You can download the pdf version here.
The table of contents looks like this:
The Phenomenology of the Unreal
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts
January 30, 2012
Introductory book about the ideas behind this blog
During the fall months of the past year, it's been a little quieter than usual on this blog. The reason was that last summer I found that I needed something more of a coherent presentation of the ideas behind it — a kind of backgrounder and introductory text. So I sat down to write that. The result has taken the shape of a small book, which is now available in a draft version. (There is still some formatting work I want to do to optimize readability, and possibly smallish corrections in wording and grammar.)
You can download the pdf version here.
The table of contents looks like this:
You can download the pdf version here.
The table of contents looks like this:
July 17, 2011
Healthiness and beauty
Gustav von Aschenbach would not have agreed with Cicero that "bodily loveliness and beauty cannot be separated from healthiness".[1] The hero of Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice, himself a distinguished artist, doesn't fail to immediately notice a delicate and fragile quality, just with a hint of morbidity, in that young boy who is the object of his infatuation: "War er leidend? Denn die Haut seines Gesichtes stach weiß wie Elfenbein gegen das goldige Dunkel der umrahmenden Locken ab".(531)[2]
Aschenbach notes this the very first time he lays eyes on the boy, right after he is struck by his beauty thus: "Mit Erstaunen bemerkte Aschenbach, daß der Knabe vollkommen schön war." And yet already at this point, the immediate next perception is the paleness of his face: "Sein Antlitz, bleich und anmutig verschlossen [...]" (529–530).
This quality, however, emphasizes the boy's beauty; it doesn't diminish it. The attraction that is exerted on Aschenbach seems to owe to it just as much as it owes to the perfection otherwise displayed. Consider this passage:
But beauty and health are not necessarily coordinated, and neither are beauty and goodness;[3] there are, as Roger Scruton puts it, "dangerous beauties, corrupting beauties, and immoral beauties".[4] We do welcome both beauty and value into our lives, and we're often actually seeking them out, too. But we come from different places when we're going for health, or goodness, than when we strive for beauty. It has its own particular role to play in our activities, for both good and bad. (And for both the promotion and the destruction of our health, as Aschenbach was to experience on his own person.)
Aschenbach notes this the very first time he lays eyes on the boy, right after he is struck by his beauty thus: "Mit Erstaunen bemerkte Aschenbach, daß der Knabe vollkommen schön war." And yet already at this point, the immediate next perception is the paleness of his face: "Sein Antlitz, bleich und anmutig verschlossen [...]" (529–530).
This quality, however, emphasizes the boy's beauty; it doesn't diminish it. The attraction that is exerted on Aschenbach seems to owe to it just as much as it owes to the perfection otherwise displayed. Consider this passage:
[Aschenbach] hatte jedoch bemerkt, daß Tadzios Zähne nicht recht erfreulich waren: etwas zackig und blaß, ohne den Schmelz der Gesundheit und von eigentümlich spröder Durchsichtigkeit, wie zuweilen bei Bleichsüchtigen. Er ist sehr zart, er ist kränklich, dachte Aschenbach. Er wird wahrscheinlich nicht alt werden. Und er verzichtete darauf, sich Rechenschaft von einem Gefühl der Genugtuung oder Beruhigung zu geben, das diesen Gedanken begleitete. (541)Greek and Roman antiquity seemed to think it obvious that beauty (of the body) and health are coordinated. Beauty is lost when youth and fitness have gone. Health is a first condition; how could you be beautiful in physical appearance if that condition isn't even met?
But beauty and health are not necessarily coordinated, and neither are beauty and goodness;[3] there are, as Roger Scruton puts it, "dangerous beauties, corrupting beauties, and immoral beauties".[4] We do welcome both beauty and value into our lives, and we're often actually seeking them out, too. But we come from different places when we're going for health, or goodness, than when we strive for beauty. It has its own particular role to play in our activities, for both good and bad. (And for both the promotion and the destruction of our health, as Aschenbach was to experience on his own person.)
[1] De officiis, I.95.
[2] Thomas Mann, "Der Tod in Venedig", in: Frühe Erzählungen 1893–1912. Große kommentierte Frankfurter Ausgabe, Band 2.1. Ed. Terence J. Reed. Frankfurt a.M: Fischer 2004, 501–592. Quoted with page numbers in the text.
[3] I've already remarked in a previous footnote (scroll down to [2]) that this is where I'd part ways with Plato's account of beauty.
[4] Roger Scruton, Beauty. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009, 4.
June 2, 2011
Appreciation of the craft
In order to get clearer about my concept of beauty, I'm looking first at artistic creation: beauty in literature, music and the arts.[1] I'm focusing on examples from literature for now, but the ideas I'm sketching here should apply more or less the same to all forms of artistic creation. I begin by introducing the notions of appreciation, aesthetic ascent, and performance.
1) Appreciation.[2] Let's start with an obvious and rather truistic point: when we try to understand a work of literature, there is at least one special dimension compared to trying to understand any narrative in everyday life. A work of literature doesn't just tell a story; it does that, but it does it in a special way. For our understanding of something as literature, the way how the story is told is at least as important as its content.
When we read an article in a newspaper (telling us about a political summit, for instance), or a report at work, what we are mostly interested in is what the narrative tells us, not how it is told. Not that the latter aspect doesn't matter: there is a typical style to newspaper articles or work reports, and if a text of that sort fails to comply to our expectations, we're irritated. Imagine a work report using obscure or flowery language, or a newspaper article written in verse. We would be surprised, and because of the unusual format, we would have difficulty reading it as a work report or newspaper article. So the way such a text is written is not immaterial—it must be written in a particular way. But if it is, then we are precisely not interested in the question in what way it is written. The craft aspect, so to speak, is transparent to us. Ideally, we want to be informed, and the best style for a text with that objective is a style that isn't perceived as style, that keeps in the background.
Consider yet another sort of narrative that also is part of daily life. When your friend tells you the amusing (or depressing, depending on where you stand) story how many forms she had to fill in to get her laptop connected to the company network, you're not mostly interested in what exactly happened. If she told you the story to amuse you, then a lot depends on how well she succeeds in making it fun to listen to it. In this case again, the way the story is told is far from unimportant; but again, it should be transparent—it's not necessary for you to notice exactly what makes the story funny, which stylistic elements (choice of words, body language, exploitation of shared opinions) are used, and how well they are employed. On the contrary: the story will probably fail to be amusing if you are made aware of these elements too often and too directly.
