In this paper, I show that Aristophanes’s speech in Plato’s Symposium is tied into an interesting and hitherto unexplored web of ideas in Plato’s ethics and psychology. The poet’s analysis of erōs as ‘leading us to what “belongs” (the oikeion)’ (193d2) and as ‘restoring us in our “original nature” (archaia phusis)’ (193d4) is not a mere negative contribution that renders him a ‘target for Diotima’s fire’ (Dover). Rather, he unwittingly communicates central ethical and psychological ideas which we find developed in (...) key passages of Plato’s dialogues. What is interesting is that Diotima in a curious passage seems to dismiss his contribution of the oikeion as unrelated to our good (agathon) and irrelevant to the analysis of desire (205d10–206a1). I argue that this interpretation of Diotima’s response to Aristophanes, which would render her position an ethical anomaly in Plato’s dialogues, should be rejected. Instead, it is more plausible to read her response as proposing a revisionary conception of the oikeion, relying on the idea that our agathon is our true oikeion. In addition, I tentatively suggest that the theory of psychic pregnancy may be seen as presenting the agathon of wisdom of virtue produced in the ascent as an oikeion. Just as fascinating as Diotima’s stance on the oikeion is the question how her teachings relate to the concept of an archaia phusis of the soul. The idea that the soul’s self-perfection constitutes a return to a temporally prior condition of excellence, which in two places other than the Symposium (Republic X, Timaeus) is called the ‘archaia phusis’, is pervasive and centrally important to Plato’s psychology. I address the question whether Diotima’s ascent passage constitutes a psychological anomaly in portraying self-perfection as unrelated to the concept of the archaia phusis. I argue that an answer to this depends on the stance we take on the Symposium’s position regarding the immortality of the soul. While a reading that posits a rejection of immortality in the Symposium must indeed deny a role for the concept in Diotima’s speech, I show that a reading allowing for immortality as a theoretical commitment in the background has an interesting interpretative option: along with Timaeus 90d5, it may fruitfully interpret the ascent as an ordering of the soul ‘in accordance with its archaia phusis’. (shrink)

The author discusses an inscription of the late fourth or early third century BC carved on a bronze plaque found in the first excavations at Dodona, on which a Zakynthian, by name Agathon, records a link of proxeny between himself and his family and the Epirote koinon of the Molossians, through Kassandra, the Trojan prophetess. The plaque is decorated by a prominent phallus with testicles, which the author interprets as referring to the continuity, past and future, of the "geneá" (...) of Agathon. Other explanations of the whole piece have been proposed, and the present essay is intended only to explore the possibility of this interpretation. (shrink)

The personality and the writings of Marsilio Ficino mark the turning point from the middleages to the Renaissance. In John Marenbon’s apt description, medieval philosophy is ‘the story of a complex tradition founded in Neoplatonism, but not simply as a continuation or development of Neoplatonism itself’. ‘Not simply’ because the Enneads, the first and finest flowering of that tradition, testify to Plotinus’ deep engagement, not only with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Middle Platonists, but also with (...) a variety of theologico-mystical writings of diverse middleeastern provenances, from Egypt to Persia. This complex tradition, Ficino transmitted to the West in the form of translations from Greek into Latin of the dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus as well as of several commentaries on those texts by later thinkers. In addition to such exegetical works, Ficino wrote several philosophical treatises of his own. Finally, as an ordained priest, he was also well acquainted with the writings of the Church Fathers, all of which had contributed to his belief that religion should not be separated from philosophy. To the completion of this ambitious scholarly programme and the fulfilment of his commitment to the Church, he brought the resources of his powerfully syncretistic mind. Rather than merely combining various texts and traditions, he made them speak to each other and, in the process, evolved a system that was both sui generis and attuned to the new ways of thinking that were then emerging in quattrocento Florence. His in-depth understanding of all these texts, together with his ability to spot similarities, analogies and correspondences between them, enabled him to fuse into a coherent system various elements which a modern historian of philosophy would regard as dissimilar if not incompatible. His philosophical acumen enabled him, when he thought it appropriate, to improve on the views of those he regarded as his masters and to fill whatever gaps he found in their arguments. The present essay is an attempt to unravel the nature of Ficino’s syncretism, in which three levels of widening scope will be distinguished: authorial, trans-authorial and trans-doctrinal. To achieve a desirable level of both precision and concision, a short text will then be analysed, namely Speech Five of his most widely read treatise, a Latin commentary on Plato’s Symposium, entitled Commentarium in Convivium Platonis De Amore. It will be shown how, through the fictional speech that he put in the mouth of Marsuppini, his chosen spokesperson of the Platonic Agathon, Ficino succeeded, not only in blending Platonic, Plotinian and Christian elements in the reconstruction of an argument that Plato had meant us to regard as flawed to the core, but he also composed an elegant and original speech that continues to intrigue and enchant its readers after a gap of over six centuries. (shrink)

