimension
being the presence of love also in friendship which grows from it; here I suppose that in
Socrates concept of philia, friendship, which follows after the period of ecstatic love,
elements of eros are still present and important because of them it is so unique sort of
friendship.
3.2.1 Anteros

35 Cf. Sheffield, p. 61-2. Ingenuity is a traditional attribute of Eros: Eros of many devices,
poikilomchanos Eros, Athenaeus 13.609d.
36 Symp. 203b-204c.
37 Reeve, p. 3.
38 Carson, p. 62.
12

Socrates firstly shows that love cannot simply be answered by philia, cannot be put together
with sober friendship. He shows it perhaps most explicitly in the palinode in Phdr., where the
answer of the beloved boy to lovers eros is not traditional philia but unconventionally
anteros: he possesses that counter-love which is the image of love, though he supposes it
to be friendship rather than love, and calls it by that name (255de). That is what Socrates
wants from love counter love, anteros which is similar to his combative, but unstinted love
(traditionally anteros represents reciprocity or mutuality (counter-love, love returned) in
case of woman, but also emulation and rivalry in case of man). The same example of
surprised beloved who does not on account of tradition expect the challenge to being the
same lover as is his own erastes and the challenge to emulate him is described by Alcibiades
in Symp. Socrates as seeming to be a lover while really establishing himself as a beloved boy
instead (222b).39
3.2.2 Lysias versus Socrates (Phaedrus)
Holding eros also in friendship which originates between the lovers after a certain time can be
well demonstrated on the background of contrast of Socrates approach to love with Lysias
approach in Phdr. Lysias advocates the supremacy of prudential friendship above love. As a
sober and hidden lover, he asserts that there can be strong friendship (philia) with men who
are not in love (eros) (233c-d); he thus passionately proclaimed the life without passion.
Affection of those who are not in love is in his opinion better in terms of reciprocity which it
guarantees: the idea is that no harm should come of it, only benefit to both parties (234c),
it is better to grant favours, not to those whose need is greatest, but to those who are best
able to repay them. (233e). It does not matter at all that it is not economic reciprocity
operating on the principle of carefulness and revenge which reduces love business: do, ut des.
With his cold reasonable arguments he can succeed against the crazy loving, because the boy
is in the traditional asymmetrical scheme (see below) also on the side of reason and philia, i.e.
is not infatuated and conforms to the loving because he knows that this is how he ensures the
upheaval in social hierarchy. Lysias offers upheaval without conventional eroticism, he offers
the pleasant deprived of all the unpleasant which smells almost of the so-called negative
reciprocity or theft, an effort to get more for less. To prematurely summarize: if conventions
command that the loving is obsessed and the beloved one no, then Lysias innovates: neither
the loving nor the beloved are to be obsessed.

39 In Parm., where Socrates as an adolescent youth and thus a potential paidika introduces himself to
Zenn and Parmenides, is also manifested by erotic vehemence and emulation. Comp. Gordon.
13

Some scholars accept Lysias viewpoint as traditional famously Adkins argues that the
behaviour of the lover is correctly shown by Lysias to be hazardous to public safety; taking
the advice or offer of the sober nonlover (to have sexual intercourse and all advantages
eroticism can bring, without falling in love but through a prudent deal) would increase the
amount of philia and diminish the amount of strife in any city.40
Socrates rejection of this me erontos oikeiotes in my opinion can be seen in two possible
ways: 1) Socrates rejects Lysias arguing with the inadvisability of love, because business-like
language is here improper it is alloyed with mortal prudence and follows mortal and
parsimonious rules of conduct, which will beget in the beloved soul the narrowness; simply
said, the whole life (the life as a whole or the life in the context of the whole of the space as in
palinode) and conductive sophrosyne wisdom or mind cannot be reduced to economic
calculation; 2) Socrates accepts Lysias business-like position and tries to show that even from
the viewpoint of economic reciprocity love pays off; when we take soul, gods, death etc. into
account, when we examine the potential meaning of love for human being in broadest
possible contexts, and then it is shown that eros is useful. In both cases eros distinctively
enriches human life. When Adkins asks himself a question Why does Plato, much of whose
philosophical energies were expended on advancing the claims of the cooperative excellences
against those of the competitive excellences, reject with such vehemence the views of
Lysias? then the answer is obvious: he sees love as (maybe even the only) source or way to
values, to which man otherwise hardly gets (preciousness of other human beings, etc.), and in
addition they are the sources of our greatest and deepest possible happiness and blessings
(eutuchia, agathon 245c, 256e).41 Briefly: objects of love are different from objects of Adkins
concerns. Wisdom, which is philosophers object, connects people while the lust for profit,
economic benefit is in the end the thing that rather divides them. In case of a pursuit of truth,
beauty or wisdom, we are not by definition witnesses of zero sum competition, because in
opposition to economic competitions both parties win.42
40 Adkins.
41 Phdr. 244a, 245bc, 256e. We must object to the consideration about the calculating beloved that
without any hesitation he talks about the beloved who is not (according to convention with which
Socrates polemizes in palinode, but on which Lysias bases his speech) yet able to love but he already
has the capacity to think rationally. Palinode is not the only place where it shows that reason which
serves to harmonization of all parts (including himself) of individuals and their incapacitation in the
range of this whole the beloved cannot have until he has not been feathered (beloved).
42 See for example Williams, p. 155: truth is a paradigm of a non-zero-sum good. because the
mere fact that A comes to possess a given truth does not mean that B has less of it.
14

