Eros the Philosopher
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Diotima — δῆλον δή, ἔφη, τοῦτό γε ἤδη καὶ παιδί, ὅτι οἱ μεταξὺ τούτων ἀμφοτέρων, ὧν ἂν εἴη καὶ ὁ Ἔρως. ἔστιν γὰρ δὴ τῶν καλλίστων ἡ σοφία, Ἔρως δʼ ἐστὶν ἔρως περὶ τὸ καλόν, ὥστε ἀναγκαῖον ἔρωτα φιλόσοφον εἶναι, φιλόσοφον δὲ ὄντα μεταξὺ εἶναι σοφοῦ καὶ ἀμαθοῦς. αἰτία δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τούτων ἡ γένεσις· πατρὸς μὲν γὰρ σοφοῦ ἐστι καὶ εὐπόρου, μητρὸς δὲ οὐ σοφῆς καὶ ἀπόρου. ἡ μὲν οὖν φύσις τοῦ δαίμονος, ὦ φίλε Σώκρατες, αὕτη· ὃν δὲ σὺ ᾠήθης ἔρωτα
It is clear, she said, even to a child, that those between both these, of whom Eros would be one. For wisdom is among the most beautiful things, and Eros is love concerning the beautiful; so that Eros must be a philosopher, and being a philosopher be between wise and ignorant. And the cause for him of these is his birth: for of a father wise and resourceful, he is; but of a mother not wise and resourceless. Such, then, dear Socrates, is the spirit's nature; but whom you supposed Eros to be,
Diotima answers her own question: obviously the in-between ones philosophize, and Eros is among them. For wisdom is among the most beautiful things, and Eros is love of the beautiful; so Eros must be a philosopher, and as a philosopher must be between wise and ignorant. The cause is his birth — of a wise, resourceful father and an unwise, resourceless mother. Such is the daimon's nature. But the being Socrates took Eros to be — the thought carries into 204c.
The birth-myth is now cashed out as character: from Poros (the wise, resourceful father) Eros gets the pursuit and the cunning; from Penia (the unwise, resourceless mother) the lack that drives it. Philosophy is the child of plenty and poverty — resourceful enough to hunt wisdom, poor enough to need it. Plato has turned a genealogy into a definition of the philosophic life, the same life the barefoot portrait sketched. And the last clause pivots to correct Socrates' original error: he had called Eros beautiful and good because he was picturing the wrong party to love. 204c will name the mistake — he confused the beloved, which is beautiful and perfect, with the lover, which is needy and questing. Love is not the beautiful thing desired; it is the desiring.
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