Agathon's mannered yet striking encomium on Eros in Plato's Symposium has attracted critical attention in ample measure, yet at least one dark corner remains unilluminated. As the speaker approaches his climax in the words quoted above, he slips into nautical imagery: κυβερντης πιβτης … , but then disconcerts readers and commentators alike by immediately lapsing into the down-to-earth language of παρασττης τε σωτρ … words which seem to lack maritime connotations. The standard editions offer no help: Hug–Schöner devote several (...) lines to the metaphors as they conceive them and suggest various groupings, but conclude somewhat despairingly: ‘dass es im ubrigen hier nicht auf Schärfe der Begriffe ankommt, leuchtet ein’. Dover, elsewhere a supportive editor, here only offers observations on πιβτης and the ‘predominantly nautical sense’ of κυβερντης ; he translates παρασττης as ‘comrade-in-arms, – strictly the hoplite posted beside one’. Bury has some desultory statements which lead nowhere, while lecture-notes of pupils betray perplexity; some consider the four nouns here to be an ‘odd assortment’, and say that ‘many emendations have been suggested’. It has even been suggested that it was perhaps Plato's intention to show Agathon talking ‘near-nonsense’. (shrink)

Werden ist ein sinnvolles Geschehen. Sein ist sinnvolle Lebendigkeit. Der psyché des kósmos eignet noûs, der sich darin zeigt, dass alles Werden – alle phýsis – die Tendenz hat, harmonische Systeme auszubilden bzw. Systeme in einem harmonischen Zustand zu erhalten. Vorzugsweise gilt das für den Himmel und die Himmelskörper, deren Bahnen und Bewegungen nicht nur das Walten der psyché bekunden, sondern deren Ordnung auch den dem lebendigen Sein inhärenten noûs bezeugen. Deshalb ist der Himmel in den Augen Platons nicht allein (...) ein Gegenstand der Astronomie, sondern das sprechendste Zeugnis dafür, wie die psyché den kósmos kraft des noûs in Ordnung hält ; ein beispielhaftes Zeugnis, an dem der Mensch Maß nehmen sollte, wenn es ihm darum zu tun ist, ein gutes Leben zu führen : ein harmonisches Leben, dass dem Sein der phýsis angemessen und in diesem Sinne naturgemäß ist. (shrink)

Les deux fragments d'inscriptions publiés par Graindor et repris dans IG II2, 4308 avec la signature du sculpteur Agathon d'Anagyre recollent, à condition de mettre le fragment a à droite du fragment b. Cette base vraisemblablement en l'honneur d'un citoyen du dème de Mélité, se dressait sur l'Acropole.

It is possible to pick out a number of tendencies in axiology development. Among them we can see the disciplinary invasion of axiology into the sphere of agathological (agathon - greek - the Good) knowledge. The invasion tendency is connected with the definite understanding of the value nature and with the including non-value content into the axiological sphere. Value and agathon (the good) have different significance. In philosophy of values there are two axiologies: creative and noncreative. In creative (...) axiology the value world is the world created by the free and reasonable subject. All the history of agathon (the good) studying allows for picking it (agathon) out as a subject for special research in agathology. (shrink)

La discussione sull’idea del buono occupa uno spazio marginale nel libro VI della Repubblica, ma comporta un eccezionale impegno teorico : di qui la vastita della letteratura esegetica che contrasta con la brevita del testo platonico. Il problema cruciale e questo : in Repubblica VI 504a‑509c to agathon non e piu solo un principio di valorizzazione e un criterio di valutazione di cose e condotte – com’e consueto in Platone – ma assume il ruolo di principio ontologico ed epistemologico. (...) Questa posizione ha spesso suggerito interpretazioni di tipo “teologico” dell’idea del buono. Quello che si puo affermare sulla base del testo, e che Platone ha conferito in queste pagine della Repubblica un primato al vertice etico del triangolo i cui altri vertici sono quello ontologico e quello epistemologico ; l’intento e quello di offrire una fondazione etica assoluta, mediante la connessione della sfera del valore con quelle dell’essere e della verita.L’unificazione delle dimensioni etica, ontologica ed epistemologica sarebbe parsa teoricamente insostenibile ad Aristotele, cui si deve una critica devastante alla teoria platonica del buono. (shrink)