It is right here where it is not about self-satisfaction at the expense of others and polis. The
way of love to answer to Adkins it is the very important power also in terms of creating
strong bonds between humans beings: according to palinode in the experience of love we can
meet with uncalculated charity and unstinted generosity (these are also the values that will be
otherwise missing to the life of human beings; see especially aphthoni, 247a: jealousy has
no place in the choir divine, and 253b). Nobody is ever so dedicated to the beloved like the
lover, the friendship of the lover is more forceful than are the others: And when the lover is
thus admitted, and the privilege of conversation and intimacy has been granted him, his good
will, as it shows itself in close intimacy, astonishes the beloved, who discovers that the
friendship of all his other friends and relatives is as nothing when compared with that of his
inspired lover.(255b) And the objection does not stand to test that such as love lasts only for
a short time because it is in this where the lifelong friendship is found (256ab).43
The emphasis on unstinted generosity seems to be a clear support for the assertion that
Socrates art of love (257a) cannot be restricted to economic reciprocity of the model is to
give has given.44 In the range of dramatic palinode reading he not only pays for the fines
(bill settlement), but mostly gives something extra, unexpected (dre, 256e3, 257a4; cf.
244a).45 The friendship of people without love can give maximally gift-not gift, the property
mortal and parsimonious, which will beget in the beloved soul the narrowness (thnta te kai
feidla oikonomousa, 256e). Deadly economic contemplation (sphrosyn thnt, 256e; or
civic folly, superficial wisdom, 229e, human rationality, 256b) stand against each other
with rousing reasonability of the lover (sphrosyn erotik; techn erotik or h para erastou
philia, 256e, 257a). Here apparently there is not a charioteer or an intellectually capable,
contemplating philosopher and a barbarian, a common man clinging to a physical world (a
black horse). Socrates draws a different difference: between a loving friend and a friend
43 Cf. e.g. Cairns, p. 236: the Phaedrus myths account of eros stresses, in contrast to Lysias and
Socrates first speech, that eros can be an element in - can indeed give rise to and help sustain a
long-lasting, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial relationship. Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 8.4, 1156b331157a12.
44 The fact that in palinode Socrates further argues similarly as Lysias is for this second way of reading, only
from the negative swearing at love then goes on to praise their qualities. Inequality (anomoiots, 240d) from the
first speech shows to be weaker in broader horizon and similarity starts being accentuated (homoiots, 252c253c).

45 It seems that Socrates surprising his beloved by seeing a new divine world in teenage boys (we
know expressions like boys are our gods from lyrics, so a more detailed study was required here)
eludes not only from the world of bribery but world of gift-exchange as well, so his approach does not
have a parallel.
15

