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EROS BETWEEN PLAT0 AND GARRISON: RECOVERING LOST DESIRE

Timothy L. Simpson and James Scott Johnston Department of Educational Policy Studies

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

INTRODUCTION Recently, Plato has had a difficult time of it in the field of philosophy of

education. The occasional sympathetic essay notwithstanding, invocations of Plato are generally negative in tenor. When one wants to say something disparaging about previous attempts at defining, categorizing, or deducing educationalprinciples, Plato is a convenient target. This trend has not been helped by the late twentieth century’s fondness for postmodernism, pragmatism, and social constructivism. These trends in philosophy all seem antithetical to the Platonic project of searching for higher “ethereal” goods. Educational philosophy has picked up on this tendency. When Plato is invoked in educational circles, he is often the object of scorn. This is nowhere more evident than in pragmatist and social constructivist reads of education, where a strong contrast is needed to position the philosophical projects of the current forces. Plato fits the proverbial bill well.

And so it is with Jim Garrison’s wonderful book, Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching.’ To Garrison’s credit, the project of eros, of intelli- gently directed desire, is resurrected, almost from oblivion. To be sure, others have talked about both desire and intelligent practice together, but none have brought eros specifically back into the fold with the care and attention Garrison musters. His project is commendable, but his invocation of Plato is, beyond the attribution of eros as a useful concept with which to describe desire, manifestly negative. Time and again in the book, Garrison uses Plato as a point of departure for his reconstructed notion of eros. Plato appears as little more than an antiquated and misguided precursor to Garrison’s project.

We aim in this essay to use Garrison’s Dewey and Eros as a springboard for what we feel are two important but largely neglected projects; the first, a specifically hermeneutical engagement of Plato’s talk of eros, and second, a delineation of important ways in which Plato’s talk of eros can augment the discussion of the relation of eros to teaching begun by Garrison. We do this in part by tempering Garrison’s reading of Plato. We believe that Plato has something positive to say about the project that Garrison undertakes: the project of transforming eros into an intelligently directed desire for the practice of education. Accordingly, we have

1. James Garrison, Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching [New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1997). This text will be cited as DE for all subsequent references.

EDUCATIONAL THEORY / Spring 2002 / Volume 52 / Number 2 0 2002 Board of Trustees / University of Illinois

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divided our essay into three sections. We begin with a broad overview of Garrison’s project of the reconstruction of eros, and his arguments against Plato, in particular. Then we offer a Platonic response to Garrison: one that responds to Garrison’s reading. Finally, with respect to their visions of education in the classroom, Plato and Garrison are shown to be more in concert than Garrison admits.

GARRISON’S PROJECT OF RECONSTRUCTING EROS For all of Garrison’s skepticism of Plato’s notion of eros, he does not find

egregious the notion of eros itself, the notion of a daimon compelling us toward what is better. As Garrison states, “The desire for a better world drives us from where we are to where we ought to be. Eventually I want to take Diotima’s specific supernatu- ralistic teaching less literally and the idea of daimons, genesis, and becoming more seriously and naturalistically‘‘ (DE, 6). Garrison finds eros useful in helping us to see teaching in three interconnectable guises: the eros of teaching as loving bestowal; the eros of teaching as practical wisdom; the eros of teaching as poetry and prophecy.

Garrison argues that the teaching of eros is ”an overflowing love that is giving and caring .... Teachers desire to serve, to make the good of others their good and the object of their practice”(DE, 1 ). Loving bestowal is self-transcending, inasmuch as it gently ushers in student growth (DE, 48). The teaching eros is just such an eros of loving bestowal. Loving bestowal implies growth upon the part of the student and the teacher. It equally implies that we cannot possess the good unless we are able also to give it away. This, Garrison argues, is what is bestowed lovingly from teacher to student in the Deweyan manner of guided discovery through manipulation of the natural world.

This loving bestowal that is one facet of the teaching eros implies that values are not set up in some heavenly realm waiting to be possessed through a complicated dialectical procedure. Rather, they are constructed in the very undergoings and doings that are the activities of teacher-student discovery. The very essence of educating eros is just to determine the differences between the various possibilities that are present-at-hand in the having of an experience. Some of these we desire, to be sure. But others are those “that are genuinely desirable” (DE, mi). What makes the distinction between the merely desirable and the genuinely desirable is the activity that Garrison calls “practical wisdom.”

Practical wisdom involves practical reasoning. Along with sympathy, care, and imagination, it involves, Garrison says, “[mleans-ends reasoning. The naturalist converts the role of daimon into means that transform the present needful, doubtful situation into the desired end, value, or ideal. Finding means to desirable ends is a

TIMOTHY L. SIMPSON is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. His primary areas of scholarship are philosophy of education and teacher education.

JAMES SCOTT JOHNSTON is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. His primary area of scholarship is philosophy of education, especially John Dewey studies.

SIMPSON AND TOHNSTON Eros Between Plato and Garrison 225

matter of inquiry, imagination, and creativity” (DE, 22). Garrison claims that this was just what the Greeks meant by phronesis: practical wisdom (DE, 27). Practical wisdom, however, is not a lesser rival in a dualism of phronesis and theorin. Practical wisdom embraces theoria and is thereby not distinct from it. Garrison argues that

For the pragmatic naturalist, desires, sympathy, imagination, and caring inquiry mediate among actual conditions, including the current self, and future possibilities for others, self, and society. Eros embraces the paradoxes and problems of creativity, genesis, and growth, including the teaching eros [DE, 46}.

It is out of this complex medation in actual circumstances that values are born and grow. For Garrison, as for Dewey, ”the education of ems requires both deliberative critical value appraisal and artistic value creation; value deliberation and artistic creation working together provide a complete theory of value appraisal“ (DE, 127). But accordingly, these values need to be named in order to be, as Garrison argues, critically created. Constructing the values is the business of poetryi poetry in the Greek sense of doing and making (poesis). Naming the values, however, is the business of prophecy (DE, xvi).