Agathon, in his panegyric of Eros, had maintained that it is good, beautiful, and divine. Socrates begins his elenchus of this claim by pointing out that Eros is relational in character: love is always love of something, desire desire for something. Eros falls in that class of terms later described as ta pros ti, terms which have their meaning ‘toward’ something else. Furthermore, Eros lacks what it loves and desires to possess it: “everyone … who desires something desires what (...) has not been obtained and is not present; his love and desire are set on things he lacks, things he does not possess.” Desire implies privation. Agathon and Plato also agree that Eros is always in love with the beautiful ; as Agathon had earlier said, “the world was fashioned by the gods through love of beautiful things; for there is no love of the ugly.” It then follows that, since Eros is love of what it lacks, it cannot be beautiful or good, and since the gods possess both attributes, it cannot be divine. It is not, however, bad or ugly or mortal, but ‘intermediate’ between those attributes. (shrink)

THERE ARE ANY NUMBER OF REASONS for wanting to know what Aristotle means by “good”. For students of Aristotle, understanding his conception of goodness would provide an authentic Nicomachean metaethics, so to speak, a clearer view of his natural teleology, and a great deal of help in making sense of his cosmology and his metaphysics, especially the theological bits. For the less historically minded, the rebirth of virtue ethics makes the relation between nature and norm an important problem, with implications (...) not only for ethics proper but also for social philosophy and the foundations of the social sciences. Epistemology and the philosophy of science finally have begun to take questions of value more seriously, and therefore they ought also to be interested in possible connections between knowledge of nature and the apprehension of value. Aristotle’s conception of goodness is relevant to all these questions. (shrink)

This is a short overview of Plato’s “greatest thing to be learned” or the “greatest lesson” (megiston mathêma) – the Idea of the Good.

Dada la cantidad de referencias a koinōnía en los diálogos de Platón, llama la atención que la frase “bien común” sea usada solo una vez – en el Cármides 166d. Sócrates pregunta a su interlocutor Critias: “¿No crees que es por el bien común, para casi todos los hombres, el que deba descubrirse cómo son todos los seres?”. La pregunta surge después de que Critias ha afirmado que sōphrosýnē es autoconocimiento, lo cual luego especifica como un “conocimiento de todos los (...) demás conocimientos y de sí mismo”. En este artículo, sostengo que no es casualidad que Sócrates mencione el “bien común” precisamente en este momento en su discusión con Critias. La noción de sōphrosýnē que Critias defiende es incoherente debido a lo que este afirma que es su característica distintiva – su reflexividad. Debido a su total reflexividad, no apunta a ningún fin más allá de sí mismo y, por lo tanto, es incapaz de revelar “los seres” ni de estar conectado a ningún bien fuera de sí mismo. El bien común que Sócrates menciona aquí está, por ende, esencialmente relacionado al reconocimiento de la ignorancia que motiva a asombrarse de un bien más allá del amor de nuestras propias cosas. Por lo tanto, sugiero una explicación para la curiosa adición de “casi” en el comentario de Sócrates aquí: Critias mismo muestra que, a menos que él pueda admitir la ignorancia y experimentar tal asombro, entonces él no está constitucionalmente incluido en este bien común. (shrink)

This intercultural study attempts to find a bridge between Heidegger’s criticism of metaphysics as Ontotheology, his search for overcoming it in his later thinking about the hiddenness of Being itself, and Ibn ‘Arabi’s mystical doctrine of unity of Being— which is likewise characterized as the absolute hiddenness—through a return to their common ground in Platonic negative theology. Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato’s allegory of the Sun and the role of the Good beyond Being, and the unsaid correspondence between Heidegger’s “Being itself” (...) and the Neoplatonic “One” build the bridge to the analysis of absoluteness as absolute hiddenness in Islamic mysticism. Through this interpretation, the Islamic philosophical tradition could be faced with Heidegger’s accusation of Ontotheology, potentially discovering possibilities for a philosophically relevant dialogue with Heidegger’s thought. (shrink)

Aristotle opens the first chapter of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics as follows: “Every art and every inquire, and similarly every action as well as undertaking, seem to aim at some good. Hence people have right defined that the good is that at which all things aim”. The article indicates and elucidates the difficulties found in the quoted statement on the basis of translation and commentary by Sebastian Petrycy of Pilzno.

