Similarities Between Symposium And Meno

In Plato’s dialogues the symposium and Meno, both focus on the role of forms and through them the importance of how humans attain knowledge. However even though their goals are similar towards the attainment of knowledge, both arguments in the end are different to one another, when defining the role of forms. In this paper I will analyze both dialogues in their argument to the role of forms, and refute why the two dialogues are incompatible with one another, nevertheless shedding light on connecting ideas that make them share somewhat similar thoughts. Ultimately In doing so this essay will argue why the Meno and Symposium are not compatible with their idea of forms, even though both present strong premises towards defining it.
In the second
half of Meno, Socrates (Plato) claims the soul is immortality and intends to prove his statement, through his theory of recollection (anamnesis), and by doing so he introduces the notion of the realm of forms. Socrates goes about proving his theory of recollection by questioning Meno’s slave and asking him basic questions about geometric truths and then making them more difficult per answer; the way the slave boy manages to answer Socrates’ geometric questions, which he claims to have no knowledge of, is due to Socrates asking precise questions, making the slave ‘remember’ the answers, all the while as Socrates advises him in the questions. Reason for doing this, is to demonstrate how everyone innately has knowledge within them as Socrates claimed, this due to their soul being immortal and connected to the realm of forms where they have witnessed the eternal truth of all things. An example that can be used is in defining the form of a snowflake. Purpose for a snowflake is too mimic Meno’s slave boy in how he is unfamiliar with geometry; an individual could question someone who has never seen a snowflake, but if correct questions are asked and given advice to understand it, they can learn what a snowflake due to Socrates’ claim that the soul is immortal and has witnessed a snowflake in the realm of forms. Yet it is commonly known that no two snowflakes are alike, however because Socrates claims there is a specific form for a snowflake we can in fact familiarize ourselves with it, and because all snowflakes participate in this single form, it creates an eternal image too what a snowflake is and branches out too all differing snowflakes.

Plato’s symposium gives a different concept to the role of forms, which is distinctive, in the comparison to the Meno; the idea of forms is defined as ‘the good, or the beautiful unlike in the Meno, where it is being explained by a hypothesis of the theory that souls are immortal.
In order to attain the eternal form of beauty/goods is through the procedure of ascent. The first step is starting with the devotional love for a single physical body then learning to love the ‘soul and entire essence’ of this physical being, doing this for the purpose of happiness. After loving a single body/soul, the individual ought to learn to love all the bodies of what is beautiful and good (then loving the soul of all of them). reason for this is if the body is good and beautiful we want to ensure that it is kept forever; to make this ‘love’ everlasting one must birth more ‘bodies’ from this to ensure that this love will be immortal. Moving away from the literal focus of what plato’s dialogue speaks of and the metaphorical sense; Plato is speaking about loving a category of knowledge, putting self-devotion into it this thought and creating more ideas from it, and then give birth to it, making it your legacy. An example Socrates’ (Plato) uses is how Homer left his epics, or how political leaders greatly affected their cities making their name remembered either positively or negatively, making their idea (legacy) of them immortal. However, we should love all knowledge, rather a specific
category. An example that can be used is with cooking. Someone who has been brought up to love cooking will be capable of making several dishes from a single cultural cooking style, which was taught to them. However, in order to better their ability and love for cooking, they will set out on their own to obtain all the knowledge in different styles of cooking; in doing this they may create their own culinary dishes or own style of cooking from the knowledge they have learnt, and possibly become famous from the legacy they gave birth to, due to their lover of cooking. This is why the hierarchy of Ascent is important in Plato’s dialogue (210-212). A single individual will learn to love a body knowledge; but Once all knowledge of the beautiful and good have been attained, the individual themselves will be capable to understand the forms in themselves.

This is not similar to the concept of forms in the Meno in anyway, firstly, due to the set up of the dialogues being different.
The symposium defines the forms as the beauty and good in the physical world, as well as the attempt to explain what the realm of forms is, and why it is important to philosophers as the lovers of wisdom; whereas the Meno defines the forms through the concept of recollection where the soul attains its knowledge of eternal truths from the realm of forms; this is where the realm of forms is introduced, and the importance of epistemology in how humans can know anything at all. This is where holding point between the two dialogues hold its tension between one another, because they are indeed holding an argument towards explaining the realm of forms, but the examples of birthing compared to recollecting the forms is what makes them incompatible. The symposium is having the ability to find the good in any type of knowledge, build upon them and make them into a reality; the idea of immortality is not through the soul, yet it is through ‘the legacy of knowledge,’ for when the mortal dies their legacy is preserved and that is what makes the individuals themselves immortal. All individuals as Plato puts it, are pregnant in the soul and body and desire a way to birth this beauty/good into the world; this speaking as a metaphor too birthing new idea/legacies, and it would definitely be a painful process, and difficult because it would need to be cared as a
child [491]. As well as a parents passing on their gene pool to their children, but also the memory they leave of themselves to them is greater then their physical existence. In the argument of recollection, people can begin to know a type of knowledge when it is introduced to them, such as when geometric truths are introduced to the slave boy. Whereas in the Meno, Socrates speaks about the how the soul innately contains all knowledge of the world, due to its participation in the realm of forms prior to being born in the human body. If the soul is not immortal, then we could know nothing at all and the realm of form and eternal truths could not possibly exist, but because he managed to make the slave recollect knowledge of geometry, it argues recollection can exist. However both dialogues do share a compatibility idea for one another, which is the notion of opinions. In the Meno, humans are capable of knowing nothing at all, these rightful opinions are ones that are “tied down” and made factual through the process of recollection [96 -100]. As for the symposium, opinions are defined as “judging things correctly without being able to give a reason.” The definitions of opinion are the same in both dialogue, which lead too and end both ideas of the forms, however both arguments about the forms are too different too be compatible in the role of the forms

Due to these conflicting differences analyzed from both dialogues, it is disputably sure that they are incompatible with their idea in the role of forms. For in the meno Socrates speaks of the immortality of the soul and to further defends his statement by trying to prove that recollection is indeed possible, through educating Meno’s slave, because if we can learn through recollection then the soul has indeed seen all eternal truths, and all truths participate in the realm of forms. As for the symposium, the concept of the forms is defined by the good/beauty of singular object/form and once we learn to ascend from this singular entity and begin to love the general things of the world we learn we love the form itself.