Pausanian Classification or Socratic Participation: Theologizing the Plurality of Erotic Praxis in Plato's Symposium
Read theologically, Plato's Symposium is an exercise in doxology: how Eros is to be praised. Pausanias observes that, since Eros is not one, a unitary praise will be inadequate. Proposing a focus on praxis, he classifies erotic praxes, and praises one, in a synthesis of contemporary convention,...
| Published in: | Religions |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
MDPI
[2018]
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| In: |
Religions
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| Further subjects: | B
Eros
B Participation B Radical Orthodoxy B Desire B Socrates B Polytheism B Love B Plato B Liturgy B Doxology |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Read theologically, Plato's Symposium is an exercise in doxology: how Eros is to be praised. Pausanias observes that, since Eros is not one, a unitary praise will be inadequate. Proposing a focus on praxis, he classifies erotic praxes, and praises one, in a synthesis of contemporary convention, sophistic rationality, social responsibility and polytheistic fidelity. Against this Socrates praises erotic praxis as one of a plurality of desires mediating between mortals and an otherwise transcendent good. Desire which is specifically erotic involves a praxis of (pro)creation through attention to beauty. In this praxis mortals participate in immortality and the divine. Pausanias' praise is seriously offered. However, lacking a participatory element, it delivers an underwhelming doxology, making Eros at best an instrument of a sophistically constructed virtue ethic to which his polytheism is ambiguously connected. It is the philosophical theology of Socrates, which, praising Eros as a mediator enabling participation in the divine realm, and offering itself as an analogous form of mediation, is able to be consummated liturgically. |
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| ISSN: | 2077-1444 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3390/rel9090263 |