In all these examples it is of course possible to reflect on narrative style, and appreciate it. You can come to like a certain newspaper precisely because of its sober and informative style, you can appreciate a colleague's work reports for their matter-of-factness, and of course we can value a friend's talent for amusing storytelling. Such additional reflection and appreciation is not strictly necessary for the functioning of something as a newspaper article, a work report, or an amusing conversation. But it refines your perceptive and social interaction skills if you are capable of doing so (and if you actually do it a lot). It is also a step into the direction of appreciation of art, and literature in particular.
With literature, reflection on and appreciation of the way how things are said in a text are built right into the practice, both on the side of the producers and on the side of the recipients. In other words, authors are aware that it's not just the stories they tell, but also how they are telling them (their particular style, use of language and idioms, the way they construct the story and plot etc.) which is subject to interest and appreciation; and readers know that they must look at these aspects in order to fully 'get' what's going on in the text.
Understanding literature, then, must include perceiving and appreciating the 'how' it is made, in addition to the 'what' that it says. This is a skill that requires some development, and naturally it benefits from learning to apply the terms and concepts of technical language. If you are able to distinguish between plot and story, or between the narrator's and the character's perspectives, and if you can use these terms to refer to such differences in discourse with yourself and others, then you have reached a higher level of skill in understanding literature. Note that having a conceptual skill does not necessarily mean that you also have to use some given terminology; many readers have an understanding of the difference between the narrator's perspective and a character's perspective, although they may never have learned the technical use of 'narrator', 'character' and 'perspective' employed here. It's not the particular use of words that matters — what matters is the conceptual capacity.
1) Appreciation.[2] Let's start with an obvious and rather truistic point: when we try to understand a work of literature, there is at least one special dimension compared to trying to understand any narrative in everyday life. A work of literature doesn't just tell a story; it does that, but it does it in a special way. For our understanding of something as literature, the way how the story is told is at least as important as its content.
When we read an article in a newspaper (telling us about a political summit, for instance), or a report at work, what we are mostly interested in is what the narrative tells us, not how it is told. Not that the latter aspect doesn't matter: there is a typical style to newspaper articles or work reports, and if a text of that sort fails to comply to our expectations, we're irritated. Imagine a work report using obscure or flowery language, or a newspaper article written in verse. We would be surprised, and because of the unusual format, we would have difficulty reading it as a work report or newspaper article. So the way such a text is written is not immaterial—it must be written in a particular way. But if it is, then we are precisely not interested in the question in what way it is written. The craft aspect, so to speak, is transparent to us. Ideally, we want to be informed, and the best style for a text with that objective is a style that isn't perceived as style, that keeps in the background.
Consider yet another sort of narrative that also is part of daily life. When your friend tells you the amusing (or depressing, depending on where you stand) story how many forms she had to fill in to get her laptop connected to the company network, you're not mostly interested in what exactly happened. If she told you the story to amuse you, then a lot depends on how well she succeeds in making it fun to listen to it. In this case again, the way the story is told is far from unimportant; but again, it should be transparent—it's not necessary for you to notice exactly what makes the story funny, which stylistic elements (choice of words, body language, exploitation of shared opinions) are used, and how well they are employed. On the contrary: the story will probably fail to be amusing if you are made aware of these elements too often and too directly.
In all these examples it is of course possible to reflect on narrative style, and appreciate it. You can come to like a certain newspaper precisely because of its sober and informative style, you can appreciate a colleague's work reports for their matter-of-factness, and of course we can value a friend's talent for amusing storytelling. Such additional reflection and appreciation is not strictly necessary for the functioning of something as a newspaper article, a work report, or an amusing conversation. But it refines your perceptive and social interaction skills if you are capable of doing so (and if you actually do it a lot). It is also a step into the direction of appreciation of art, and literature in particular.
With literature, reflection on and appreciation of the way how things are said in a text are built right into the practice, both on the side of the producers and on the side of the recipients. In other words, authors are aware that it's not just the stories they tell, but also how they are telling them (their particular style, use of language and idioms, the way they construct the story and plot etc.) which is subject to interest and appreciation; and readers know that they must look at these aspects in order to fully 'get' what's going on in the text.
 |
| Auguste Toulmouche, The reading lesson |
[1] Further steps must surely include human beauty (including eros and desire) and beauty of nature (in both its main forms: the organism and the wilderness).
[2] This is a slightly reworked version of an earlier post about Reflection and interpretation over at my online journal.
May 17, 2011
Der Glanz der Unwirklichkeit
I gave this speech at the Spring 2011 Toastmasters Area F1 (District 59) contest. (I wasn't competing, it was a target speech for the evaluation contest in German.) I've used several themes from this blog in the speech.
The speech is in German; switch on the captions for the (German) transcript.
The speech is in German; switch on the captions for the (German) transcript.
May 15, 2011
The iridescent shimmer of nothingness (contd.)
(I continue from an earlier post to explore some similarities and differences in Sartre's talk of being and nothingness, on the one hand, and my notions of reality and unreality in this blog, on the other.)
A second parallel is that reality is primary, in metaphysical terms, before unreality: unreality can only be created from reality, but not the other way round. Every form of unreality relies on a background of reality which is much larger than itself. (For instance, take a fictional story, or a lie: we take in some description of the world in those, but most of that world is not explicitly described; so whenever there remains a gap in the description, we either fill it from what is implicit in it, or else we fill it in from what we assume to be the case in the real world.)
Sartre claims something similar when he says that "[t]he use which we make of nothingness in its familiar form always supposes a prelimiary specification of being." And he continues with some examples:
"This means", Sartre concludes, "that being is prior to nothingness and establishes the ground for it. [...] nothingness can only have a borrowed existence [...], and the total disappearance of being would not be the advent of the reign of non-being, but on the contrary the concomitant disappearance of nothingness."[3] There can't be any nothingness without being (or before, or after it), just as there couldn't be any unreality without reality.
(As a side-note: the process I have labeled sedimentation of unreality into reality also relies on this grounding of unreality in reality. Sedimentation happens when on the basis of some instance of unreality action is taken, in reality. Real events happen in response to unreality just as well as they are caused by something within reality. But all this presupposes an underlying reality as basis on which that unreality was formed. There is a hint to a parallel to this also in Sartre when he remarks that "it is from being that nothingness concretely derives its efficacy."[4])
A second parallel is that reality is primary, in metaphysical terms, before unreality: unreality can only be created from reality, but not the other way round. Every form of unreality relies on a background of reality which is much larger than itself. (For instance, take a fictional story, or a lie: we take in some description of the world in those, but most of that world is not explicitly described; so whenever there remains a gap in the description, we either fill it from what is implicit in it, or else we fill it in from what we assume to be the case in the real world.)