without love;46 the other is consumed by a careful distribution of material property, and thus
comes and deprives his apprentices of what opens in erotic mutuality to a pair in love as
attracting and worth attentive monitoring: horizon of lives of gods. In this horizon love is
fascination, which takes a form of hyperbole, which gradually overcomes also our boldest
expectations and hopes and offers something, about which we had no idea. Each step
upward, which is enabled by love, opens before the soul other new, unthought-of
possibilities.47 Philia of Lysias or probably of all traditional pederasty denotes only succursal
(philial) love, in which feelings or affections (of child to her parents or of citizen to her
fatherland) are rather protective (insurable), so it denotes closeness, whereas eros represents
passionate inspiration, verve, openness. Eros unites people in order to love yet something else,
let us say something transcendent, in the sense never fully attainable by people-earthlings
(beauty itself, to on ontos, wisdom): It would be an irresistible beauty (amchanon kallos)
that you would see in me. you are trying to acquire truly beautiful things (lit. the truth of
beautiful things) (218e).48
From the point of view of a knowing lover it is a thoughtful matter: the goal of love is
overcoming blindness the opposite of loss of sight, which ambivalence of love also
includes; true love is way from blindness of parts, particular aspect to opening boldest and
the most meaningful horizons of life by perceiving of the whole. There are two variants: we
can live like Lysias and Adkins advise, without strife and safely, but narrowly in terms of
spiritual perspective, still with eyes closed. Love can on the contrary lead to at the expense
of loss of sight, tension and numerous fights threat to the life of eternal longing and
broadening horizons, to seeing through.49
We are inclined to uncompromising reading of the dialogue also because of the overall
context of Socrates or Lysias speeches. Lysias question, which governs his thinking, is
obvious: What is in it for me? What am I going to have from love? He is counting how much
pleasant or how much unpleasant is love going to bring without asking what kind of
pleasantness that is. Socrates bases his concept of love and friendship on broader questions:
What is all this for including described pleasantness and laws? The philosopher extends the
46 Cf. Dickie, p. 394.
47 pinka, p. 140.
48 Eros connects vision distance and being together (212a), which it would otherwise be impossible
to connect.
49 Cf. Passages on loss of sight and seeing through, Phdr. 243a ff.
16

view in the sense of posing the question: What all can be considered pleasant and what the
differences between various pleasantnesses are? The answer necessarily takes into account
also the horizon transcending man beauty, gods, soul, eternity (see occurrence of these
notions in Socrates speeches), which go hand in hand with taking into account the other, who
represents these transcends (see above, for example his impersonation of god and beauty).
Only here in the dimension of the other with his divine, beautiful and spiritual side the
regard for one another (and also his polis), and the question goes: what does it mean for both
(or even all of us) together?50 Reciprocity and cooperation thus remain present but not
economic and in this sense self-centred or acquisitive.51 Suddenly it is not a problem what
when love ends (231a), what the beloved will do but how he will repay such divine gifts to the
lover the lover gave so much that it cannot be repaid. The beloved has only one solution to
imitate the lover: this is a way he gives less, but proportionally (in proportion to ones
possibilities) the same, for also all what he has and what is in his powers: His desire is
similar to the lovers, but weaker (255e) In other words, the shift in palinode is a shift
from moral and social aspects of moral to divine nature of love: Well, dont you believe Eros
to be the son of Aphrodite, and therefore a god? (242d) By this a new, optimistic and
meaningful look at erotic fooling around opens. It is only additionally that this divine eros
shows to be beneficial to man or important from moral point of view. Moral and institutional
aspects of eros are poor imitation of his divine therefore par excellence life nature.52 Only
from divine point of view is eros morally and socially obliging, therefore it cannot be either
reduced to morality and the service to the society or explained and evaluated in this respect: 53
Eros is not institutional. To reduce it to a contract or a marital duty means to insult it. Its
natural bond is not analyzable as a duty debt. Its law which just ceases being law, is the
50 Phdr. 256b-e.
51 By the submitted interpretation I agree with Abhel-Rappes argumentation that both the life and
the doctrines of Socrates indicate entirely non-egoistic eudaimonism: self-benefit does not count for
Socrates as a deliberative criterion at all (322). Socrates also describes his desire to benefit all
human beings, which include benefit for himself as well, but this self-benefit is not a part of the
consultative model that Socrates invokes when he explains why he engages in philosophical activity
(323). Socrates love is a form of service for the gods, latreia (Apol. 23c).
52 It is necessary to distinguish divinity in strict sense of the word perfect, good and unchangeable
from the divine forces how the Greeks perceived it in cult and the common life. Eros-daimn is a
lower emmanatio of god Eros, emanation effecting in our world accustoming to earthly nature and
giving way in a manner distant from perfect divinity. Social institutions and morality belong to the
lower emanation.
53 For the same see Calame, p. 184-9.
17