Prophecy is an act of naming and thereby, the act of deliberate choosing. Choosing for Garrison and Dewey implies guiding and facilitating others. The choice is to be made in the context of sharedundergoings and doings. In a classroom context, these would be the shared undergoings and doings of teachers and students as they skillfully manipulate their environments. But prophets point beyond the immediate experience outward, and to greater things. Moral prophets, as Garrison calls them (DE, 135) are those teachers of eros who are constantly reconstructing values out of changing circumstances in order to meet the needs of those whom they are charged with teaching. Moral prophets move toward the reconstruction of values to deal with the precariousness of ever-changing events in an effort to meet the democratic needs of children in the classroom, as well as the society of which they are a part. Garrison is not shy or apologetic about making moral prophets the sentinels of democracy.

The reconstruction of values for Garrison is just the reconstruction of eros; that is, inasmuch as values are constantly undergoing reconstruction, so too, is eros. What we lovingly bestow is what we value. And what we value must be sensitive to the constant changes in the needs of our students as well as the changes outside of the classroom. This view of eros, according to Garrison, is far from the notion of eros he assigns to Plato. Plato’s notion is one in which eros participated in a static society, an unchanging and unchangeable heavenly realm, as a love born of possessing what is fixed, final, and immutable. Garrison’s is one in which eros participates in a dynamic classroom and dynamic society, a constantly changing and changeable earthly realm, a love born of the need to bestow on our students values that will encourage self-transformation and growth: values of doing and making that are prophetic for future reconstructions of self, society, and democracy.

THE CLAIMS AGAINST PLATO When the Greekphilosopher Plato discussed the education of eros, he spoke of prophecy, poetry, and daimons ... among many other marvelous thmgs. Unfortunatcly, he gave them an elitist sense by connecting them with the idea of philosopher kings. We want to recover this remarkable way of talkmg about education and then modlfy it for use in a modern democratic society (DE, 2).

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Thus begins Garrison’s critique of Plato in the introduction to Dewey and Eros. It is Garrison’s task in the introduction and first chapter to explicate, then critique, the notion that Plato has of eros. Garrison does this in three interconnected ways. First, Garrison critiques Plato’s notion of eros by arguing that it is a manifestation of possessive love, with possession clearly implying “grasping,” ”having,” and “knowing,” similar to the manner in which mind grasps world. Second, Garrison connects this notion of possession to his argument that eros moves across a ”bridge” between the phenomenal realm and the heavenly realm. Third, Garrison suggests that eros, as it was connected with the universal, eternal, and supernal Forms, became a device in the service of elitism, manifested most clearly by those philoso- pher kings who thereby justified their denigration of the mundane, the technical, the practical, and by implication, those who undertook these modes of living.

We want to start this engagement by detailing Garrison’s argument against the Platonic notion of eros. We will then connect this argument with statements made by Garrison regarding eros and its relation to the Forms, specifically the Forms of Beauty and the Good. We then turn to Garrison’s claim that eros came into the service of those who would denigrate the practical and mundane, and his further suggestion that the only way to remedy this situation is to reconstruct entirely Plato’s notion of eros. This, we suggest, puts us in good position to determine whether Plato’s notion of eros is consistent with the interpretation Garrison makes of it and if not, what specifically it is about Plato’s view that is different.

Garrison does not mince words in his description of the problems endemic to the Platonic notion of eros: “What is wrong with eros is that it is a possessive form of love. Teachng involves bestowing value on others. Loving bestowal is what is missing from the ancient Greek ideal of education” (DE, xiv). Garrison happily cites Plato’s Symposium in support of his claim against Plato (205d-206d). As Garrison points out,

Diotima teaches him [Socrates] that although individuals desire to possess the beautiful, it is what the beautiful brings that they really want; what they truly desire is the happiness that possessing the good brings ... .Humanity loves beauty because it helps bring them the good, or at least what they perceive as the good. Diotima teaches that eros is itself formless and without order or logic. Beauty, or at least what is taken for beauty, shapes and guides eros. In many ways the beautiful for Plato i s identical with aesthetic harmony (DE, 7).

Garrison’s problem with Plato’s notion of eros is both that it possesses and is itself possessed. What does Garrison mean by “possess?” He does not explicitly say. However, judging from the context of the passage that Garrison invokes, possession is equated with what is brought to the person in an erotic undertaking. And what is it that is brought to the person? In the case of the Symposium it is of course the beautiful and the good, suggesting that for Garrison, what Plato is getting at is that love (eros) desires to possess the form, for the purposes of achieving the happiness that possession of the beautiful and the good brings, and to be in turn transformed by it. The bringing of the good via beauty, and its subsequent possession seems to imply a taking up of these two Forms. This in turn implies that the Forms are there to be had, analogous to the way in which an object is had by the mind post Descartes. The ”ideas” are not Forms in any outward sense; rather they are ideas as occasioned in mind. Thus we say that Garrison has ascribed, in his description of the Forms, an epistemological function. In ascribing to Plato the notion that Forms resemble ideas,

SIMPSON AND TOHNSTON Eros Between Plato and Garrison 227

Garrison moves toward viewing the Forms as an epistemological concern; the concern of the Forms as the concern of knowledge, The task becomes not one of moving one’s soul toward the eternal; but rather of disengaging oneself from the world. In order to do this, we must take the neutral stance of an external observer, one who both grasps and comprehends those objects she is examining. Objects are pulled into mind. The stance is a representational one.