Sartre claims something similar when he says that "[t]he use which we make of nothingness in its familiar form always supposes a prelimiary specification of being." And he continues with some examples:
We say, pointing to a particular collection of objects, "Touch nothing," which means, very precisely, nothing of that collection. Similarly, if we question someone on well-determined events in his private or public life, he may reply, "I know nothing." And this nothing includes the totality of the facts on which we questioned him. Even Socrates with his famous statement, "I know that I know nothing," designates by this nothing the totality of being considered as Truth.[1]Even the nothingness of what was there before a world existed would be based on the world which is now, and from within we can ask such a question. Such a nothingness (the 'nothing' we mean when we answer the question: "What was there before our world?" with "Nothing.") emerged only on top of our reality. If we did analyze it and strip it from "its characteristic of being empty of this world and of every whole taking the form of a world" as well as from its "characteristic of before, which presupposes an after", then we would end up with "a total indetermination which it would be impossible to conceive, even and especially as a nothingness."[2]
"This means", Sartre concludes, "that being is prior to nothingness and establishes the ground for it. [...] nothingness can only have a borrowed existence [...], and the total disappearance of being would not be the advent of the reign of non-being, but on the contrary the concomitant disappearance of nothingness."[3] There can't be any nothingness without being (or before, or after it), just as there couldn't be any unreality without reality.
(As a side-note: the process I have labeled sedimentation of unreality into reality also relies on this grounding of unreality in reality. Sedimentation happens when on the basis of some instance of unreality action is taken, in reality. Real events happen in response to unreality just as well as they are caused by something within reality. But all this presupposes an underlying reality as basis on which that unreality was formed. There is a hint to a parallel to this also in Sartre when he remarks that "it is from being that nothingness concretely derives its efficacy."[4])
[1] Being and Nothingness, 48–49.
[2] Ibd., 48–49.
[3] Ibd.
[4] Ibd.
May 10, 2011
The iridescent shimmer of nothingness
When Sartre writes, in Being and Nothingness, that "we see nothingness making the world iridescent, casting a shimmer over things" (58)[1], his notion of nothingness is not quite the same as my notion of unreality, and his 'iridescent shimmer' not the same as my concept of beauty. But they're close enough to venture a comparison.
1) For one thing, both Sartre's nothingness and my unreality come into the world because of us human beings, who have consciousness and can take various attitudes towards what's going on around us. There wouldn't be nothingness (or unreality) if there were no human (or other conscious) beings, if the world consisted only of rivers and stones, trees and insects.[2] The key to these attitudes seems to be an ability to think of possibilities, of ways the world might be (in contrast to how it actually is, or at least seems to be). "[n]on-being always appears within the limits of a human expectation", and "negation[3] appears on the original basis of a relation of man to the world. The world does not disclose its non-beings to one who has not first posited them as possibilities." (38)
However, compared to unreality (in my sense), these possibilities may remain implied—and will remain so, in fact, in the majority of cases. They form a much more pervasive background in Sartres universe than instances of unreality (which must play out in the world) could produce. Whenever something is missing, absent, or lacking, there's nothingness; Sartre himself brings examples such as the notions of destruction (39–40) and distance (54–55); and eventually lists "absence, change, otherness, repulsion, regret, distraction, etc. [...] which in their inner structure are inhabited by negation" (55). Thus his notion of nothingness is much more inflationary than my unreality, which implies the deliberate creation of what is at least in some respects a 'candidate reality'.
He also has (I think) a much heavier burden of argument to carry for his claim that these négatités, as he calls them, are a feature of objective reality. They're not subjective in the sense that we merely produce them in judgments, i.e. in our descriptions of the world, but there is something in objective reality that precedes them, and is in fact what such judgments are about: "non-being does not come to things by a negative judgment; it is the negative judgment, on the contrary, which is conditioned and supported by non-being." (42) Now, on my account, unreality does come into the world by mere mental activity (thinking, imagining, remembering, and so on), and so it has obviously no claim for belonging to objective reality. Of course, unreality it doesn't come into the world by simple negative judgments, but instead by a rather more complex human activity (for which I've used the broad term 'imagination'). Yet at the same time, the paradigm examples of forms of unreality (the various sorts of fiction, scenarios, lies, dreams, and the future as well as the past) seem to me more specific and concrete in their phenomenology than Sartre's négatités.
2) This may make the scope of these two notions look rather different, and yet there are also some more (and deep) points of agreement.
(Of which there'll be more later.)
1) For one thing, both Sartre's nothingness and my unreality come into the world because of us human beings, who have consciousness and can take various attitudes towards what's going on around us. There wouldn't be nothingness (or unreality) if there were no human (or other conscious) beings, if the world consisted only of rivers and stones, trees and insects.[2] The key to these attitudes seems to be an ability to think of possibilities, of ways the world might be (in contrast to how it actually is, or at least seems to be). "[n]on-being always appears within the limits of a human expectation", and "negation[3] appears on the original basis of a relation of man to the world. The world does not disclose its non-beings to one who has not first posited them as possibilities." (38)
However, compared to unreality (in my sense), these possibilities may remain implied—and will remain so, in fact, in the majority of cases. They form a much more pervasive background in Sartres universe than instances of unreality (which must play out in the world) could produce. Whenever something is missing, absent, or lacking, there's nothingness; Sartre himself brings examples such as the notions of destruction (39–40) and distance (54–55); and eventually lists "absence, change, otherness, repulsion, regret, distraction, etc. [...] which in their inner structure are inhabited by negation" (55). Thus his notion of nothingness is much more inflationary than my unreality, which implies the deliberate creation of what is at least in some respects a 'candidate reality'.
He also has (I think) a much heavier burden of argument to carry for his claim that these négatités, as he calls them, are a feature of objective reality. They're not subjective in the sense that we merely produce them in judgments, i.e. in our descriptions of the world, but there is something in objective reality that precedes them, and is in fact what such judgments are about: "non-being does not come to things by a negative judgment; it is the negative judgment, on the contrary, which is conditioned and supported by non-being." (42) Now, on my account, unreality does come into the world by mere mental activity (thinking, imagining, remembering, and so on), and so it has obviously no claim for belonging to objective reality. Of course, unreality it doesn't come into the world by simple negative judgments, but instead by a rather more complex human activity (for which I've used the broad term 'imagination'). Yet at the same time, the paradigm examples of forms of unreality (the various sorts of fiction, scenarios, lies, dreams, and the future as well as the past) seem to me more specific and concrete in their phenomenology than Sartre's négatités.
2) This may make the scope of these two notions look rather different, and yet there are also some more (and deep) points of agreement.
(Of which there'll be more later.)
[1] Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness. A phenomenological essay on ontology. Translated and with an introduction by Hazel Barnes. NY: Washington Square Press 1992. Quoted with page numbers in the text.
