Platonic (The Academy)
Διοτίμα
5th c. BCE (as portrayed) · Mantinea, Arcadia
A priestess and teacher whom Socrates, in Plato’s Symposium, credits with teaching him about love. She is known only through that dialogue, and scholars debate whether she was a real person or Plato’s invention; her teachings here are those Plato gives her.
Love, Diotima tells Socrates, is neither wise nor ignorant but between the two; and since wisdom is among the most beautiful things, love is a lover of wisdom, a philosopher.
Plato, Symposium, 203e–204b
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima.
What everyone desires in love, Diotima says, is for the good to be their own, and to be their own forever.
Plato, Symposium, 205d–206a
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima.
Even within one life we are never the same: hair, flesh and bones are renewed, and so are our habits, opinions, desires and even our knowledge, which study keeps alive by replacing what is forgotten.
Plato, Symposium, 207d–208b
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima.
Some are pregnant in body and seek immortality through children; others are pregnant in soul, bringing forth wisdom and virtue, like the poets and lawgivers whose works outlive them.
Plato, Symposium, 208e–209e
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima.
Right opinion that cannot give an account of itself, Diotima explains, is neither knowledge nor ignorance, but something in between.
Plato, Symposium, 202a
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima.
Diotima describes an ascent of love: from one beautiful body, to all beauty of bodies, to beautiful souls, practices and knowledge, and finally to beauty itself.
Plato, Symposium, 210a–212a
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Teaching Plato gives to Diotima, as recounted by Socrates.
Platonic (The Academy) (4th c. BCE onward). Plato and his Academy sought the unchanging forms behind appearances and pictured justice as a well-ordered soul.