Something Between the Two
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Diotima — μὴ τοίνυν ἀνάγκαζε ὃ μὴ καλόν ἐστιν αἰσχρὸν εἶναι, μηδὲ ὃ μὴ ἀγαθόν, κακόν. οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸν ἔρωτα ἐπειδὴ αὐτὸς ὁμολογεῖς μὴ εἶναι ἀγαθὸν μηδὲ καλόν, μηδέν τι μᾶλλον οἴου δεῖν αὐτὸν αἰσχρὸν καὶ κακὸν εἶναι, ἀλλά τι μεταξύ, ἔφη, τούτοιν.
Socrates — καὶ μήν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὁμολογεῖταί γε παρὰ πάντων μέγας θεὸς εἶναι.
Diotima — τῶν μὴ εἰδότων, ἔφη, πάντων λέγεις, ἢ καὶ τῶν εἰδότων;
Socrates — συμπάντων μὲν οὖν.
Diotima — καὶ ἣ γελάσασα καὶ πῶς ἄν, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες,
Do not, then, compel what is not beautiful to be ugly, nor what is not good, bad. So too with Eros: since you yourself agree he is not good nor beautiful, do not think, for that, that he must be ugly and bad, but something between, she said, the two. And yet, said I, he is agreed by all to be a great god. By all who do not know, she said, do you mean, or also those who know? By absolutely all. And she, laughing, said: how could that be, Socrates,
Diotima states the rule directly: do not force what is not beautiful to be ugly, or what is not good to be bad. So with Eros — since you agree he is not good nor beautiful, do not think he must therefore be ugly and bad, but something between the two. Socrates protests: yet everyone agrees Eros is a great god. She asks, with a laugh: everyone, or only those who don't know? The exchange continues into 202c.
The question "those who know, or those who do not?" is a quiet reminder of the argument just made about right opinion: the majority holds a doxa, an opinion, about Eros without the logos that would make it knowledge. Their verdict that Eros is a great and beautiful god is precisely the unreasoned consensus Diotima is dismantling. She is about to spring the trap — that Socrates himself, by his own admissions, does not really count Eros a god at all. The whole passage enacts what the Symposium keeps insisting: love is not what the crowd's praise makes it, and finding out what it is means giving up the comfortable picture.
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