Socrates and Agathon

A) Plato's Symposium is a story about a party in which the guests were so sick from continuous parties that instead of drinking at this one party they decide to give stories about love. With the permission of Phaedrus, Socrates has an interesting discussion Agathon instead of a monologue-styled story. Socrates actually starts by giving Agathon a series of questions about love. Socrates goes on to ask Agathon if a father must be father to something in order to be called a father. Then Socrates asks Agathon whether the same principle applies to mothers and brothers; one must be a brother or mother to someone or something else. Agathon agrees with all of these examples, but then Socrates asks "Does Love love nothing or something?", and Agathon replies "He loves something, of course." With love established to love something or someone, Socrates then asks Agathon that "when you love something, do you desire it?" Agathon answers yes. Once again Socrates asks another question concerning that if you desire and love something then it is something you don't necessarily have. Agathon answers back that it is highly probable. Socrates says "Never mind probability,"and believes that it would be a surprising for a person not lacking a quality, to desire that quality. From there both Agathon and Socrates agree that if someone was tall then that person would not desire to be tall. Then Socrates continues to state that people who are healthy still desire to be healthy in the future, and in cases such as this people desire qualities that they already have. But what Socrates wants to explain exactly is that what you desire is to keep that quality that you have in the future, which is a desire that you do not have total control over. Hence one desires something that they do not have at the present time, or if they do have that quality then they desire control over the future, something that they do not have. So Socrates and Agathon come to two conclusions: One