According to Garrison, the good and the beautiful are said to transform eros as well, suggesting a somewhat mutually reciprocal having and doing relation, one in which eros is brought to the good and beautiful to be had, and the good and beautiful in turn transform, that is, do something, to eros. One would have to conclude that our happiness thereby flows from the mutual having of the beautiful and the good in our possession, as well as the beautiful and the good changing eros as a result of the bringing together. Now this interpretation may simply appear speculative, as Garrison nowhere uses the terms “having,” “making,” “mine,” or “object.” There is another clue to turn to, however, regarding Garrison’s assumptions of what for Plato the meaning of possession must entail. Recall that Garrison is a student of Dewey and writes his work self-consciously in the spirit and the letter of his beloved teacher. This clue comes from Dewey’s Experience and Nature where Dewey argues, ”Greek thought regarded possession, contemplation, as the essence of science, and thought the latter as such a complete possession of reality as incorporates it with mind.”2 Further, Dewey argues, “If knowledge [for the Greeks] is possession or grasp, then there are two incompatible kinds of knowledge, one sensible, the other ~ational.”~ Dewey suggests here that possession be equated for the Greeks (at least in part) with contemplation and grasp. He also suggests that reality (for the purposes of our case here, the Forms of beauty and good) is somehow incorporated into mind, and this has implications for certain kinds of knowledge. In point of fact, it helps serve to dichotomize existing knowledge into sensible (one could say phenomenal, natural, and mundane) and rational (supersensible, heavenly, and eternal) knowl- edge. Again, this suggests that Garrison might well have had the notion of the taking up of the good and the beautiful as one might take up or have an object, that is, as an activity having decidedly epistemological overtones. We think we see these rather Deweyan consequences of grasping and possessing in Garrison’s further criticisms of Plato. Garrison argues that “Beauty is the bridge eros crosses as it moves between mutable life and the immutable Forms or Ideas“ (DE, 9). Eros, according to Garrison, is further, ”the principle that unifies opposites, such as need and fulfillment, throughout the cosmos” (DE, 8). This unification is for Garrison what eros accom- plishes through its desire to possess the good:

A single, unifymg science of beauty everywhere is the limit of the education of eros within the everyday natural world of genesis, creation, and becoming. It is as far as speech and teaching can take us. The rest can only be pointed to in silence .... It is the eternal, immutable realm of the Forms, which are the archetypes of creation governed by the Good itself .... For Plato it is a supernatural realm beyond time or chance. Because it is changeless, active participation in it is not possible. It is a realm that only the philosopher kings may contemplate, and then only as theoretical specrators (DE, 11, italics ours].

2. John Dewey, “The Quest for Certainty,” in The Later Works oflohn Dewey, vol4. ed. J o h n Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 19891, 109.

3. Ibid., 113.

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We begin to see the role eros plays for those who are capable of the contemplation so necessary to begin to possess the good. Eros is the love that possesses. The good is what is possessed. It is what makes one happy. But it is equally itself transformed. Beauty is the bridge upon which eros moves toward its end. There are a couple of different suggestions here. Oneis that eros is more highly cultivatedin those who are closer to the goal of possessing the good. And those closer to the goal are the very same that engage, in Garrison's words, in passive theoretical speculation. But the more interesting suggestion is that eros serves to unify opposites. Eros brings up the opposites of the particular and abstract, and in turn, brings the abstract to the particular, inasmuch as ems desires to possess, and to be shaped and guided by, the Forms. But as eros in Plato is equated with the abstract, the theoretical, and the speculative, the project of the unification of opposites must, according to Garrison, proceed for Plato through passive theoretical speculation. In this way it (again) becomes an epistemological undertaking, inasmuch as Dewey and Garrison equate possession of the Forms with the "spectator theory of truth," which is what abstract theoretical speculation amounts to for both (DE, 125).4 Possession as passive theoretical speculation implies a "mind-as-knowing-object" analogy, even though it is highly questionable that Plato held this stance, as we shall see further on.

As the eros of the philosopher kings is more highly cultivated, because closer to the lauded goal, they have no need of more mundane traits or qualities. Inasmuch as Garrison argues that Platonic philosophers reified the abstractions of speculation and made the possibility of the good and beauty the immutability and universality of the Form, reality became synonymous with the abstract and not the concrete (DE, 36). Thus Garrison can argue that

Platonic phlosopher kings do not require sympathy or imagination. They have no need of moral perception. Only those at lower stages of development require such attributes. Kings calculate. Those at the highest level already possess indubitable knowledge of eternal and immutable truths (DE, 20).

The problem of Platonic ems for Garrison's classroom is just at the level of this desire of the perfect and immutable. The desire for good, for what is sure, certain, and unflagging, is a task that cannot be of service to teachers in the classroom, and cannot but harm students. Tough-minded Platonic philosophers actually have the potential to do harm in the classroom as they

do not require sympathy or imagination. They have no need of moral perception .... they often avoid the complicated and messy world of classrooms where change and uncertainty rule.. . .The ideal world of abstract certainty, precision, and immutability is a world unlike that in which teachers teach ... .There is no need for sympathetic reaction, perception of unique persons in unique situations, or sympathetic response, because there is no sympathetic uniqueness in Plato. ..[Rather] [tlhere are only homogeneous bodes and souls whose worth is determined by calculating their position in an abstract value hierarchy (DE, 20,361.

4. Ibid., 16-19. Dewey argues that "Although this Greek formulation was made long ago and much of it is now strange in its specific terms, certain features of it are as relevant to present thought as they were significant in their original formulation ....p erfect certainty is what man wants .... The common essence of all these theories, in short, is that what is known is antecedent to the mental act of observation and inquiry, and is totally unaffected by these acts; otherwise it would not be fixed and unchangeable .... The real object is the object so fixed in its regal aloofness that it is a king to any beholdmg mind that may gaze upon it. A spectator theory of knowledge is the inevitable outcome."

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Garrison does not actually state that Platonic philosopher-kings have no busi- ness in the classroom. He does, however, imply that they neither require, nor use, sympathy or imagination because they have no need of moral perception, presum- ably because they already “know” this. Furthermore, they shun, if not in practice then in theory, the rather “messy” world in which the teacher operates. All of this suggests that for Garrison, Platonic philosopher kings would make lousy teachers (as, we suspect, would thoroughgoing Platonists).