[2] Where exactly does the line run? Do animals count as conscious beings? In some sense, of course, but I think the way Sartre uses the term it would require more than (most) animals are capable of. At the very least, none of the forms of unreality in my sense are within reach for (most of) them. (I say 'most' because, again, we may have to qualify this a little since latest research seems to find rudimentary forms of self-consciousness in some primates. Some rudimentary forms of unreality, then, might be in play for these as well.)
[3] A judgment about some instance of nothingness is called a 'negation' in the context from which I'm quoting.
April 29, 2011
Plato's eros: desiring the beautiful and keeping the path of reason
From time to time in our lives, we get to feel the immense power of love: the desire and longing that goes with it, the deep importance and value we can suddenly find in someone else, and (unfortunately) also the uneasiness which comes from ignoring at least temporarily that inner voice admonishing us to not let ourselves drift too far from the path of reason. There is a tension, an inner conflict, an instability in love and its relation to what is beautiful and good that goes along with all that depth and intensity and inner turmoil.
Love, personified in Eros, thus "is by nature neither immortal nor mortal. But now he springs to life when he gets his way; now he dies—all in the very same day", as Plato vividly and imaginatively has his character, Diotima, describe it (203e).[1] In the same vein, according to her, love is neither good nor bad, and neither wise nor foolish, and cannot be, for love goes along with desire, and desire is always for something you don't have; what you desire will be something good, and beautiful, and so there can't be love without a lack, and longing, for that which has importance and value, which is beautiful, and good for you. At the same time, (unfortunately) love can equally not be without the danger of being carried away from what reason dictates.
It is this ambivalence of love that Socrates is the first to bring up when it is his turn to speak at the drinking party that gives the Symposium its title. Attributing to love the qualities that love aims at (such as beauty and value) wouldn't be true to how things really are: love may be love for such things, but love itself is constituted by desire, not by the desirable. Of course, there is a way to put these drives to a good use and finally arrive at the good and beautiful in a proper way, according to Socrates. He reports having learned this 'art of love' as a young philosopher from Diotima, a priestess and his teacher: the famous 'ascent of love', certainly one of the most beautiful and ingenious pieces of philosophy that have ever been written.
However, I am myself more concerned with the problem than with Plato's solution. I'm interested in the role that beauty and value play in the strong pull that love and desire perpetually exert on us, and in why and how (unfortunatly) this can get in conflict with the more reflective and reasonable lines of activity which we employ in living our lives. (To be sure, that is certainly a curiosity I have in common with Plato, and quite probably any other philosophically-minded person as well. But I'm more than hesitant to follow him in some of his metaphysical moves, and therefore, beautiful though his solution is, I've never been able to become comfortable with it.[2])
Love, personified in Eros, thus "is by nature neither immortal nor mortal. But now he springs to life when he gets his way; now he dies—all in the very same day", as Plato vividly and imaginatively has his character, Diotima, describe it (203e).[1] In the same vein, according to her, love is neither good nor bad, and neither wise nor foolish, and cannot be, for love goes along with desire, and desire is always for something you don't have; what you desire will be something good, and beautiful, and so there can't be love without a lack, and longing, for that which has importance and value, which is beautiful, and good for you. At the same time, (unfortunately) love can equally not be without the danger of being carried away from what reason dictates.It is this ambivalence of love that Socrates is the first to bring up when it is his turn to speak at the drinking party that gives the Symposium its title. Attributing to love the qualities that love aims at (such as beauty and value) wouldn't be true to how things really are: love may be love for such things, but love itself is constituted by desire, not by the desirable. Of course, there is a way to put these drives to a good use and finally arrive at the good and beautiful in a proper way, according to Socrates. He reports having learned this 'art of love' as a young philosopher from Diotima, a priestess and his teacher: the famous 'ascent of love', certainly one of the most beautiful and ingenious pieces of philosophy that have ever been written.
However, I am myself more concerned with the problem than with Plato's solution. I'm interested in the role that beauty and value play in the strong pull that love and desire perpetually exert on us, and in why and how (unfortunatly) this can get in conflict with the more reflective and reasonable lines of activity which we employ in living our lives. (To be sure, that is certainly a curiosity I have in common with Plato, and quite probably any other philosophically-minded person as well. But I'm more than hesitant to follow him in some of his metaphysical moves, and therefore, beautiful though his solution is, I've never been able to become comfortable with it.[2])
[1] Plato, Symposium, translated, with introduction and notes by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, Indianapolis: Hackett 1989. All Plato quotes are from the Symposium in this translation, unless otherwise noted.
[2] In Plato, the good and the beautiful are genuinely in harmony with each other, and therefore never in real conflict; and they're both equally of supreme reality compared with the world of things and persons which we inhabit. Although I find that many elements in his analysis ring true, I wouldn't map them onto the metaphysical layout in that way: very roughly, I think that on the contrary beauty belongs at the far side of unreality, while what makes our lives successful (that which Plato would call the good) is attained by generally steering close to reality, and so there is a perpetual tension here that must be reflected in a metaphysical conception.
April 23, 2011
Eros and in-betweenness: main point and corollaries
(Diotima, in teaching Socrates, uses the example of correct opinion as being 'in between' knowledge and ignorance to show that there may be a middle ground between two opposites, and if something isn't at one of the opposite ends, then it doesn't follow that therefore it most be at the other opposite ends: it might be 'in between'. Thus, after establishing that eros is not beautiful, she makes it clear that it doesn't follow that he must be ugly then. He might be 'in between'.)
Now, strictly speaking, it doesn't follow that he cannot be ugly. For all we know, the constellation that holds in the area of judgment (knowledge vs. ignorance and a middle ground between them) may have no counterpart in the area of beauty. I think it plausible that it has; however, we're not given an account of such a counterpart constellation, so it's anyone's guess what form the middle ground would take.
Moreover, even if we accept that an 'in-between' constellation holds in this area, it would still require further argument that eros in fact occupies the middle ground, and not the 'ugly' extreme. And again, to even understand this, we'd need an account of what it means to be 'in-between' here, an account that sufficiently explains what the difference is between beautiful and ugly things on the one hand and 'in-between' things on the other hand. Again, no such account is on offer in this part of the dialogue.
(As I have argued, at least there's one form we should reject: a continuous spectrum of a single quantity. That seems both implausible in itself and it also doesn't fit the many parallels Diotima gives in the text, which always contain a second dimension that accounts for the 'in-betweenness', not simply a single linear continuum.)
However, Diotima doesn't pursue the analysis further in that direction. It seems enough for her to have shown that it doesn't follow from the account of eros as not being beautiful that he must therefore be ugly. The discussion switches directly from that question to the question of his status of a god or otherwise. What are we to make of this change of subject?
