What Is Not Yet at Hand
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Socrates — πλοῦτον κεκτημένος καὶ ὑγίειαν καὶ ἰσχὺν βούλει καὶ εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον ταῦτα κεκτῆσθαι, ἐπεὶ ἐν τῷ γε νῦν παρόντι, εἴτε βούλει εἴτε μή, ἔχεις· σκόπει οὖν, ὅταν τοῦτο λέγῃς, ὅτι ἐπιθυμῶ τῶν παρόντων, εἰ ἄλλο τι λέγεις ἢ τόδε, ὅτι βούλομαι τὰ νῦν παρόντα καὶ εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον παρεῖναι. ἄλλο τι ὁμολογοῖ ἄν;
Agathon — Συμφάναι ἔφη τὸν Ἀγάθωνα.
Socrates — εἰπεῖν δὴ τὸν Σωκράτη, οὐκοῦν τοῦτό γʼ ἐστὶν ἐκείνου ἐρᾶν, ὃ οὔπω ἕτοιμον αὐτῷ ἐστιν οὐδὲ ἔχει, τὸ εἰς τὸν ἔπειτα χρόνον ταῦτα εἶναι αὐτῷ σῳζόμενα καὶ παρόντα;
possessing wealth and health and strength, you wish to possess these for the time to come as well, since at the present now, whether you wish or not, you have them; consider then, whenever you say that I desire the present things, whether you mean anything else than this: that I wish the things now present to be present also in the time to come. Would he agree to anything else? Agathon assented, he said. Then, said Socrates, is this not to love that which is not yet at hand, nor in his possession — that these things be preserved and present to him for the time to come?
Socrates resolves the objection. When a healthy or wealthy man says he wants health or wealth, he does not mean he wants what he has right now — he already has that, willing or not. He means he wants to keep it in time to come. And that future possession he does not yet have. So even here, desire is for something lacked. Agathon assents, and Socrates draws the conclusion.
The move is more than a debater's trick. It shows that even the desire to keep a good is a desire for something one does not have — the not-yet, the future securing of it. Desire is structurally reaching, always toward what is oupō hetoimon, not yet ready to hand. Plato is quietly installing the idea that will govern Diotima's teaching: love aims at a good it lacks and wants to possess always, and the wish for permanence — for the good to be one's own forever — is built into desire itself. Immortality, when Diotima reaches it, will simply be this same wish carried to its limit.
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