Diotima And Eryximachus's Speech In Socrates '

“Well, Gentleman, how can we arrange to drink less tonight?” said Pausanias to the group of men at Agathon’s house. For a second night in a row, the gentleman came over to discuss and mingle or have a symposium of sorts. The topic for that night’s conversation was going to be on love, and each man around the room was going to give an account. One important speech given halfway through was given by Eryximachus, a doctor. Throughout his account, we are reminded of his craft many times and he then uses a physicalist approach to discuss love. Socrates was one of the last to give a discourse on the topic, and he crafted his speech from a conversation he had with a woman named Diotima, a priestess. This account is focused more on the spiritual side …show more content…
Eryximachus is a physician yes, but Diotima is a physician diviner or priestess. The only sentence from the dialogue that mentions Diotima’s credentials is at the beginning of Socrates’ speech where he mentions where she was from and the fact that she put off the plague for ten years by telling the Athenians what sacrifices to make. This small detail was helpful to later philosophers when trying to grasp the significance of the speech and why Socrates would even try to mention Diotima in this important dialogue. Another point of similarity is seen in both their widening of perspectives in their speech for love. Eryximachus tries to implement the idea of love being a universal force, and Diotima in a similar way tries to expand the explanation by adding different characteristics to love and adding in the beauty aspect. Though these are two small similarities, it helps make a small connection and allows the readers to see how important the speeches are to the rest of the …show more content…
These two accounts offer two different perspectives that widen the conversation but bring in a more physical and spiritual account than the ones before. Diotima emphasizes the importance of not making love a god but explaining the beauty of the real object in form of the true virtue. That true virtue being the external work handed down in posterity. Eryximachus wanted to emphasize the importance of medicine and uses medical and then later musical examples to illustrate his point that love is a universal power, and tries to make love more than what it is. He gets criticized with this point later by others including Diotima. These speeches are very important in the external dialogue about love and should be used in comparison to others despite their differences in