4) At this point, we have to change the focus of discussion. So far, I have looked at single lines of thought and particular examples. We must take a wider view of the discussion now and get clear about the function these lines of thought and examples have in the overall discourse.
As I see it, both the claim that eros is 'in between' wisdom and ignorance (and thus, is a philosopher) at 204a–b and that he is 'in between' beauty and ugliness at 201e–202b, drawing on the supposed analogy of correct opinion being 'in-between' knowledge and ignorance have a supplementary function in the text. They are not meant to contribute direct evidence for the main thesis; rather, they spell out corollaries of intermediate results.
The main line of argument, the real focus of attention, takes its departure from the claim that eros is needful of beautiful things and from this moves to an account of eros as a spirit (not a god) whose nature is explained in detail, both with philosophical argument over some of his attributes and with a mythical story that is supposed to give an intelligible motivation of these attributes; finally it culminates in the definition of love's object as "giving birth in beauty, whether in body or in soul" at 206b.[1]
That's the main line of argument; the claim that eros is not ugly, but 'in between' beauty and ugliness, simply spells out the consequences of the result established earlier: that eros is needful of beautiful things and thus cannot be beautiful. (Whether you buy that latter claim or not; it certainly sounds confused to me.) Likewise, the claim that eros is 'in between' wisdom and ignorance, and thus needful of wisdom too, as he is needful of all beautiful things (wisdom is something beautiful) is a corollary of the nature of eros as it has been pictured in the passage that directly precedes that claim.
Even though they don't directly contribute to the argument for the main thesis, these points don't just have a supplementary function. As I have mentioned before, they also continuously connect the discussion with the areas of ethics (by bringing concepts like 'good', 'bad' and 'wisdom' into play) and epistemology (by use of analogies such as the one involving knowledge vs. correct opinion). What's more, these associations are not simply evoked by casually dropping those terms, but by an attempt to find similar conceptual structures ('in-between' constellations) in all these areas. Some of the connections seem a little forced to me, and generally I'd have wished they'd have been spelled out in more detail, but I think it's evident that this is Plato's rhetorical strategy in his use of these examples.
Now, strictly speaking, it doesn't follow that he cannot be ugly. For all we know, the constellation that holds in the area of judgment (knowledge vs. ignorance and a middle ground between them) may have no counterpart in the area of beauty. I think it plausible that it has; however, we're not given an account of such a counterpart constellation, so it's anyone's guess what form the middle ground would take.
Moreover, even if we accept that an 'in-between' constellation holds in this area, it would still require further argument that eros in fact occupies the middle ground, and not the 'ugly' extreme. And again, to even understand this, we'd need an account of what it means to be 'in-between' here, an account that sufficiently explains what the difference is between beautiful and ugly things on the one hand and 'in-between' things on the other hand. Again, no such account is on offer in this part of the dialogue.
(As I have argued, at least there's one form we should reject: a continuous spectrum of a single quantity. That seems both implausible in itself and it also doesn't fit the many parallels Diotima gives in the text, which always contain a second dimension that accounts for the 'in-betweenness', not simply a single linear continuum.)
However, Diotima doesn't pursue the analysis further in that direction. It seems enough for her to have shown that it doesn't follow from the account of eros as not being beautiful that he must therefore be ugly. The discussion switches directly from that question to the question of his status of a god or otherwise. What are we to make of this change of subject?
4) At this point, we have to change the focus of discussion. So far, I have looked at single lines of thought and particular examples. We must take a wider view of the discussion now and get clear about the function these lines of thought and examples have in the overall discourse.
As I see it, both the claim that eros is 'in between' wisdom and ignorance (and thus, is a philosopher) at 204a–b and that he is 'in between' beauty and ugliness at 201e–202b, drawing on the supposed analogy of correct opinion being 'in-between' knowledge and ignorance have a supplementary function in the text. They are not meant to contribute direct evidence for the main thesis; rather, they spell out corollaries of intermediate results.
The main line of argument, the real focus of attention, takes its departure from the claim that eros is needful of beautiful things and from this moves to an account of eros as a spirit (not a god) whose nature is explained in detail, both with philosophical argument over some of his attributes and with a mythical story that is supposed to give an intelligible motivation of these attributes; finally it culminates in the definition of love's object as "giving birth in beauty, whether in body or in soul" at 206b.[1]
That's the main line of argument; the claim that eros is not ugly, but 'in between' beauty and ugliness, simply spells out the consequences of the result established earlier: that eros is needful of beautiful things and thus cannot be beautiful. (Whether you buy that latter claim or not; it certainly sounds confused to me.) Likewise, the claim that eros is 'in between' wisdom and ignorance, and thus needful of wisdom too, as he is needful of all beautiful things (wisdom is something beautiful) is a corollary of the nature of eros as it has been pictured in the passage that directly precedes that claim.
Even though they don't directly contribute to the argument for the main thesis, these points don't just have a supplementary function. As I have mentioned before, they also continuously connect the discussion with the areas of ethics (by bringing concepts like 'good', 'bad' and 'wisdom' into play) and epistemology (by use of analogies such as the one involving knowledge vs. correct opinion). What's more, these associations are not simply evoked by casually dropping those terms, but by an attempt to find similar conceptual structures ('in-between' constellations) in all these areas. Some of the connections seem a little forced to me, and generally I'd have wished they'd have been spelled out in more detail, but I think it's evident that this is Plato's rhetorical strategy in his use of these examples.
[1] (The teachings of Diotima have a second part, the famous ascent of love. At the level of the structure of the text, considering the rhetorical format of the speech, it's an independent section, and it also conceptually doesn't depend on the myth of eros in the first part, and the elenctic results there. It's where Plato demonstrates that philosophy can give an account of love on its own; an account that still appreciates everything that's valuable in love, yet without need for either the sophistry or the myth employed in the first part. But my goal here is to get clear about the use of the 'in-between' concept in the first part, so I'm not going into this any further.)
April 22, 2011
Eros and in-betweenness: beautiful and ugly
3) So, that correct judgment is 'in between' knowledge and ignorance is used as an analogy to motivate the idea that there might be something between beauty and ugliness as well. (To be sure, such a parallel does not show that there must be something between beauty and ugliness, it only shows that there is a conceptual pattern which one might apply, and which would, if the application were admissible, allow for something 'in between' beauty and ugliness. It still remains to be shown that, first, the application is admissible, and then, what it is that is in fact 'in between' beauty and ugliness.)
How good is the analogy here? The point that Diotima wants to make is: If something's not beautiful, it doesn't follow that it's ugly; if something's not good, it doesn't follow it's bad.[1] But here of course the question arises: if something is neither beautiful nor ugly, then what is it?
