Examination I
Thursday, 6/6, we will take the first of our five examinations for the semester. Plan on spending about the first hour or so of class-time answering the following three questions. Please be sure to arrive on time for class. As per the syllabus, the first examination is only worth 100 points. You should try to outline answers to each of the questions and be sure you can write clear, complete, and comprehensive answers to them all. You may bring a single handwritten 4inx6in notecard to keep track of your outlines, for which you may use both sides of the notecard.
1. I Just Want to be Loved! Is that so Wrong?
Each of the speakers in The Symposium has something to say about what love is, and in doing so they give different, though not necessarily contradictory, answers to the question, why do we seek romantic love? In other words, it is one thing to understand what love is, quite another to understand why we desire it so strongly. For example, Phaedrus would argue that we seek romantic love because it leads us to greater human excellence: The Ancient Greeks, note, valued almost nothing more than the idea of fostering human excellence or virtue.
Attending carefully to the distinction Pausanius draws between Heavenly Aphrodite and Common Aphrodite, explain why we seek romantic love in its different incarnations according to Pausanius, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, and Socrates.
2. The Rules of Love
In the Symposium, Pausanius argues that the customs and laws attached to expressions of sexuality and romantic love are revealing:
I should point out, however, that, although the customs regarding Love in most cities are simple and easy to understand, here in Athens (and in [b] Sparta as well) they are remarkably complex. In places where the people are inarticulate, like Elis or Boeotia, tradition straightforwardly approves taking a lover in every case. No one there, young or old, would ever consider it shameful. The reason, I suspect, is that, being poor speakers, they want to save themselves the trouble of having to offer reasons and arguments in support of their suits.
By contrast, in places like Ionia and almost every other part of the Persian empire, taking a lover is always considered disgraceful. The Persian empire is absolute; that is why it condemns love as well as philosophy and sport. [c] It is no good for rulers if the people they rule cherish ambitions for themselves or form strong bonds of friendship with one another. That these are precisely the effects of philosophy, sport, and especially of Love is a lesson the tyrants of Athens learned directly from their own experience: Didn’t their reign come to a dismal end because of the bonds uniting Harmodius and Aristogiton in love and affection?13 [d]
So you can see that plain condemnation of Love reveals lust for power in the rulers and cowardice in the ruled, while indiscriminate approval testifies to general dullness and stupidity.
Are his conclusions borne out by our contemporary customs and laws regarding expressions of sexuality and romantic love? Why or why not? Be sure to explain your answer using specific examples. Finally, why is love lumped together with sport and philosophy for special condemnation and control by dictatorial regimes, according to Pausanius? Can his case in this regard be made today?
3. The Madness of Love
In Phaedrus Socrates ends up giving two speeches: the first giving additional (and much better) arguments in favor of Lysias' thesis that the friend is preferable, all things considered, to the lover; the second giving counter-arguments to the arguments he gave in the first speech. What are the arguments Socrates gives in the first speech, and how specifically does he counter them in the second speech? In light of his two speeches and in the final analysis, is the friend preferable to the lover, or is the lover preferable to the friend?