Garrison, we believe, has misunderstood at least this about Plato: His project had little to do with metaphysics as conceived in the Cartesian and post-Cartesian project of “mind-as-grasping-object,” and thereby getting to truth and reality. This conflation of projects gets Garrison into some trouble. As a result of this, Garrison makes unfortunate attributions to Plato, particularly in seeing Plato’s supernatural realm as a nonparticipatory one. Plato’s view was not that the turn to knowledge involved a turn inward; a turn through possession of the form analogous to passive theoretical speculation of objects. Rather, it was a turn outward, a turn of the soul out of its present state, away from objects, and toward the heavens. Mind might have been soul for Plato, but it was not static in the sense that it tolerated no participation. Movement of the soul away from its present physical and phenomenal condition existed as a requisite for the sort of knowledge that Garrison thinks can only be found in the state of coming-to-possess the Forms.

There is another way in which to put the problem of Garrison’s conflation of Plato’s project with the project of epistemology. Let us grant that Plato was attempting to get in touch with reality through theactivity of possession, in theguise of the Forms. Plato nowhere provides in his work evidence to suggest that this reality can somehow be possessed through appearances, sense-data, or experiences, in short, from this-worldly contemplation. In fact, as is well-known in the examples proffered in the Theaetetus, these avenues are expressly closed, as sense-perception would lead one merely in circles. The paths that Plato walked led the soul out of its self-imposed limiting state and toward the Forms, which were not of this world. We grant that Garrison the naturalist would find this an unacceptable move. But one must note that the flight of the soul toward the Forms implies activity and participation. What this activity and participation look like is the subject of the next section.

A CRITIQUE OF GARRISON In this section, we will attempt a critique of Garrison’s critique and reconstruc-

tion of Plato’s ems. More specifically, we will pursue Garrison’s claim that ems is the desire for the possession of the Forms, such as the good or beauty. In our estimation, a successful critique will accomplish three things: First, it will show that in the Symposium itself possession is not the ultimate project of ems; second, it will show that in other dialogues the relation of humans to the Forms generally do not take on a possessive nature; and third, it will propose a different understanding of possession in the Symposium and other dialogues. If our critique can yield these results, then Garrison’s critique and reconstruction of Plato are suspect. We ought then to investigate whether or not Plato’s actual use of ems can satisfy Garrison’s needs for the classroom.

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EKOS IN THE SYMPOSIUM Let us set the context for Socrates’ discussion of ems. Many fine speeches had

been given when the invitation to speak reached round to Agathon. Agathon changes the method of speech from congratulating human beings on the good things that come from the gods, to a speech about the god himself and afterward his gifts (194e- 195a). Love is the most beautiful and best of all the Gods. He is beautiful for he is young, delicate, and has exquisite coloring. He is the best (most virtuous) because he is just, moderate, brave, wise, a poet, and responsible. Love, accordmg to Agathon in his poetic flourish, lacks nothing and is our best guide though life. Socrates, however, cannot follow the method of this speech, that of applying “to the object the grandest and the most beautiful qualities, whether he has them or not” (198d). Rather, he must “tell the truth” about whatever he praises and then ”should select the most beautiful truths and arrange them most suitably” (198d). Before Socrates can proceed, how- ever, he must reach an agreement with Agathon and proceed on that agreement.

In order to reach an agreement, Socrates leads in his usual style through questions. Socrates asks, ”Is Love such as to be a love of something or nothing?” (199d). Agathon and Socrates agree that Love is a love of something, specifically love of something for which he has a present need. As the conversation continues, it becomes apparent that Love is a desire for beauty because it does not possess beauty. As Agathon’s uporzu attests, this conclusion radically changes the nature of Love, for Agathon had claimed that Love possesses all grand qualities. Now Love is not a possession of beauty, but a desire for beauty. The agreement that Love is a desire not a possession of beauty grounds the rest of Socrates’ speech through the incantations of Diotima, the prophetess.

Socrates’ own speech proceeds by recounting his own learning experience from the speech of Diotima. Socrates, like Agathon, had once thought that Love is a great god and that he belongs to beautiful things. However, Diotima had questioned Socrates, much as Socrates questioned Agathon, on the nature of Love. Similarly, Diotima showed that Love is not a possession of something but a desire of a need. According to Diotima, Love is neither beautiful or good nor wise or ignorant. Love is not caught by either/or dxhotomies. To understand the nature of love one must be nimble enough not to be trapped by either/or thinking. Rather, Diotima suggests that Love is an “in between” (202a). Like a “great spirit,” love is amessenger between men and gods (202e). Conveying both prayers and commands, Love is in the middle and rounds out the whole between humans and gods.

Love’s nature is such as it is because of its parentage. When Poros (resourceful- ness, a way through difficulty) slept in the garden of Zeus, Penia (poverty, need) lay down beside him and became pregnant. Love was born from need and plenty and so is always living with need yet resourceful in his pursuit of intelligence. This explains why Love possesses neither wisdom nor ignorance. For if Love were wise, then it would already possess wisdom and would not desire it. Conversely, if Love were ignorant, then it also would not search for wisdom. Socrates says, “For what’s especially difficult about being ignorant is that you are content with yourself, even though you’re neither beautiful and good nor intelligent” (204a). As a result, one who

SIMPSON AND JOHNSTON Eros Between Plato and Garrison 23 1

is content with his or her possessions will not search: “It follows that Love must be a lover of wisdom and, as such, is in between being wise and being ignorant” (204b).

