Plato and the love of learning

Abstract

This paper explores the relation between love, learning and knowledge as found in three dialogues of Plato, Symposium, Phaedrus and Republic. It argues that the account of the ascent from carnal desire to the love of beauty, as set out in the Symposium, is best seen in terms of a genealogy of love in which the object of love is transformed into an object of knowledge. The Phaedrus shows us how affection and love between two individuals can help motivate a love of learning. The Republic demonstrates the value of knowledge through the distinction between knowledge and opinion (or received belief). A love of learning is, therefore, driven by that which is genuinely valuable and worthy of love. Plato helps us today in two respects: first, he reminds us that learning can (and for him, must) have an affective quality. Second, he reminds that the value of learning is related to the knowledge and insight it yields.

Keywords:

• Love
• Learning
• Knowledge
• Belief
• Desire

Notes

Notes

1. Martha Nussbaum interprets Alciabades’ experience as showing us that one can either have philosophy or worldly love but not both and that the price you pay for doing philosophy is that you no longer feel the pull of eros. Hence Socrates’ ability to resist Alcibiades: he didn’t really feel the strength of his (Alcibiades’) desire. But surely on any reading of the Symposium, worldly love is set at a lesser value by the philosopher: it's not that we have two incommensurables. But, as always, Nussbaum's interpretations are deeply interesting—see Nussbaum (1986), Ch. 6, esp. p. 198. In any case, this point doesn’t affect in any major way the argument of this paper.

2. This ascent needn’t involve a neglect of concern for persons, providing there is a sharing in the apprehension of beauty. However, this aspect of eros is not emphasised in the Symposium where the ascent to knowledge leaves sensuality behind. Hence Terence Irwin (1995, pp. 310–311), who wishes to argue for the continued role of personhood, is compelled to advert to the Phaedrus for backing. What seems to be key in Plato is this: the continued interest in each other and the personal interest that lover and beloved take in each other's soul is the result of the workings of eros rather than what we might now think of as moral concern or ‘respect’. For the way in which the Phaedrus can be seen to differ from the middle dialogue (including the Symposium), see Nussbaum (1986), Ch. 7. There she argues (e.g. pp. 218–219) that for Plato the passions are ‘intrinsically valuable components of the best human life’.

3. As Scolnicov (1988, p. 80) puts it: ‘The aim of eros is not the fulfillment of the empirical self’. He also points out that agape, the love of an individual for her own sake, cannot be substituted for eros in the context of learning: only eros is the love of objective perfection (pp. 73–82).

4. This is the approach adopted by Rowe (p. 7) in his introduction to the dialogue.

5. This contrast between the Phaedrus and the Republic is well brought out by Nussbaum (1986), Ch. 7.

6. Translations are taken from Plato (1973).

7. I’m indebted to Richard Smith for emphasising this point.

8. Irwin (1995), pp. 272–273 also notes that the good is not independently defined.

9. See Rorty (1999) for a typical rendition of ‘Platonism’, though Rorty distinguishes Platonism from the individual ‘Plato’ who he says is much more interesting and complex (p. xii).

10. The view of Peters (1981), p. 12. Although Peters is right to suppose that Plato's paradigm of ultimate knowledge was mathematics and geometry, Plato held a much more modest view of human powers. Complete certainty entailed complete knowledge which was beyond human reach. Knowledge was an aspiration, not a goal.

11. Paul Standish (1999) interprets the love in the Symposium as a love for knowledge that is intimated and known only indirectly (e.g. in the way Diotima defines beauty in terms of what it is not). Yet there are passages in Plato (especially in the Republic) where it would appear that, in principle, knowledge can indeed be fully specified (e.g. ‘when the mind's eye is fixed on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and knows them’ (508d). Perhaps this is another tension in Plato (direct/indirect knowledge) that can never be completely resolved. Standish's insight nonetheless reinforces the role of love. The reason is that if the object of love could be comprehensively specified it may become less lovable: we love that which we do not completely know. Hence the relevance of the analysis of love as a ‘lack’ in the Symposium.

12. See Alan Rogers (2003), p. 10 for a discussion of the view that ‘learning is breathing’.

13. By contrast, Joe Dunne (1993), amongst many others, has argued for the specificity of the domain of the practical through a rich articulation of ‘knowing-how’.