Plato makes it very apparent in his, Symposium, that all those who precede Socrates in their “praises of love” are neatly tailoring their speeches as to best serve themselves.  While some of the listeners poke fun at some of the speeches, when each takes their turn, they too, apply love to their own needs and are, in a way, left blind by their own desires.

Phaedrus, the moderator for the evening, talks about love as a way to “gain virtue and blessedness” (12).  Pausanias’s speech is made to gain him the attention of one member of his audience in particular—Agathon, as an attempt to express to him that there is common love and then there is heavenly love and that his is surely the latter.  Eryximachus wants love to find companionship with his own professional practice of medicine.  He shares that medicine is “guided everywhere by the god of love” (21).  Aristophanes, the comedian, fittingly tells a comic tale of people looking for their other halves as a way to become whole and near the end moves the conversation forward toward the more serious idea of what Love’s nature is.   And Agathon, who has the added pressure of Socrates beside him, yet plenty of confidence to counter it, praises the beauty and high moral character of love with his poetic words; a beauty he was known for possessing.     

While the speakers can’t be blamed for talking about what they knew best, I got the feeling that Socrates, as Plato’s hero, was removed from all this—that he was able to show love with a clarity that was absent of his own marks.  How is a person able to objectively view love?  Possibly through the use of conversation with his “priestess,” Diotima.  Did Plato place Diotima in the story as a way to remove Socrates from his humanity?  We already get the picture throughout the story that Socrates is unlike any other man—even being labeled as a god by Alcibiades, to which Socrates asks him to “hold [his] tongue” (64).  He is seen as being able to drink bottomless glasses of wine and not be drunk, walk on ice and not experience pain, stand in one place for hours and not tire, and stay up an entire night and not be lethargic.  So Socrates needs to not only uphold his legendary reputation, he also needs to be the true master by appearing to know “nothing.”  While his method of “praising” love may desire to seek truth and is markedly different from all other speeches given, it is still a method that is innate to Socrates —within his own comfort zone and allows him to fulfill his own needs, just as the speeches before him do.  

Socrates uses two techniques to appear as if it is not his knowledge, but the knowledge of others he is calling on to make his “praise.”  He first questions Agathon.  Although it is Socrates whom everyone knows is wisely crafting the questions, it is still the answers that come from Agathon.  Socrates, in a way, is pointing out that these were things that Agathon already knew, he just didn’t see them.  Socrates concludes this part of his speech by stating that it really wasn’t his idea that Love needs good and beautiful things; it was just the truth and adds that “it is not hard at all to contradict Socrates” (44).  Again, Socrates tries to renounce his role of the “master who knows all”.

Next, Socrates places himself in the role of the disciple with Diotima as master—sharing with the group that she used the same argument he used against Agathon.  Here we hear Socrates asking questions such as “What’s that?” and “What do you mean?”  Questions that any child could ask and most adults would be afraid to ask.  Through his story of his conversation Diotima, we as readers, as well as everyone else in the group, now has the chance to see Socrates as a learner, a very vulnerable position to be in; yet as is made clear at one point in his storytelling in which Diotima refers to Aristophane’s story that was told earlier in the evening, we and everyone else know that this is a story that Socrates produced.  Now we see him as the master again, despite his “attempt” to be viewed differently. 

Plato wanted it to be known that Socrates knew what was up. Socrates himself points to the theme of self-serving speeches at the conclusion of Agathon’s speech when he shares his “confusion” for the method of giving praise which was taking place in which the speaker was appearing to “make the rest of us think he is praising Love—not that he actually praise him;” all as a way to make Love seem out of reach to the listener, but something that was well known to the speaker (38).  While Socrates introduces a completely different approach to praising Love it is still in a way that makes it appear to be something Socrates knows well and works to serve his image of the master.

Maybe Plato sees the master Socrates at his work though.  He places one last speaker, Alchibades, after Socrates.  Who speaks after the master?  Alchibades comes to the party, late, drunk and not quite on his own two feet.  He comes to sit on the couch with Agathon and is disturbed when he finds Socrates there and immediately becomes jealous.  A suggestion comes up to allow Alchibades to make a praise as well—however while the object of praise for the evening had been Love, he is asked to make a praise of Socrates—which for Alchibades apparently was Love. 

His speech starts out as sounding like anything but praise for Socrates, as he recounts all the times his attempts at getting Socrates to show him the signs of a lover failed.  He goes as far as to say he would be happier if Socrates were dead.  He points out what we see in Socrates’ earlier in the story—that Socrates “likes to say that he is ignorant and knows nothing” (68).  It is not only Alchibades pointing this out, it is Plato.  It is not until the very last few sentences that Alchibades speaks that we hear, that Socrates’ arguments are “truly worthy of a god” and “of the greatest—importance for anyone who wants to become a truly good man” (75).

Out of all the speeches, Alcibade, the man who came in late and drunk, had the most selfless speech on love of them all.  Did Plato place this here because it was not a speech on love it was love?  Are his last words a warning from Plato as to the danger of being a blind disciple: “Remember our torments; be on your guard: don’t wait, like the fool in the proverb, to learn your lessons from your own misfortune” (75).