The Honor-Loving Pair
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Socrates — ἀφιλοσόφῳ φιλοτίμῳ δὲ… τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν μακαριστὴν αἵρεσιν εἱλέσθην… φίλω μὲν οὖν ἧττον δὲ.
Socrates turns to a gentler, lower case, and the vocabulary marks the descent precisely. This second couple lives not by philosophy but 'by love of honor' — aphilosophōi, philotimōi. They are not base; the honor-lover is a noble type. But sometimes, caught off guard, they let their souls' undisciplined horses bring them together and 'chose the choice counted blessed by the many' — Socrates's delicate phrase for physical consummation. The wording of that phrase does a great deal of quiet work. It is not simply 'blessed' but makaristēn, 'counted blessed,' and counted so 'by the many,' hoi polloi — the crowd. Socrates does not say they did wrong; he says they took the option ordinary people envy, which is not the same as the option that is truly best. And they take it rarely, he adds, because their whole mind does not approve. These too, he concludes, are friends — philō — 'but less' than the first pair.
Socrates now describes the second-best couple: lovers who live not by philosophy but by love of honor. Sometimes, off guard in drunkenness or carelessness, they let the undisciplined 'horses' of their souls bring them together and choose the physical consummation that most people count blessed — though they do it rarely, since not their whole mind approves. These too are friends, Socrates says, but less than the first pair.
What is striking about this passage is its generosity, and the generosity is philosophically deliberate. Plato could have made the palinode's ethics all-or-nothing: either you achieve the perfect, unconsummated love of the philosophic pair, or you fail. Instead he opens a second track. The couple who sometimes give in to physical desire are not cast out; they still grow wings, still win a real reward, still count as true friends — only 'less,' and their wings come more slowly. This gradation is the same one that organizes the Republic, where Plato ranks human lives by which love rules the soul: the philosophic life, governed by the love of wisdom; the honor-loving or philotimos life, governed by the spirited love of distinction; and, below both, the life ruled by appetite and gain. The lovers here belong to the middle rank. They are honor-lovers — brave, decent, self-respecting people who live by tīmē, by esteem and reputation — and that is a genuinely admirable life, one rung down from the best. The single phrase that fixes their rank is the sly one at the center of the passage: they chose 'the choice counted blessed by the many.' The philosopher measures the good by what is true; the honor-lover measures it, finally, by what other people applaud, and physical consummation is exactly the choice hoi polloi, the crowd, calls enviable. That is why the honor-lover's love is second-best — not because desire is sinful, but because he still takes the world's opinion, rather than wisdom itself, as his standard. And yet Plato lets him keep his wings. The palinode's picture of love turns out to have room for imperfection: a love that stumbles, that is sometimes overcome, that lives by honor rather than by wisdom, is still a real ascent of the soul — slower, lower, but genuinely upward. It is one of the most humane moments in Plato, a philosopher too often read as a purist: here he grants that most of us will love in the honor-lover's way, and insists that it is still enough to grow wings.
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