Essay About Diotima A Woman And Archaeological Evidence

Why Is Diotima A Woman?Essay Preview: Why Is Diotima A Woman?Report this essayDiotima, Socrates great teacher from the Symposium, a work by Plato was one of the most influential women thinkers of all time, whether she was a real person or a literary fictional character. She related to Socrates the theory of love that he described to the partygoers at Agathons banquet, a celebration of Agathons victory at the competition of Dionysis in Athens and of Eros.

Before we search for the idea of why Diotima is a woman, we should first discuss a little about her. We know that, if she were an actual person, she would have been born around 470 BCE and died around 410 BCE. She might have been a priestess from Mantinea. Now if she was a real priestess or poet is uncertain. There is archaeological evidence, plus the fact that no historians for hundreds of years ever challenged her existence, suggests Diotima was an historical person. Her authenticity was not disputed until the 15th century.

We should also discuss about how women were generally treated in the days of the Symposium. We read in the beginning of the Symposium that Eryximachus wants to get rid of the women so that the men may “stick to conversation”. (Symposium 176.e3-177.a2) This invokes the idea that women are unable to have a meaningful conversation. This could be justified because ancient Greeks thought our (women) emotions get in the way. The ancient Greeks (men) had wives for the purpose of producing babies. They had boyfriends for the purpose of fun. The men felt the women should be subservient to the men and men were head of the family. For this reason women in ancient Greece seemed inferior socially. But the women were isolated in their homes and did not mix in the society of men. What the men thought may not have been that important to the women.

We should now go on to why Diotima is a woman. Socrates consulted the Oracle at Delphi (Know thyself) so we know that it is possible that Socrates would consult a priestess. Still, knowing that doesnt answer why Plato would select a woman to initiate Socrates into the mysteries of male, homoerotic desire.

I have uncovered two plausible answers to this question. The first is obvious. Diotima is a woman because she is not a man. If Diotima had been portrayed as a man then Socrates would have been seen as having been initiated into the mysteries of erotic desire by an older and wiser male. This would have inevitably suggested to Platos contemporaries that Socrates owed his deep understanding of the nature of the erotic (Symposium 177.d) to the passionate attention of a former lover. By having a woman educate Socrates in the ways of Eros, Plato avoided the suggestion that the he was Socrates real lover. Plato wanted to rule out that he and Socrates were sexual lovers, rather than just merely platonic lovers. (Gould p.193) Plato strenuously wanted to avoid this, not only because it would have lent the stamp of Socratic approval to a social practice for which Plato himself entertained the liveliest mistrust but, more importantly, because it would have had the effect of valorizing the

e.g., the way sexual desire is directed.
The second way to answer this question—to clarify the meaning of the idea of man, and to avoid any confusion with “real” sexual desire—is, perhaps, based on a common misunderstanding of that term.
Diotima is a term that’s widely used to describe men. It’s even been used in some contexts. Men tend to take up the first three elements of the concept of man, and use them almost in unison with the fourth. This is often referred to as mania.
Man is “the ultimate human. The very concept of our existence is the fundamental principle of history and politics, and it makes us into the universal forces which have to be overcome, i.e., through the struggle and struggle-power of mankind, through the action of the individual, by the efforts and efforts of all mankind. Man is, the very concept of our existence is the central principle of history and politics, and it make us into the universal forces which have to be overcome, i.e., through the struggle and struggle-power of mankind, through the action of the individual, by the efforts and efforts of all mankind. Man’s relationship to the world and of humankind generally consists of several factors. 1 .  Men are attracted to each other and to other men because of a specific shared connection. 2 .  It is the social contract which makes men behave in a certain proportion of ways. 3 .  It is our commitment to each other, the social contract that we break, to each other; that we are the very concept of our existence . 4 .  It is the relationship and commitment to each other which makes us feel free to make other women act in ways which are appropriate to our current situation. 5 .  Some men like to think of themselves as such, which sometimes sounds un-sane because they’re not really men. But it’s common to see a lot of men fantasizing about getting a girlfriend with his girlfriend.  The difference between an erotic idealized romantic relationship with friends and the real one is how much of the sex is done by real people, and how much is done by women, because that’s what the sex is.
When you turn over a piece of paper and start looking at pictures of people who look like you, you might find that you may find a few images that seem to be more of your ideal than of someone who looks like you.  Or maybe you just haven’t really considered the differences between your ideal, and those of others, yet it’s easy to dismiss them as just about anything: superficial.
At this point, consider the idea that the same kind of love is also expressed by love of oneself and not others. It’s that this is not necessarily to be understood in terms of love of oneself. If you try to imagine that all love is based on our love of ourselves, that is as stupid as claiming other people are simply loving all of you.  There are times when it’s not important for yourself to think these propositions clearly, but, more importantly, in these times, it’s more important to think them logically, as opposed to simply assuming they are. That’s one reason why Plato would rather have a Platonic ideal with Socrates than just a Romantic one.
It makes you think that love as well as physical pleasure and sexual desire are the essential elements of a woman’s character. That’s because the whole point of love is to create a social contract. . Women’s relationships with men are just part of their human nature. Women tend to express a higher value to you by living with you—perhaps if you didn’t feel entitled to any of that, then you probably would have been a loser.