What has happened to this point is the following: Agathon thought Love was an object and so adorned Love in grand qualities. Socrates, through Diotima, has turned our attention to see Love as being a lover (204c). Now, assuming that the nature of Love is being a lover, Socrates asks Diotima, “What use is Love to human beings?” Here is the point where Garrison fixes his gaze and follows. Love, Socrates continues, leads to having good things. What is more, having good things will bring happiness. Happiness is desired not for something else but for its own sake. Whereas some, recalling Aristophanes’ speech, claim that lovers desire their other halves in pursuit of happiness, Socrates claims that a lover seeks nothing other than the good: “And not only that. They want the good to be theirs forever, ...In a word, then, love is wanting to possess the good forever’’ (206b). From this part of the argument, Garrison stakes his claim that eros is a possessive form of love. Accordmg to Garrison, Plato’s use of eros is for possession of the good or, by implication, of the Forms generally. Since Garrison suggests that possession of the Forms will lead to such things as the philosopher-kings’ right to rule, we can assume that by possession he has an epistemological focus (DE, 2-3 J. In other words, for Garrison “possession” means “having” or “grasping” knowledge, specifically the Forms.

Is love possessive? Certainly Socrates has not completely misled us by the use of the term “possess.” On reflection we do want good things for as long as we can have them. However, the context leading up to the key “possession” passage has not supported an interpretation of possession as a grasping or having of kn~wledge.~ First, the nature of the spirit has twice been argued to be an “in between,’’ a being that by nature desires something. If we assume that eros leads to possession as agrasping and holding, then the desire for knowledge is quenched, and thus the nature of the spirit is brought back into question for Socrates. Second, since humans are not gods and so do not already possess knowledge, the assumed possession of knowledge may lead to contentment with oneself and thus ignorance. If eros leads to possession, is Socrates leaving open the possibility that eros may lead to ignorance? Third, if love is possessive, then study is only consumption of information without loss. Study, rather, exists ”because knowledge is leaving us, because forgetting is the departure of knowledge, while studyingputs back a fresh memory in place of what went away, thereby preserving a piece of knowledge, so that it seems to be the same” (208a). Finally, how does a possessive form of love that seems to thwart further desire stand in relation to the ascent passage (ladder of love) of transforming desires? (210-21 Id).

5. For Gamson’s interpretation of ”possession” as grasping or having knowledge, he must assume that the sod will come in contact with the forms in such a way as to hold them. Interestingly, albeit not strictly parallel, Plato plants a seed in the reader’s mind not to think about the relation between soul and knowledge in simple terms. At 175d-e Agathon says, ”Socrates, come lie down next to me. Who knows, if I touch you, I may catch a bit of the wisdom that came to you under my neighbor’s porch.” Socrates replies, “How wonderful it would be, dear Agathon, if the foolish were filled with wisdom simply by touching the wise. If only wisdom were like water, which always flows from a full cup into an empty one when we connect them with a piece of yarn.” Mere contact with (possession of) the Forms will not provide the necessary relation for wisdom. This exchange will unfold in the rest of the halogue.

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Crucial to our initiation into the rites of love and the ascent passage, however, is to understand the ”real purpose of love.” The real purpose of love (as opposed to possession? J is “giving birth in beauty” (206d). Each of us comes to an age where we are pregnant either in body or soul and desire to give birth. Only in beauty do we give birth. Beauty is that bridge from need to overflowing fullness. We desire beauty not for itself but for giving birth in the presence of it. The intimation is that we do not desire to possess beauty as a holding, but to possess it like an experience of initiation or a moment necessary for transformation. How does the ascent passage support or reject this intimation?

The ascent passage itself is premised not on possession but on procreation. While some are pregnant in their body and wish to give birth in physical beauty others are pregnant in soul. Such a soul is drawn to a noble and well-formed soul, one who leads the pregnant soul to teem with ideas and arguments about virtue; and so the well- formed soul tries to educate the pregnant soul. When led by the mysteries of Love

one goes always upwards for the sake of Beauty, starting with beautiful things and using them like rising stairs: from a beautiful body, to soul, to customs of souls, to beautiful things, to the end of the lesson, which is learning of this very Beauty (21 lc-d).

Even at the top of the ascent, “when he looks at Beauty the only way it can be seen,” he does not possess beauty as control and ownership. Rather, it is now “possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue, but to truevirtue” (212a). Like Socrates, the initiate who sees Beauty at the highest point models himself after it and practices with special diligence the rites of Love. This is a far cry from possession of the Forms for technocratic use.

So, in the key passages before and after Socrates’ speech in the Symposium, eros is not a possessive form of love. Rather, it is a transformative form of love where possession of an object is only momentary and on the road to a higher love. The highest love, and the real purpose of eros, is the founding of well-ordered city-states through moderation and justice. Eros is that spirit or desire which puts us on the ascent. Much like Socrates himself, as Alcibiades describes him later in the Sympo- sium, eros transports people to reflection on the divine within themselves. In regard to Garrison, neither the context leading up to possession, nor the context after possession, gives any indication that eros is a possessive form of love bent solely on epistemological knowledge of the Forms.

KEY PASSAGES ON THE RELATION BETWEEN SOUL AND FORMS

We should not, however, rely on the Symposium alone to understand the relation between the soul and the Forms. The Phaedrus, Phaedo, and Republic, all middle dialogues like the Symposium, also provide accounts of this relation. The Phaedrus is the most obvious beginning because of its emphasis on eros (244-250). Recanting his first speech, Socrates offers a second speech on divine madness. After describing three kinds of madness and describing the soul as self-motion, he produces a structure of the soul through the myth of the charioteer. By their nature the wings of the horses have power to lift up the charioteer to see the “divine, which has beauty, wisdom, goodness, and everything of that sort” (246e). As it views justice, self-

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control, and knowledge, the soul makes itself most like a god. There is great eagerness to see the plain where truth stands because “this pasture has the grass that is the right food for the best part of the soul, and it is the nature of the wings that lift up the soul to be nourished by it” (248~). In fact, the soul that has seen the most will become a lover of wisdom or of beauty, or the soul will be cultivated in the arts and prone to erotic love. The fourth kind of madness, the divine eros, leads to the realm of Forms where the soul is nourished by its kin. For the Phaedrus, then, the relation to the Forms is not possessive; certainly not possession in the sense of controlling or ownership. Here eros does not lead to a having of the Forms, but rather a fertile plain that nourishes the soul so as to become a lover of wisdom, a philosopher.