Christoph Martin Wieland zählt zu den bedeutendsten Philosophen und Literaten der Spätaufklärung. Besonders einflussreich waren seine poetischen Konzepte gelungener Vergemeinschaftung auf gesellschaftlicher und staatlicher Ebene. Zu diesem Gelingen trug für Wieland die Utopie einer rein ethischen Form normativer Ordnung bei, weil sie den Zwangscharakter des Rechts überwunden zu haben wähnte. Der Beitrag versucht die historischen und systematischen Bedingungen dieser Vorstellung rechtsfreier Gemeinschaft zu rekonstruieren und deren Widersprüche aufzuzeigen.

After Agathon's speech in Plato's Symposium, Socrates takes a little time to make some comments about it. One of these comments is that the speech brought Gorgias to his memory (198 c 2-5). In this article we intend to track down in three complementary levels the diverse reasons why this recollection took place: (A) regarding the form of the speech, we will try to show that there is an equivalence in how both Gorgias in his Encomium to Helen and (...) the character of Agathon in the Symposium construct their respective logoi; (B) regarding the style of writing, we will see the frequent use in the poet's speech of the rhetoric resource of "saying things alike'' (isa legein) usually ascribed to Gorgias; (C) finally, regarding the contents of both speeches we will try to show that many of the elements used by the sophist to praise the logos in his Encomium to Helen may be found, more or less, in Agathon's praise of Eros. The article will try to show, thus, which are the precise elements that may have made Socrates remember Gorgias after listening to the tragic poet. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the understanding of eros expressed in the speeches of Phaedrus and Agathon in Plato’s Symposium, two speeches often neglected in the literature. I argue that they contain crucial insights about the nature of eros that reappear in Diotima’s speech. Finally, I consider the relation of Socrates and Alcibiades in light of these insights, arguing that the figure of Alcibiades should be seen as a negative illustration of the notion of erotic education described by Diotima.

A commentary on the Symposium as a challenge and a gift to Athens. I begin with a reflection on three dates: 416 bce, the date of Agathon’s victory party, c. 400, the approximate date of Apollodorus’ retelling of the party, and c. 375, the approximate date of the ‘publication’ of the dialogue, and I argue that Plato reminds his contemporary Athens both of its great poetic and legal and scientific traditions and of the historical fact that the way late (...) fourth century Athens appropriated them in some way led to the city’s demise at the turn of the century; thus the dialogue is Plato’s challenge to his contemporary Athens to recognize and overcome its flawed relation to its cultural resources. Heard in this way, the key moments are Aristophanes’ implied critique of Pausanias and Eryximachus and Socrates’ implied critique of Aristophanes and Agathon. Proceeding by a close reading, I argue that Plato exposes, for those moved to rise to his challenge, the failure of his great predecessors to conceive the divine in a way that, worthy of the height and otherness divinity requires, can provide substantive orientation for the burgeoning new reason that animates the city’s culture. (shrink)

‘_Agathon_ and _Eudaimonia_ in the _Ethics_ of Aristotle’ is a response to an article on the meaning of _Agathon_ in the _Ethics_ of Aristotle, published by H. A. Pritchard in 1935. In this paper, Pritchard argued that Aristotle regarded _Agathon_ to mean ‘conducive to our happiness’ and, consequently, that he maintained that every deliberate action stems, ultimately, from the desire to become happy. Austin finds fault with this view: first, _Agathon_ in Aristotle does not have a single meaning, and _a (...) fortiori_ not the one Pritchard suggested; secondly, if one had to summarise the meaning of ‘being _agathon_’ in one phrase, then ‘being desired’ cannot fulfil this function, for there are other objects of desire besides τό άγαθόν (the good). (shrink)

