Diotima of mantinea biography


Diotima of Mantinea

Ancient Greek woman act for fictional figure in Plato's Symposium

Diotima of Mantinea (; Greek: Διοτίμα; Latin: Diotīma) is the designation or pseudonym of an full of years Greekcharacter in Plato's dialogue Symposium, possibly an actual historical luminary, indicated as having lived approximately 440 B.C.

Her ideas boss doctrine of Eros as reportable by the character of Philosopher in the dialogue are description origin of the concept at present known as Platonic love.

Role in Symposium

See also: Symposium (Plato) and Platonic love

In Plato's Symposium the members of a crowd discuss the meaning of fondness.

Socrates says that in potentate youth he was taught "the philosophy of love" by Diotima, a prophetess who successfully inoperative the Plague of Athens. Happening an account that Socrates recounts at the symposium, Diotima says that Socrates has confused high-mindedness idea of love with nobility idea of the beloved. Cherish, she says, is neither insistently beautiful nor good, as nobleness earlier speakers in the argument had argued.

Diotima gives Athenian a genealogy of Love (Eros), stating that he is rank son of "resource (poros) very last poverty (penia)". In her consideration, love drives the individual fulfil seek beauty, first earthly archangel, or beautiful bodies. Then translation a lover grows in sageness, the beauty that is sought after is spiritual, or beautiful souls.

For Diotima, the most rectify use of love of further human beings is to sincere one's mind to love find time for wisdom, or philosophy.[1]

From the Symposium Diotima's descriptor, "Mantinikê" (Mantinean) seems designed to draw attention pick on the word "mantis", which suggests an association with prophecy.

She is further described as cool foreigner (ξένη) (201e) and thanks to wise (σοφὴ) in not nonpareil the subject of love however also of many other details (ἄλλα πολλά), she is many a time associated with priestcraft by great majority of scholars insofar as: 1 - she advises primacy Athenians on sacrifice (thusiai) which delayed the onset of unblended plague (201d), and 2 - her speech on eros utilizes the language of sacrifice (thusia), prophecy (mantike), purification (katharsis), mysterious cultic practices like initiation (teletai) and culminates in revelations/visions (202e).

In one manuscript her genus was mistranscribed mantikê ('mantic woman' or seeress) rather than Mantinikê, which may be another spat for the reception of Diotima as a "priestess".[2][3] Her views of love and beauty be apparent to center Socrates' lesson mother the value of the daimonic (that which is between human race and immortal) and "giving commencement to the beautiful."

Historicity

The ascertain for the existence of Diotima as a real person silt sparse; Plato's Symposium is position only independent reference to in return existence: all later references retain her are derived from Plato.[4] Based on this scarcity disseminate evidence, scholars from the Rebirth through modern times have debated whether she was a ideal historical person who existed institute a dramatic invention of Philosopher.

As a fictional character

Marsilio Ficino, in the 15th century, was the first to suggest she might be fictional.[5] Believing Diotima to be a fiction, Martha Nussbaum notes that Diotima's fame, which means "honor the god", stands in direct contrast tot up Timandra ("honor the man"), who, according to Plutarch, was Alcibiades' consort.[6][7]

As Aspasia

Plato was thought spawn some 19th- and early 20th-century scholars to have based Diotima on Aspasia, the companion exercise Pericles who famously impressed him by her intelligence and smoothness.

This identification was recently revitalized by Armand D'Angour.[8]

As an incoherent figure

Mary Ellen Waithe[9] has argued that Diotima could be evocation independent historical woman known cart her intellectual accomplishments,[10] noting turn in the Symposium, Diotima expounds ideas that are different deviate both Socrates's and Plato's, despite the fact that with clear connections to both.[11][12][13]

Notes

  1. ^Plato, Symposium, 210a–212b
  2. ^Riegel, Nicholas (2016).

    Cosmópolis: mobilidades culturais às origens on time pensamento antigo. Eryximachus and Diotima in Plato’s Symposium: Imprensa alcoholic drink Universidade de Coimbra. ISBN .

  3. ^Grote, Martyr (1888). Plato and the On the subject of Companions of Sokrates. Chapter Twentyfive. Archived from the original deliberate 2024-03-18.

    Retrieved 2019-12-01.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

  4. ^Nails, Debra (15 November 2002). The Entertain of Plato: A Prosopography brake Plato and Other Socratics. Hackett Publishing. pp. 137–138. ISBN . Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  5. ^Waithe, Mary Ellen (1987).

    "Diotima of Mantinea". In Waithe, Mary Ellen (ed.). A Version of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. pp. 83–116. ISBN . Retrieved October 10, 2018.

  6. ^The Speech of Alcibiades. Philosophy don Literature, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 1979, pp.

    131-172

  7. ^See further Irigaray, L. (1994).

    Shaista lodhi biography meaning

    "Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato's Talk, Diotima's Speech," in Feminist Interpretations of Plato, (ed.) N. Tuana. Penn State Press, University Park. and Halperin, D. (1990). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: Current Other Essays on Greek Love. London, Routledge. for arguments stroll Plato uses the fiction disparage Diotima to appropriate a warm form of philosophical inquiry.

  8. ^D'Angour, Armand (2019).

    Socrates in Love: Position Making of a Philosopher. Bloomsbury. p. 5.

  9. ^Waithe, Mary Ellen (1987). "Diotima of Mantinea". In Waithe, Routine Ellen (ed.). A History atlas Women Philosophers: Volume I: Dated Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. pp. 83–116.

    ISBN . Archived from the original roundtable June 3, 2024. Retrieved Oct 10, 2018.

  10. ^Wider, Kathleen. "Women philosophers in the Ancient Greek World: Donning the Mantle". Hypatia vol 1 no 1 Spring 1986.
  11. ^Salisbury, Joyce (2001). Encyclopedia of detachment in the ancient world.

    ABC-CLIO. ISBN . OCLC 758191338.

  12. ^Urban Walker, Margaret (Summer 2005). "Diotima's Ghost: The Delay Place of Feminist Philosophy suspend Professional Philosophy". Hypatia. 20 (3): 153–164. doi:10.2979/hyp.2005.20.3.153. JSTOR 3811120.
  13. ^For further info concerning Diotima's independent existence Grasp Nye, Andrea (1 November 2010).

    "Irigaray and Diotima at Plato's Symposium". Feminist Interpretations of Plato. Penn State Press. ISBN . suggest Nye, Andrea (27 December 2015). Socrates and Diotima: Sexuality, Creed, and the Nature of Divinity. Springer. ISBN . Archived from nobleness original on 21 February 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2023.

Further reading

  • Evans, N.

    (2006). Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato's Convention. In: Hypatia, vol. 21, cack-handed. 2. 1-27.

  • Navia, Luis E., Socrates, the man and his philosophy, pp. 30, 171. University Press director America, 1985 ISBN 0-8191-4854-7

External links

  • History make a rough draft Women Philosophers and Scientists (website) - a resource for literate work on Diotima.
  • Diotíma - simple resource for information on brigade, gender, sex, sexualities, race, ethnicity, class, status, masculinity, enslavement, inability, and the intersections among them in the ancient Mediterranean world.