Passages from the Phaedo and the Republic confirm the Phaedrus’ notion of a nurturing relation between the soul and Forms. In the Phaedo,

The soul of the philosopher achieves a calm from such emotions [pleasure and pain of the body]; it follows reason and ever stays with it contemplating the true, the divine, which is not the object of opinion. Nurtured by this, it believes that one should live in this manner as long as one is alive (84b-c).

Again, when the soul comes into contact with the Forms it does not merely possess the Forms but is nurtured in their presence. Philosophy, then, is a way of life, not merely a final state of possession.

Finally, consider the following passage from Republic Book VI in defense of the philosopher:

Then, won’t it be reasonable for us to plead in his defense that it is the nature of the real lover of learning to struggle towardwhat is, not to remainwithany of themany things that arebelieved to be, that, as he moves on, he neither loses nor lessens his erotic love until he grasps the being of each nature itself with the part of his soul that is fitted to grasp it, because of its kinship with it, and that, once getting near what really is and having intercourse with it and having begotten understanding and truth, he knows, truly lives, is nourished, and- at that point, but not before - is relieved from the pains of giving birth? (490a-b).

Again, erotic love leads the soul to grasp the object not, as Garrison suggests, for simple possession. Rather, erotic love leads to the soul’s nourishment and the philosophic life. What is more, understandmg philosophy as the recogrution of our ignorance and the desire that arises from such ignorance is merely to recall the literal meaning of philosophy. Philo-Sophia means, literally, the “love of wisdom” and not the possession of it. As Socrates made clear in the Symposium, to love wisdom signifies that one lacks wisdom, acknowledges that lack, and strives to overcome it. This is our erotic condition. PHILOSOPHY AS LOVE OF WISDOM

The problem with Garrison’s interpretation of the Symposium and his focus on eros as possessive love is that he inherits a misconception of Platonic philosophy. As he notes, Dewey conceived of Platonic philosophy as a ”quest for certainty” (DE, xvii, 6). According to both Garrison andDewey, then, Plato’s definition of philosophy is a search for indubitable knowledge. Thus, Garrison’s focus on Platonic possession is a focus on epistemological “grasping” and “having.” However, this is to attribute modern epistemological language to an ancient ontological seeker. Plato’s question was not ”What can we know?” but “What is?” It was not until Bacon and Descartes,

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among others, that philosophers focused on the former question, and asked what can we do with such knowledge.6

How should we conceive of Plato’s philosophy and his use of the word “posses- sion?” To answer this question fully would go well beyond the scope of this essay. However, we can point toward a view that resonates with the Platonic corpus. For this purpose we would do well to attend to Josef Pieper’s description of philosophy in Leisure, the Basis of Culture:

The quest for essence really implies a claim on comprehension. And comprehension IS to know something in such a way as it is possible for it to be known. It is to transform all “knowability” into the known, to know something through and through, “completely.” But there is notlung that the human being can know in this way or comprehend in this strict sense.. . .It is a property of philosophy that it reaches toward a wisdom that nevertheless remains unreachable by it; but this is not to say that there is no relationship at all between the question and the answer. This wisdom is the object of philosophy but as something lovingly sought, not as something “possessed”.. . .It therefore belongs to the nature of philosophy that it only “has” its object in the manner of a loving search.’

We suggest that, for Plato, philosophy is not simply a special claim to knowing, but rather a form of knowing one’s limits. This is shown in at least three ways: First, Socrates professes to know few things. Two things he claims that he does know are his ignorance (Apology) and the truth about love (Symposium). But of course this is to claim the same thing. For to reveal one’s limits is to experience a desire. Socrates’ claim of possessing human wisdom, a knowledge of his ignorance, explains his tireless pursuit for wisdom. Second, the dialogue form itself reveals the limits of wisdom. As Herman Sinaiko suggests, “Plato’s Dialogues hold out to the reader the promise of knowledge, of insight, of wisdom. The promise is never made openly, but it lurks just beneath the surface of the discussion, enticing the reader to look a little closer, to think a little harder.”8 Yet, the malogue never fully reveals itself, but only

6. Garrison claims, “Plato‘s task in the Symposium is to explain the significance of eros to the lover of wisdom” [DE, 3, emphasis added). For Garrison, Plato’s task is to explain to the lover of wisdom the importance of “certain, fixed, and final knowledge” (DE, 6). An alternative reading is that the task of the Symposium is to loosen the hold of external justification for our possessions. Consider the opening scene as ”crazy” Apollodorus embarks on the hscussion: ”Well, if I’m to tell you about it too - I’ll be glad to. After all, my greatest pleasure comes from philosophical conversation, even if I’m only a listener, whether or not I think i t will be to my advantage. All other talk, especially the talk to rich businessman like you bores me to tears, and I’m sorry for you and your friends because you think your affairs are important when really they’re totally trivial” 11 73c-dJ.

This suggestion is that love (eros) will not have an external justification in terms of some utility, although the businessman may have that focus. Rather, the task is to loosen the grip of utility and recognize an object’s good for it‘s own sake.

7. Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 112-13.

8. Herman Sinaiko, Reclaiming the Canon: Essays on Philosophy, Poetry, and History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 324. Consider also John Cooper’s ”Introduction,” in Plato’s Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997): “In all this, Plato is being faithful to Socrates’ example: the truth must be arrived at by each of us for ourselves, in a cooperative search, and Plato is only inviting others [through his dialogues] to do their own intellectual work, in cooperation with him, in thinking through the issues that he is addressing” [xx); “Much less should we think that he [Plato] was pretending to himself or to his readers that he had attained it [knowledge]. That would be an unprincipled abuse of the very dialogue form that Plato was so obviously determined to uphold” [xxii). These latter citations were brought to our attention by Dr. Richard Mohr, professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at UrbanaJChampaign.

