The Symposium Meets Derrida

Alcibiades, you ask me, "Who or what is Eros?"

"Yes, Eáson, but more clearly than that: What kind of love is Eros for you?"

Your question reminds me of once when I was visiting with my dear friend, Derrida, I asked him to explain to me the concept of love. After a rather long pause he began to answer. He said that "we cannot speak of Eros apart from his object." Thus to answer the question: Who is Eros? Derrida said, "We must look to the beloved from the perspective of the lover." "We must become the lover to understand Eros." "For it is," said Derrida, "in the relationship between lover and beloved that Eros finds his identity." "Thus, the question the lover must ask himself is: Is my beloved a 'who' or a 'what'?"

"So," Derrida said, "let us first consider Eros as love for a 'what'." "In this regards, your beloved is a thing." "He or she is merely a thing of beauty — something to be possessed."

At this point I think that Derrida touches on what Pausanias said earlier this night in his story about Eros Pandemus, when he said, "they are in love with their bodies rather than their souls."

My good friend Derrida said that a love for that which is to pass away, that which is mutable, is a love that is far more likely to fail with the passage of time. He said, very clearly, "Love built upon that which does not endure itself will not endure — it will grow sick and die."

"So you see my dear Alcibiades, holding, as we do, that Eros is an immortal god, what he engenders within us must, at the very least, have some semblance of to his eternal nature." "But as you can see, if Eros in us is seeking after a thing, it cannot endure for long, for things change."

"Well, then: What does your friend Derrida say about love for a who?" "And how would you explain love for a 'who' in terms of our god Eros?"

"That is simple my friend."

"'Who' is a subject, as opposed to 'what' which is an object." "Thus, the 'who' as a subject remains a mystery, without ever being apprehended, thus even though it changes, this becoming is the who — the who remains."

"Remember what Pausanias said regarding Uranian Eros?" "The object of his love is the soul and not the body." "This is an important distinction because it speaks of a love for the soul, which is immortal and thus shares in the immortal nature of our god Eros."

"Eros, as a love for a 'who,' points to our love of the person, rather than love merely for their bodies." "Thus it points to a love which endures and engenders something of the immortal nature of our god."

"So you see Alcibiades, If we love the person — a who, when their body changes and grows old, we shall not soon abandon them, as would be the case if we loved a what — a body, which changes and can become ugly."

"Eáson, you make good points, what say you of his argument Socrates?"