‘Agathon and Eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle’ is a response to an article on the meaning of Agathon in the Ethics of Aristotle, published by H. A. Pritchard in 1935. In this paper, Pritchard argued that Aristotle regarded Agathon to mean ‘conducive to our happiness’ and, consequently, that he maintained that every deliberate action stems, ultimately, from the desire to become happy. Austin finds fault with this view: first, Agathon in Aristotle does not have a (...) single meaning, and a fortiori not the one Pritchard suggested; secondly, if one had to summarise the meaning of ‘being agathon’ in one phrase, then ‘being desired’ cannot fulfil this function, for there are other objects of desire besides τό άγαθόν. (shrink)

Plato held that the Agathon (Being itself in its font) is the source or ‘common cause’ both of being(s) and of our understanding, both of the world (cosmos) and of our intellectual grasp thereof, both of the world beyond us (objectivity) that yet includes us and of the world of our inner thoughts (subjectivity) that yet stretches out to embrace the entire universe. This divine presupposition, found ‘philosophically’ in Plato and ‘religiously’ in Augustine’s doctrine of divine illumination, is that (...) God is the common cause of us and our world, for both are held within the same divine/cosmic embrace, by the same Spirit operating within us and beyond us. This leads us to a ‘hand-in-its-glove’ or ‘mind-in-its-world’ proportionate realism that avoids the epistemological defects of Kant’s transcendental realism and Bhaskar’s critical realism. Finally, we should regard knowing by acquaintance as paradigmatic, as the fundamental form of knowing in terms of which the other types are best approached and understood. There is, I suggest, an important sense in which ‘all knowing is knowing in the biblical sense.’. (shrink)

Under the term ‘the good’ (to agathon) Plotinus thematizes the first principle of reality. Unlike in modern Western languages, ‘good’ has no moral meaning here; rather, it denotes the highest in value. Plotinus thereby ties in with Plato’s definition of the ‘idea of the good’ in Republic 6 and 7, just as he draws on the Platonic Parmenides for the designation ‘the one’ (to hen). Plotinus considers it Plato’s genuine conception that the principle of reality is, on the one (...) hand, the source of all aspects of value and ethical striving, as it is, on the other hand, the source of being and knowledge. For Plato, the idea of the good is located ‘beyond being’ (epekeina tês ousias: Republic 6, 509b9); Plotinus frequently refers to this formula affirmatively. Under the designation ‘the good’ Plotinus treats the first principle of reality especially in the two treatises VI 9 [9] and VI 7 [38]. Fundamental is his conviction that in everything that has arisen from the good there is a desire to return to it. (shrink)

Plato's account of an important dialogue on the nature of love between Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates and Alcibiades. English translation with notes and introduction.

This paper argues that Socratic dialogue is not a value-neutral practice, with ethical value entering the frame only via its content (discussion of the virtues); nor is it solely an instrumental tool to secure a valuable end-product (a definition). I argue in favour of three positive claims. Claim 1 is that dialogue is a value-laden practice. What we tend to suppose are value-neutral norms, such as cooperation, a mutually accepted direction, checking whether a position has been understood before drawing conclusions, (...) and so on, involve ethical values. This explains the prevalence of language familiar from the ethical domain to describe the practice of dialogue in Plato’s works. Claim 2 is that because dialogue involves values in its activity, adhering to norms of dialogue can foster virtuous behaviours simply in so far as participants adhere (well and repeatedly) to the rules of the game. Taken together, these claims loosen the grip of the results-driven focus on an elusive end-product, which supposedly contains all the ethical value. Though dialogue aims at definitions, or virtue, the activity itself also has value and, according to Socrates in the Apology, it has the greatest value for human beings (it is the ‘greatest good’, megiston agathon). I defend this claim by arguing that dialogue is the greatest good because it is thinking aloud, and the virtues are excellences of dialogue/thinking (Claim 3). (shrink)

From the contents:0K. Eggers / A. Stollberg: Vorwort? Antike und Mittelalter? M. Nanni: Musikalische Energeia? 17. bis 19. Jahrhundert? I. Mai Groote:?ut energiam habeat Musica?: Vorstellungen vom Zusammenwirken von Text, Rhythmus und Musik im 17. Jahrhundert? L. Holtmeier: La mécanique des doigts? Energie und Körperlichkeit in der französischen Musiktheorie? A. Stollberg: Schwunglinien und Wellenkurven. Zur Theorie der Melodik im späten 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert? M. Schneider: Tugend-Energie. Charakterkraft und Erzählform in Wielands Agathon und Schlegels Lucinde? B. Specht: Die?geheimere (...) Werkstätte des Physikers?. Naturdynamik und Fragmentästhetik bei Johann Wilhelm Ritter? C. Torra-Mattenklott: Die energetische Wirkung der Künste bei E. T. A. Hoffmann? N. Noeske: Dämonische Energien zwischen Arzt und Patientin: Virtuosität als magnetisches Fluidum 20. und 21. Jahrhundert? E. Neswald: Thermodynamik als Weltanschauung um 1900. (shrink)