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offers glimpses beneath. Finally, at critical junctures in the dialogues, such as an answer to Meno’s paradox, a description of the Good, or the craft of the statesman, Plato resorts to myths, similes, metaphors, or dreams to illuminate moments of difficulty. These nonpropositional attempts to convey important “truths” are not meant to give information, but to illuminate paths for inquiry or realization. Plato does not suppose that he has such answers, but that he intuits fruitful paths. In this way, he acknowledges his own limits rather than supposing that he possesses knowledge. For these reasons, it would be more careful to claim that Platonic philosophy is the love of wisdom than the possession of wisdom.

But why then does Plato use the word possession? Again we turn to Pieper, who interprets a notion of possession from Goethe. Goethe says, ”Beauty is not so much performance as promise.” Pieper responds,

That is, when we receive beauty in the proper way we experience not so much a quenching of our thirst, satisfaction and pleasure, as evocation of an expectancy; we are referred to something that is not already present. Those who submit to the encounter with beauty in the requisite spirit do not see andpartake of afulfillment but apromise -which perhaps cannot be kept at all within the realm of this physical existen~c.~

Possession should be understood not as a quenching of desire, but rather a promise of desire or of being drawn beyond and outside of oneself. Possession, as the Symposium suggests, is a momentary vision of a world that calls our knowledge into question yet spurs us toward an intuited but not comprehended truth. Of course, this conception of possession throws the “in betweeness” of eros into relief. It is not that we do not yet have the knowledge to which philosophy aspires nor is it that we do not happen to have it, but rather, that we cannot have it in principle. We are in the position of an eternal not-yet. The erotic moment is the nature of our condition. The soul, as manifested in the figure of Socrates, is eternally experiencing a need and finding a creative way to solve that need. A momentary vision illuminates a path for further inquiry; it does not end inquiry. EYOS understood not as possessive, but as expansive or transformative, is a more attentive reading of the Symposium.

In sum, the term possession is only confusing if we discount the context leading up to and after the possession passage of the Symposium; or if we fail to reflect on the other dialogues that d~scuss the contact of the soul and Forms; or if we understand possession as grasping and having in modem epistemological language. Otherwise, possession is only a stepping-stone toward the eternal pursuit of wisdom. We ought to reflect again upon whether or not Plato’s eros is incompatible with Garrison’s needs for the classroom.

A VISION OF PLATONIC EDUCATION IN THE CLASSROOM: PLATO AND GARRISON IN CONCERT h this section, we imagine what a Platonic vision of education might look like

in the classroom. Of course, Plato never states what he thinks education ought to be. However, in order to propose what Plato’s vision might be, it will prove worthwhile to extend our interpretation beyond the Symposium and Republic, which are the

9. Josef Pieper, Enthusiasm and Madness: An Interpretation of the Phaedrus [New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962), 85.

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sources of Garrison’s interpretation, to the whole of the Platonic corpus. While for Garrison the Symposium and Republic suggest that eros leads to possession, and that education is a sharpening of reason and a transfer of knowledge from the teacher to the student, we propose that eros is nonpossessive and that education is a quest rather than a possessing of knowledge. This proposal makes for a different conception of Plato in the classroom. APORIA AND MODERATION

As we suggested earlier, eros is nonpossessive, which aligns with the character of Socrates and his claim in the Apology that he does not possess divine wisdom. Rather, he claims that he does not know, and does not think that he knows. Socrates’ sober self-judgment leads him to humility and invigorates his mission to question himself and others in the pursuit of wisdom.

Eros as nonpossession further illuminates Socrates’ attempt to create an aporetic moment in his interlocutors. An education that begins with a recognition of ignorance does not aim to make the students feel good. For this only reinforces students’ comfortable conceits. Rather, for Plato, ”education fundamentally in- volves the necessary unlearning of false beliefs and unjustified opinions, since these are the conceits of wisdom that stand in the way of learning and render some students unteachable.”1° If the visitor in the Sophist is representative of this position, then the following is illuminating:

[The teachers] who cleanse the soul, my young friend, likewise think the soul, too, won’t get any advantage from any learning that’s offered to it until someone shames it by refuting it, removes the opinions that interfere with learning, and exhibits it cleansed, believing that it knows only those things that it does know, and nothing more (230c-d).

According to this interpretation, then, education begins with the loosening of convictions that obstruct inquiry and creates a disposition of moderation or humil- ity. The Platonic classroom, then, might look like the dialogues themselves; that is, the dialogues portray the questioning of opinions so as to purge those opinions which prohibit inquiry in a spirit of moderation. Recalling Garrison’s “loving bestowal,” the teacher, as Socrates seems to be, bestows value on the student by helping the student remove the conceit of wisdom. In this respect, Socrates makes the good of the student his good and the object of his practice. Onlywhen obstructions to inquiry are removed can a new desire for knowledge emerge.

FRIENDSHIP AND COMMUNITY

Aproblem with the Socratic teacher who humbles and criticizes a student is that the student seems to be flustered and willing to abandon the search. However, the character Socrates recognizes that the aporetic moment may arrest any desire to go on, and in response to the interlocutor’s recognition of a lack of knowledge Socrates typically encourages sharing the pursuit in joint inquiry. The best example is from Plato’s Meno. Recall in the Meno that when Meno is reduced to a perplexed state he responds with the paradox of inquiry, “How will you look for it Socrates when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not

10. Gary Alan Scott, Plato’s Socrates us Educator (Albany: State University of New York Press, ZOOO), 39.

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know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?” (80d). Socrates might respond to Meno’s desperation by giving him the knowledge of virtue that is under question and the cause for the paradox. But Socrates does not have this knowledge to give and, more important, recognizes that Meno must recollect this knowledge by his own power. Thus, Socrates offers the Myth of Recollection to persuade Meno to continue the quest and offers the dialogue with the slave-boy to show that inquiry can be successful.” Later, Meno becomes more amenable and is encouraged to continue the search with Socrates. Socrates’ attempts to encourage joint inquiry occur throughout the Platonic corpus. From the Euthyphro to the Lysis to the middle and late works such as the Phaedo and Theaetetus, Socrates uses the aporetic moment to engage the interlocutor in an agreed-upon question. In the Phaedo, for example, Socrates offers many questionable arguments for the immortality of the soul, but insists on never giving up the search, never becoming a misologist, and exhorting those present to engage themselves and others in these kinds of questions. Even in the Republic, as monological as it seems, Socrates gathers a community of learners who all join as allies in the pursuit of justice in the just city.