Once more, beautiful and ugly are not just simply extreme ends on a simple, one-dimensional scale of some quantitative measure. There is no such thing as 'beauty points', it's not that, when you look at something and assign, say, a hundred beauty points to it, then it earns the title 'beautiful', whereas when you assign a hundred negative points it's then called 'ugly'. It doesn't work that way. Look at these two landscapes:
(If you don't agree with my feeling that the area pictured in the first photo is beautiful and the one in the second is ugly, then insert your own favorite examples.)[2]
Beauty is a fragile thing: we can easily imagine the beauty of the landscape above destroyed by a single element that doesn't fit (for example, if we inserted an oil rig); on the other hand, a single small thing (such as a lone flower or a sudden burst of sunbeams after a rain) can give the ugliest setup an unexpected atmosphere that utterly transforms it from deep ugliness to beauty. (Our perception of people as ugly or beautiful can undergo similarly abrupt and total shifts into the complete opposite.)
Moreover, something (or someone) can be beautiful or ugly in many different ways; what might count as a 'beauty point' in one constellation wouldn't in another one. Have you noticed that in the second picture many of the trees in the background are in full bloom (visible mostly as white patches)? This would bring a certain attractiveness to many other sceneries, but in this case, if they'd been simply lavishly green the view would probably have been less ugly. Beauty and ugliness are constellations in which many elements must fit together in certain ways, and what makes them into beauty or ugliness is neither certain particular elements or a certain quantity of them alone; what makes them into instances of beauty or ugliness is as much in the constellation as it is in the particulars that go into it (fittingness, purity, integrity, and other attributes may play a role here that apply more to the whole than to its parts). Beauty and ugliness are more akin to states of perfection.
Finally, it's not an accident that Plato connects the beauty/ugliness pair of terms with the ethical good/bad contrast and then with an example from the sphere of truth and belief (with its knowledge/ignorance distinction). There is an intimate relationship between what's valuable in all these areas (truth, beauty and goodness). In Plato's world, these ideas cannot be separated.
Just as in correct opinion there is some connection with the truth (after all, correct opinion does hit the truth, it's just that there are no reasons behind it), in eros there is some connection with beauty. It's not, however, that eros is beautiful, but that what eros aims at is beautiful.
Unfortunately, the form of diagrams I have used in my previous posts seems to fail for this case: it's hard to supplement the contrast between beauty and ugliness with some additional dimension, in the same way we supplemented wisdom/ignorance and knowledge/ignorance with the desire for wisdom and the ability to give reasons in order to give more nuanced accounts.
How good is the analogy here? The point that Diotima wants to make is: If something's not beautiful, it doesn't follow that it's ugly; if something's not good, it doesn't follow it's bad.[1] But here of course the question arises: if something is neither beautiful nor ugly, then what is it?
Once more, beautiful and ugly are not just simply extreme ends on a simple, one-dimensional scale of some quantitative measure. There is no such thing as 'beauty points', it's not that, when you look at something and assign, say, a hundred beauty points to it, then it earns the title 'beautiful', whereas when you assign a hundred negative points it's then called 'ugly'. It doesn't work that way. Look at these two landscapes:
(If you don't agree with my feeling that the area pictured in the first photo is beautiful and the one in the second is ugly, then insert your own favorite examples.)[2]
Beauty is a fragile thing: we can easily imagine the beauty of the landscape above destroyed by a single element that doesn't fit (for example, if we inserted an oil rig); on the other hand, a single small thing (such as a lone flower or a sudden burst of sunbeams after a rain) can give the ugliest setup an unexpected atmosphere that utterly transforms it from deep ugliness to beauty. (Our perception of people as ugly or beautiful can undergo similarly abrupt and total shifts into the complete opposite.)
Moreover, something (or someone) can be beautiful or ugly in many different ways; what might count as a 'beauty point' in one constellation wouldn't in another one. Have you noticed that in the second picture many of the trees in the background are in full bloom (visible mostly as white patches)? This would bring a certain attractiveness to many other sceneries, but in this case, if they'd been simply lavishly green the view would probably have been less ugly. Beauty and ugliness are constellations in which many elements must fit together in certain ways, and what makes them into beauty or ugliness is neither certain particular elements or a certain quantity of them alone; what makes them into instances of beauty or ugliness is as much in the constellation as it is in the particulars that go into it (fittingness, purity, integrity, and other attributes may play a role here that apply more to the whole than to its parts). Beauty and ugliness are more akin to states of perfection.
Finally, it's not an accident that Plato connects the beauty/ugliness pair of terms with the ethical good/bad contrast and then with an example from the sphere of truth and belief (with its knowledge/ignorance distinction). There is an intimate relationship between what's valuable in all these areas (truth, beauty and goodness). In Plato's world, these ideas cannot be separated.
Just as in correct opinion there is some connection with the truth (after all, correct opinion does hit the truth, it's just that there are no reasons behind it), in eros there is some connection with beauty. It's not, however, that eros is beautiful, but that what eros aims at is beautiful.
Unfortunately, the form of diagrams I have used in my previous posts seems to fail for this case: it's hard to supplement the contrast between beauty and ugliness with some additional dimension, in the same way we supplemented wisdom/ignorance and knowledge/ignorance with the desire for wisdom and the ability to give reasons in order to give more nuanced accounts.
[1] Do you know the phrase 'things are not as black and white'? That phrase is intended to make the same point: you cannot infer from a negative statement, that something is not X, that it then must be Y. Of course, if you think about it, that phrase is curiously incapable to do that job, because black and white are no exclusive options either. Not even if something is not white it follows that it must be black: there are different shades of gray, and then of course there are also all sorts of other colors. Even in that field things are not as black and white.
[2] What Plato refers to here with 'beautiful' isn't quite what the modern word means. That the focus is eros should be ample indication that the instances to discuss should better not be landscapes in nature or urban areas created (and, in this example of ugliness, neglected) by man. What I have in mind in my own account of beauty is of course neither/nor, but again something else, different from both Plato's concept and what is current today. Part of the goals of this blog is to understand the differences between all three views. In any case, the point made here is neutral in this regard: whatever we understand beauty and ugliness to be, they're not simply two extremes on a linear scale of some measurable quantity.
Eros and in-betweenness: a parallel from the theory of knowledge
(I have started discussing the notion of 'in-betweenness' in Plato's Symposium by first analyzing an attribution of neither wisdom nor ignorance (but something 'in between') to the god eros in one passage.)