Our first encounter with Socrates in the Symposium is bizarre. Aristodemus, surprised to run into Socrates fully bathed and with his sandals on, asks him where he is going “to have made himself so beautiful (kalos)” (174a4, Rowe trans.). Socrates replies that he is on his way to see the lovely Agathon, and so that “he has beautified himself in these ways in order to go, a beauty to a beauty (kalos para kalon)” (174a7–8). Why does Socrates, who in (...) just a few moments will be lost in contemplation out on the front porch, care about being beautiful? His remark to Aristodemus is clearly in some sense ironic, but on the other hand, he really has taken unusual care with his physical appearance. Later, in his encomium to love, he will claim that beauty has this effect on lovers: the beauty of the beloved causes the lover to disdain his former way of life and “give birth” to beautiful “offspring.” Is the image of the squat and snub-nosed Socrates all freshly scrubbed and kitted out a comic foreshadowing, or a debunking, of his serious speech? Does Socrates really believe in the transformative power of beauty? (shrink)

Aristotle and the sea battle, by G. E. M. Anscombe.--Aristotle's different possibilities, by K. J. J. Hintikka.--On Aristotle's square of opposition, by M. Thompson.--Categories in Aristotle and in Kant, by J. C. Wilson.--Aristotle's Categories, chapters I-V: translation and notes, by J. L. Ackrill.--Aristotle's theory of categories, by J. M. E. Moravcsik.--Essence and accident, by I. M. Copi.--Tithenai ta phainomena, by G. E. L. Owen.--Matter and predication in Aristotle, by J. Owens.--Problems in Metaphysics Z, chapter 13, by M. J. Woods.--The meaning (...) of agathon in the Ethics of Aristotle, by H. A. Prichard.--Agathon and eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle, by J. L. Austin.--The final good in Aristotle's Ethics, by W. F. R. Hardie.--Aristotle on pleasure, by J. O. Urmson.--Bibliography (p. 335-341). (shrink)

At the very end of Plato's Symposium our narrator awakes to find Socrates still hard at it, and making Agathon and Aristophanes agree that the composition of tragedy and comedy is really one and the same thing:… προсαναγκάӡειν τὸν Σωκράτη ὁμολογεῖν αὐτοὺс τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀνδρὸс εἷναι κωμωιδίαν καὶ τραγωιδίαν ἐπἰсταϲθαι ποιεῖν, καὶ τὸν τέχνηι τραγωιδοποιὸν ὄντα καὶ κωμωιδοποιὸν εἷναι. ταῦτα δὴ ἀναγκαӡομένουϲ αὐτοὺϲ … the two playwrights succumb to sleep, leaving Socrates triumphant. Socrates had to ‘force’ his case; and (...) it is a fact that, though we know of well over 100 fifth-century playwrights, we do not know of a single one who produced both tragedy and comedy. In a famous fragment the comedian Antiphanes complains that the tragedians have an easy time—familiar stories, the deus ex machina etc.—ἡμῖν δὲ ταῦτ' οὐκ ἔсτιν … It is a matter of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Furthermore, there was an entire separate genre besides tragedy and comedy. As Demetrius put it, τραγωιδία χάριταϲ μὲν παραλαμβάνει ἐν πολλοῖϲ, ὁ δὲ γέλωϲ ἐχθρὸϲ τραγωιδίαϲ· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐπινοήϲειεν ἄν τιϲ τραγωιδίαν παίӡουϲαν, ἐπεὶ ϲάτυρον γράψει ἀντὶ τραγωιδίαϲ. (shrink)

I argue that the tragedies envisioned by the Symposium are two, both of which are introduced in the dialogue: (i) within months of Agathon's victory, half the characters who celebrated with him suffer death or exile on charges of impiety; (ii) Socrates is executed weeks after the dramatic date of the frame. Thus the most defensible notion of tragedy across Plato's dialogues is a fundamentally epistemological one: if we do not know the good, we increase our risk of making (...) mistakes and of suffering what are sometimes their catastrophic consequences. (shrink)