Philosophers

The Symposium seems to be more of an artistic intellectual exercise than a philosophical treatise and philosophers generally see it that way but The Republic is taken literally as a philosophical work. Why is that?

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There are several problematic assumptions at work in your question: that taking a work “literally” means the same thing as taking it as “a philosophical work”; that the two options for philosophical writings are “artistic” and “philosophical treatise”; ultimately, that real philosophy is plainspoken and direct, while artistry puts us in the domain of exercises. We can’t think through all those ideas in a few paragraphs, but I draw your attention to them by way of inviting you to think them over. Ask yourself if artistry can’t be plainspoken and direct. Consider whether some third genre is not possible for philosophy between art and treatise.

But for now we should focus on Plato, because your question is about two of his greatest works. I won’t pretend not to understand your question. All of Plato’s dialogues contain such features as narrative, framing, and a specific way of aligning a person’s character with the philosophical position that person expounds, but in some dialogues those features predominate and in others they are diminished, even barely recognizable. The Symposium probably exhibits Plato’s literary skills more than any other dialogue does, while much of the Republic consists in Socrates’ posing very specific questions to Glaucon and Adeimantus to which they respond with “Of course, Socrates” and “How could it not be so?”

One of your questions is: How can a single author be read in both ways, with great attention to the literary features in one work and very little in another? But that question is just a question about Plato. How can a single author have written such different dialogues? His readers respond to his dialogues in such different ways because of the differences among those dialogues.

But, having said that, I must add that the distinction is not quite as sharp-edged as your question makes it. The Republic does have some details of framing, setting, and characterization that its readers attend to. And – this part is more important – the speakers in the Symposium, but especially Socrates when purporting to report what the priestess Diotima told him, give voice to substantive, serious, precisely-argued philosophical positions not only about love, but also about knowledge and being. If I came upon a reader of the Republic ignoring its setting and scene, I would not feel that some wrong was being done to Plato’s work; but if I found the Symposium’s readers ignoring the philosophical views it has to offer, that would be seriously too bad.

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