2) The same idea of 'in between' has been applied before in the text in a similar way:
We can use a diagram of the same form as before to visualize this example:
(In this case, the upper left quadrant seems to have to remain empty; there is no plausible candidate for this combination: not hitting the truth and still being able to give reasons; at best the reasons would be in error, but then one might rightly argue that they haven't really been reasons in the first place.)
Now, questions of knowledge, wisdom, correct opinion and ignorance aren't in the center of this dialogue. They're just used as examples and parallels, probably because the main speaker (Diotima) thinks that her interlocutor (Socrates) is more familiar with them. What is in the center of the this dialogue is the nature of eros. So how exactly are these examples and parallels used in order to give an account of the nature of eros?
2) The same idea of 'in between' has been applied before in the text in a similar way:
"Do you really think that, [...] if a thing's not wise, it's ignorant? Or haven't you found out yet that there's something in between wisdom and ignorance?"
"What's that?"
"It's judging things correctly without being able to give a reason. Surely you see that this is not the same as knowing—for how could knowledge be unreasoning? And it's not ignorance either—for how could what hits the truth be ignorance? Correct judgment, of course, has this character: it is in between understanding and ignorance. (202a)[1]
We can use a diagram of the same form as before to visualize this example:
Now, questions of knowledge, wisdom, correct opinion and ignorance aren't in the center of this dialogue. They're just used as examples and parallels, probably because the main speaker (Diotima) thinks that her interlocutor (Socrates) is more familiar with them. What is in the center of the this dialogue is the nature of eros. So how exactly are these examples and parallels used in order to give an account of the nature of eros?
[1] The distinction that is made here between knowledge on the one hand and correct opinion on the other is not discussed in detail. It's taken for granted as far as the discussion in this dialogue is concerned. On the dramatic level, Diotima assumes that Socrates is familiar with that distinction and accepts it; and sure enough, Socrates agrees to the analysis that correct judgment is in between knowledge and ignorance. On the level of Plato's philosophy (the philosophy that is dramatized in this and other dialogues), it's also taken for granted and discussed in more detail elsewhere (namely, the Theaetetus).
April 18, 2011
Eros and in-betweenness
In my recent post on the connection between lack (and unreality) to eros in the Symposium, I probably went way too fast. Let's look more carefully into this.
So, in the text we repeatedly find this idea of something being 'in between' two opposite extremes. Love of wisdom is 'in between' wisdom itself and ignorance (Symp 203e–204b); eros is neither a god nor a mortal, but 'in between' (202d); and he is also not ugly nor beautiful, but again he's 'in between' (201e–202b). The whole setup is of course designed to explain the drive that our love (for beauty, or for wisdom) so obviously has: by attributing some characteristics to eros as a god (or whatever he is if he's not a god but something 'in between' gods and mortals) we get some clarity about our idea of love. So let's get clear about in-betweenness as a first step.
1) When it is suggested (by Diotima, who is teaching Socrates here) that eros is in fact a philosopher, the full text reads:
But that seems not to be a good model for what we're talking about here: it's not as if the amount of wisdom in a given person were somewhere on a spectrum between zero (total ignorance) and some maximum value (full wisdom). Not only is wisdom surely not the sort of thing that can be quantified in this manner, but this model also doesn't include the element of wanting that seems to play a role: those who are ignorant aren't just ignorant (at zero position), they also don't want any wisdom, and likewise, those who are wise are not just at the saturation point (or maximum position), but they also don't want any wisdom. So there is another dimension here that we have to consider.
Let's try and plot this on a diagram. There are the two dimensions of in fact having wisdom and wanting it, and so we can find four principal constellations:
First, there are the gods who both have and don't want wisdom (on the upper left), and second the ignorant who don't have but also don't want wisdom (on the lower left).
Now, third, we also have the lovers of wisdom, who are neither wise nor ignorant, and those occupy the lower right.
There is a fourth position in this diagram, and we (and Plato) must ask ourselves whether it would be a possible constellation, and if so, what about those who would occupy it. Could someone be both already wise and still wanting to be wise?
This is an interesting question, and it has an interesting answer: in general, Plato thinks that, yes, this is a possible constellation, and those who already have something can at the same time desire it — but it is a desire not to get that thing, but a desire to keep it in the future. Socrates discusses this earlier on (in his interchange with Agathon), and he brings examples such as "maybe a strong man could want to be strong [...], or a fast one fast, or a healthy one healthy: in cases like these, you might think that people really do want things they already are and do want to have qualities they already have". In these cases, Socrates argues, "what you want is to possess these things in time to come, since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them." (200b–d)
But even though in general there seems to be such a position as the upper right in the diagram, in the specific case of wisdom it's not acknowledged: none of the gods loves wisdom. What makes the case of wisdom special, I suspect, is that in this case who is already wise are the gods, and they are immortal and presumably will remain wise indefinitely, for all time anyway, so there is no point in attributing them a desire for continued wisdom. (Still, I think, even if this conjecture is correct, there would be the theoretical possibility of a mortal becoming wise, in which case that mortal could have the valid desire to remain so in the future, and then that wise person might have a love for wisdom even in being wise already. Since this is denied explicitly in the text, my guess is probably false, but then I don't see what makes the case of wisdom special compared to those other cases Socrates lists.)
I think this understanding of in-betweenness in the philosophy (love of wisdom) case is a good start. Let's check next how it fares with the other examples in the text.
So, in the text we repeatedly find this idea of something being 'in between' two opposite extremes. Love of wisdom is 'in between' wisdom itself and ignorance (Symp 203e–204b); eros is neither a god nor a mortal, but 'in between' (202d); and he is also not ugly nor beautiful, but again he's 'in between' (201e–202b). The whole setup is of course designed to explain the drive that our love (for beauty, or for wisdom) so obviously has: by attributing some characteristics to eros as a god (or whatever he is if he's not a god but something 'in between' gods and mortals) we get some clarity about our idea of love. So let's get clear about in-betweenness as a first step.
1) When it is suggested (by Diotima, who is teaching Socrates here) that eros is in fact a philosopher, the full text reads:
He is in between wisdom and ignorance [...] In fact, you see, none of the gods loves wisdom or wants to become wise — for they are wise — and no one else who is wise already loves wisdom; on the other hand, no one who is ignorant will love wisdom either or want to become wise. For what's especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you're neither beautiful nor good nor intelligent. If you don't think you need anything, of course you won't want what you don't think you need. (204a)[1]What does it mean to be 'in between' wisdom and ignorance? Sometimes being 'in between' can mean to take a position on some spectrum, being neither at one nor the other extreme, but somewhere in the middle. For instance, water (under normal circumstances such as pressure and so on) will have some temperature between the freezing point and the boiling point: a given bit of water will usually be 'in between' these two extremes.