mutuality of a gift. It is infra-legal, para-legal, supra-legal. Therefore it is essential to him by

its nature that it endangers institution by its demonism. Each institution including marriage
54
The reduction of eros to lusts of individual parts of soul and their objects is similarly absurd if
we come back to the beginning of our text. But Cupid cannot be reduced either to intentions
own to man as a whole. As soon as we explained divine inspiration as a secondary reaction to
the lust for another for self-satisfaction or a blissful life, then we would also reduce it to
human, earthly matters and there would not be a reason to talk about it at all, it would be
redundant, its objects would be identical with the objects of named lusts.

Love to an

individual, accidentally hit by Eros arrow and lets remember that Eros arrow never hits
qualities, character or properties is the reason that we then long for his properties, hair or
acts and satisfaction.55 The love Socrates is talking about is made up by a religious respect to
higher powers, the relationship to transcendence. And such is a sufficient and the only
possible explanation of our fidelity to a particular other just like the good or a virtue.
In this sense both of an institution or individuals interest, friendship must not be an
evaluation criterion of love, but on the contrary love and its divine generosity is to be a
criterion of friendship. Therefore in contrast to Lysias speech, Socrates denies the possibility
to soundly evaluate love from the (economic) position after love. Socrates is asking: What if
the love expresses life which we are living in a more substantial way, and thus all should be
evaluated from its position (presence, now) rather than from the position of an economist
(then), which is by definition only a tool and it is to serve life only as aiding force? 56
Socrates-evaluator is loving though in the sense of transfer to friendship already modest or
mature loving to a certain degree. But from the position of such philosopher the love itself,
Eros is the aim or object in the already mature time, love plays a decisive role as
54 Ricoeur. Cf. S. Abhel-Rappe , p. 326-330: Socrates eros as a theia moira, a dispensation from the
gods, a form of latreia, of service to god.
55 This is how, for example, Osborne (p. 224 nn.) disproves Vlastos interpretation of Platos concept
of love from the above-mentioned dialogues, by which Vlastos reduced love to lust for certain ideal
characteristics, which is imperfectly imitated by an individual.
56 Carson, p. 124 above accentuates different treatment of time as a basic difference between Lysias
and Socrates: Lysias proposes to stand beyond time, beyond present moment with which many
problems are associated this, however, does not mean to devalue life dwelling at present. Socrates on
the contrary wants to go to the nature of presence, i.e. to spot even eternity gods and their world
the only way accessible to mortal human beings. In other words: Now is a gift from gods which
makes presents accessible; at the moment of erotic seizure one can be aware what he is and what he
can be see struggle in oneself.
18

preservation of vital verve here the verve is no longer spontaneous, it is art, it is enthusiasm
of dialectic examination and exploration. Therefore Socrates prayer at the end of the
palinode, in which he hopes that Eros keeps the art of love and favour of boys; plus
generously wishes to Phaedrus, where it is scandalous that he does not indulge in love:
Phaedrus will no longer halt between two ways, as now he does, but live for love in singleness
of purpose with the aid of philosophical discourse (257ab). Socrates from this point of view
does not strive for Phaedrus or a different beloved but for Phaedrus or a different hopeful
person not to sink into small-mindedness, but to live in enthusiastic upheaval. This upheaval
then (co)creates friendship which is in opposition to reciprocally oriented alternative lovingly
generous. Eros then co-creates the content of friendship because friendship being born out of
love then continues to have specific properties of love only adapted to a new context of lifelong friendship.57 Even at the end of life there are erotic friends, who are light and winged,
(and wings in the simile of palinode likely represent eros): So these ... pass through life as
friends, ... both at the time of their love and afterwards, believing that they have exchanged
the most binding pledges of love, and that they can never break them and fall into enmity. And
at last, when they depart from the body ... their wings have begun to grow, so that the madness
of love brings them no small reward; for it is the law that those who have once begun their
upward progress shall never again pass into darkness and the journey under the earth, but
shall live a happy life in the light as they journey together, and because of their love shall be
alike in their plumage when they receive their wings. These blessings, so great and so divine,
the friendship of a lover will confer upon you, dear boy (256de).
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be completely sublime or transform into any kind of friendship, which in many terms is just opposite
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19

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