Again, understanding eros as nonpossessive means that recognition of one’s own limits is recognition of a need for another, a friend for the search. Just as eros in the Symposium recognizes its needful state, Plato understands both this lacking as well as the need of a friend to search with. In fact, philosophy as a recognition of the limits of knowledge is most conducive to friendship since it calls forth another for the search. In the classroom, then, along with humility the Platonic teacher would support a community of learners embracing friendship in the joint quest. The Platonic teacher would appraise each moment so as to make that moment valuable in the search. Teaching students to value the problem solving activity and the necessity of a joint pursuit becomes the predominant concern of the Platonic teacher. Like Garrison, the Platonic teacher uses practical wisdom to decide which situation is valuable, that is, growth enhancing, and which is detrimental. “IN SERVICE TO THE GOD”

Despite a humbleness of spirit and the bonds of friendship, the quest for knowledge is short-lived without both an abiding faith in the goodness of the quest and a vision that illuminates the path. A Platonic teacher will manifest both a faith in the quest as well as offer fruitful paths of inquiry. This kind of teacher is crucial given the premise that eros does not lead to the possession of knowledge.

Since eros does not lead to the possession of knowledge, it does not lead to the possession of the Ideas or Forms: “By realizing that we are ignorant of the most important things, we realize at the same time that the most important thing for us, or the one thing needful, is quest for knowledge of the most important things or quest for wisdom.”12 Beginning with the Apology and Socrates’ self-profession that his

11. By “successful” we mean that the slave-boy answers from his own opinion rather than by authority, as Meno does. 12. Leo Straws, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 36.

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quest is in the “service to the god” (23b), the character Socrates is relentless in his search for the Forms despite never seeming to possess them. A passage from the Parmenides illustrates the kind of commitment necessary for this search. After subjecting young Socrates and his theory of Forms to great scrutiny, Parmenides says,

If someone, having an eye on all the difficulties we have just brought up and others of the same sort, won‘t allow that there are forms of thngs and won’t mark off a form for each one, he won’t have anywhere to turn his thought, since he doesn’t allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same. (135b-c).

Just as Parmenides here states, and as the dramatic portrayal of Socrates represents, the teacher must have a faith in the objects of the quest despite their ungraspable quality. l3

Although many of Plato’s dialogues portray Socrates as an eccentric who reduces people to perplexity, the character Socrates rarely fails to offer an alternative value in the face of difficulty. Beginning with the Apology, the character Socrates signaled values to guide our individual actions. Exhorting us to “care for virtue’’ (31b) or “discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living” (38a), Socrates was tireless in questioning the leading values of his day. The so-called “Socratic” dialogues are dramatic exhibitions of such individual questioning. Again, at difficult moments in the dialogues Socrates offers myths, similes, and dreams to illuminate paths of inquiry. Whether the question is piety, courage, or virtue, Socrates responds by actively sustaining the search for a higher good.

The Symposium itself offers two examples of Socrates‘ prophetic assistance. First, at the end of his speech he says, “[Once persuaded], I try to persuade others too that human nature can find no better workmate for acquiring this [giving birth not to images of virtue, but to true virtue] than Love” (212b). Socrates’ production of Diotima’s speech offers an alternative notion of love to guide the interlocutors beyond the drinking party. Second, Alcibiades captures the prophetic in Socrates when he states, ”[Hle makes it seem my life isn’t worth living!. . . He always traps me, you see, and he makes me admit that my political career is a waste of time, while all that matters is just what I most neglect: my personal shortcomings, which cry out for the closest attention’, (216a). The prophetic spirit of Socrates is his “service to the god” (Apology, Ub), namely to call people to account for themselves.

These examples of providingpaths of inquiry are not meant to be exhaustive, but indicate that Plato was aware of and responded to the particular needs of souls. As he states in the Phaedms ‘,no one will ever possess the art of speaking, to the extent that any human being can, unless he acquires the ability to enumerate the sorts of characters to be found in any audience.” (273d-e). Enumerating the characters is the first step toward responding to the characters with the proper seeds for discourse, “discourse capable of helping itself as well as the man who planted it, which is not

13. Plato and Garrison, as well as Dewey, finally part ways concerning the metaphysical status of the Idea. Ultimately, Plato assumes that it exists and that we must search for it, whereas Garrison and Dewey want to deny its metaphysical reality and, thus, the quest is foolish. For the latter, the Idea is simply an ideal, an end-in-view.

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barren but produces a seed from which more discourse grows in the character of others” (246e). As for Garrison, only when the teacher can perceive the needs of the student, imagine thosepaths of fruitful inquiry, and create the moment for extending the student in inquiry, will a teacher act as a prophetic guide for the student.

CONCLUSION

Beginning with the premise that ems does not lead to the possession of knowledge and that education cannot be like “putting sight into blind eyes,” we change significantly how one might view Plato in the classroom. Education is ”turning the soul” in the right direction (Republic, 5 1 8 ~ ) . Rather than being unsympathetic, unimaginative, and unresponsive to the needs of the student, the Platonic teacher must have an intimate understanding of each student and respond with careful language to encourage the student in the quest. For Plato, not unlike Dewey or Garrison, education begins with the education of ems toward the right virtues (or, in Dewey’s language, habits). For the Platonic teacher the educational question is, are we lovers?