But that seems not to be a good model for what we're talking about here: it's not as if the amount of wisdom in a given person were somewhere on a spectrum between zero (total ignorance) and some maximum value (full wisdom). Not only is wisdom surely not the sort of thing that can be quantified in this manner, but this model also doesn't include the element of wanting that seems to play a role: those who are ignorant aren't just ignorant (at zero position), they also don't want any wisdom, and likewise, those who are wise are not just at the saturation point (or maximum position), but they also don't want any wisdom. So there is another dimension here that we have to consider.
Let's try and plot this on a diagram. There are the two dimensions of in fact having wisdom and wanting it, and so we can find four principal constellations:
First, there are the gods who both have and don't want wisdom (on the upper left), and second the ignorant who don't have but also don't want wisdom (on the lower left).
Now, third, we also have the lovers of wisdom, who are neither wise nor ignorant, and those occupy the lower right.
There is a fourth position in this diagram, and we (and Plato) must ask ourselves whether it would be a possible constellation, and if so, what about those who would occupy it. Could someone be both already wise and still wanting to be wise?
This is an interesting question, and it has an interesting answer: in general, Plato thinks that, yes, this is a possible constellation, and those who already have something can at the same time desire it — but it is a desire not to get that thing, but a desire to keep it in the future. Socrates discusses this earlier on (in his interchange with Agathon), and he brings examples such as "maybe a strong man could want to be strong [...], or a fast one fast, or a healthy one healthy: in cases like these, you might think that people really do want things they already are and do want to have qualities they already have". In these cases, Socrates argues, "what you want is to possess these things in time to come, since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them." (200b–d)
But even though in general there seems to be such a position as the upper right in the diagram, in the specific case of wisdom it's not acknowledged: none of the gods loves wisdom. What makes the case of wisdom special, I suspect, is that in this case who is already wise are the gods, and they are immortal and presumably will remain wise indefinitely, for all time anyway, so there is no point in attributing them a desire for continued wisdom. (Still, I think, even if this conjecture is correct, there would be the theoretical possibility of a mortal becoming wise, in which case that mortal could have the valid desire to remain so in the future, and then that wise person might have a love for wisdom even in being wise already. Since this is denied explicitly in the text, my guess is probably false, but then I don't see what makes the case of wisdom special compared to those other cases Socrates lists.)
I think this understanding of in-betweenness in the philosophy (love of wisdom) case is a good start. Let's check next how it fares with the other examples in the text.
[1] I'm using the Hackett edition by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, Indianapolis: Hackett 1989.
April 17, 2011
Eros, lack, and unreality
Wherever there is love, Socrates demonstrates,[1] there is a lack of something; for that there is love means that there is desire (which is what gives love its drive, its dynamic); and desire can only be for something that is lacking.
In other words, you can only want something that you don't have; if you already had it, there would be no point in desiring it. At the same time, you have to be aware that you are lacking it: if you didn't, you couldn't have a desire either. A good example is love of wisdom: you can only be a lover of wisdom if you are not wise yourself, for if you had wisdom already, there wouldn't be a need to strive for it any more; but at the same time, you cannot be a lover of wisdom as long as you are totally ignorant: because then you wouldn't know anything of such a thing as wisdom, and hence you couldn't desire it.[2] For love to be in play, there must be something you lack and therefore desire, something that you want, but know you do not have.
Something that is very important to understand about a line of thought such as this is that it's nothing that we can detect by simply observing what's going on: it's not merely a fitting interpretation of the facts of human behavior. It follows from our idea of love, the concept that we have in mind when we talk and think about it. (Behind that concept, there is much more than just the single linguistic item, of course: a sea of cultural background lies behind it, centuries of love poetry and reflective philosophy, stories and dramas, millions of lived and experienced love relationships have formed our idea of love, and also transformed it over time.) The dramatic means by which Plato makes this clear is by having Socrates insist on clarifying whether it's just 'likely', or whether it is necessary that there is a lack in someone who desires something, a lack of the very thing that is desired.[3] (It's necessary not necessarily because there is a mystical, metaphysical force behind it; it's necessary because, as I said, it follows from how we think about love. If there were a situation in which it looked like someone was loving something or someone, and there was in fact no lack of what was desired, then it simply wouldn't be a case of love, as we use the term.)
Love implies, then, that there is an instance of unreality in play. In order to form the desire that is the basis of love, we need to form an idea of something that is not the case (but which we desire to be the case). It's not love if there isn't a lack, and we must come up with an idea of that lack; it's unreality, because we're thinking of something that isn't so (yet), and we must produce it (it wouldn't be unreality if we didn't produce it). We must be both lacking something and be aware of the lack.
(This is the formulation I would give it in the terms I've been using in this blog; for reasons that will emerge soon, Plato would certainly be suspicious, to say the least, of that way of putting it.)
In other words, you can only want something that you don't have; if you already had it, there would be no point in desiring it. At the same time, you have to be aware that you are lacking it: if you didn't, you couldn't have a desire either. A good example is love of wisdom: you can only be a lover of wisdom if you are not wise yourself, for if you had wisdom already, there wouldn't be a need to strive for it any more; but at the same time, you cannot be a lover of wisdom as long as you are totally ignorant: because then you wouldn't know anything of such a thing as wisdom, and hence you couldn't desire it.[2] For love to be in play, there must be something you lack and therefore desire, something that you want, but know you do not have.
Love implies, then, that there is an instance of unreality in play. In order to form the desire that is the basis of love, we need to form an idea of something that is not the case (but which we desire to be the case). It's not love if there isn't a lack, and we must come up with an idea of that lack; it's unreality, because we're thinking of something that isn't so (yet), and we must produce it (it wouldn't be unreality if we didn't produce it). We must be both lacking something and be aware of the lack.
(This is the formulation I would give it in the terms I've been using in this blog; for reasons that will emerge soon, Plato would certainly be suspicious, to say the least, of that way of putting it.)
[1] Symp 200a–e. We should keep in mind that, throughout this discussion, the focus is on eros, which is only one of the various forms of love. Both in ancient Greek and modern thinking there's much complexity to the concept of love; we might distinguish different forms to the extent that it could even appear that there really is a multitude of different concepts behind the single word. But I'm not going into that variety here.
[2] Symp 204a
[3] Symp 200a–b. Moreover, Socrates doesn't just get Agathon (his partner in the discussion) to confirm this stronger claim (of a strictly conceptual necessity), but he also discusses an obvious objection. Sometimes it might seem that a person has a for something that he already has; but this, Socrates argues, cannot really be a desire for getting that thing; instead, what the desire really points to is a future continuation of these attributes: you desire to keep that thing which you already have (200b–d).
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