if this Eros is not innate to the soul (having to be instilled in society), where does it start? — dani

Eros is innate to the soul. We all know eros to the extent that we desire what we do not have. But, as the saying goes, love is blind. Philosophy is, for Socrates, erotic. The desire for wisdom. We all want for ourselves what is good, but we lack the wisdom to discern what is good. The Republic is an extended argument that attempts to persuade his listeners that justice is good for the soul and the city, that is, good for each of us and all of us.

In the Apology Socrates says that he does not know anything noble and good. (Apology 21d). And yet in the Symposium, a dialogue on eros, he claims:

I know nothing other than matters of eros ...

(177d)

Hm. So Eros is innate to the soul, but Eros for the good is not innate to the soul because Eros is blind. Thank you, that helps!
I suppose that Plato was just lucky that his desire was for the good, and then he wanted to school everybody on what he saw was the right path for the betterment of the soul?

So Eros is innate to the soul, but Eros for the good is not innate to the soul because Eros is blind. — dani

Eros for the good is innate. We all desire what is good. The problem is, we do not always know what that is.

... he wanted to school everybody on what he saw was the right path for the betterment of the soul? — dani

This is more complicated and controversial. Despite appearances, Plato does not think we can have knowledge of the good. I have laid out the argument here:
Knowledge of the Good

The question then is, how to pursue the good in the absence of knowledge of the good? In the Republic the philosophers are represented not as those who desires and pursues wisdom but as those who is wise. Those who knows the good and for this reason rule. And this for the good of the citizens.

In his conception of a virtuous soul (the chariot analogy) — dani

From Phaedrus? If yes, I recommend you read the whole dialogue carefully, as it itself answers most questions. Eros, or divine madness, is a beneficial gift from the god(s); it goes on from there.

That is a very important question and as @Fooloso4 explains, the answer is complex because we have different natures and we change as we age.

I think we can think of our lives as being empty vases when we are conceived. This is the beginning of Ero's but at this stage, there are no words. It will be many years before a child has a vocabulary and there is no conceptual thinking without words. Not until age thirty is a person prepared enough to participate in philosophy and not all will be attracted to philosophical thinking.

Think of the cave. How old are those people chained to the wall? At this stage, education is about breaking those chains and freeing individuals. This is the opposite of education up to this point because the individual does not have the necessary critical thinking potential until 30 years of age.

Here is a good explanation.

Education in music for the soul and gymnastics for the body, Socrates says, is the way to shape the guardians' character correctly and thereby prevent them from terrorizing the citizens. Thus, the guardians' education is primarily moral in nature, emphasizing the blind acceptance of beliefs and behaviors rather than the ability to think critically and independently. — Ariel Dillon

Religions tend to begin and stop with this primary education. No thinking required. Just trust in God and obey His word.

Eros, or divine madness, is a beneficial gift from the god(s); it goes on from there. — tim wood

What are we to make of eros as "divine madness"? Rather than attempt to answer this question, I will make a few observations.

If philosophy is the erotic pursuit of wisdom, as Socrates claims in the Symposium, then it would seem there is a conflict between the common description of philosophy as reasoned inquiry and philosophy as divine madness.

Socrates claims:

... enormous advantages now come to us through madness once it is given as a divine gift.

(Phaedrus 244a)

He goes on to argue that it can be preferable to sound mindedness. We may find all of this inspiring, but can we trust it? Is he mad?

If the pursuit of wisdom is divine madness how should we proceed?

Toward the end of the dialogue Socrates says:

But the person who realises that in a written discourse on any topic there must be a great deal that is playful; that not one composition in verse or in prose that deserves to be taken seriously has yet been written ...

(277e)

Are Plato's dialogues the first that deserve to be taken seriously? What does it mean to take a written work seriously? The playfulness of Plato's works has often been noted. Can a work be both playful and serious?

Ending on a serious note: there are some who engage in philosophy who do not ascend to divine madness but fall to human madness.

Eros is innate to the soul. We all know eros to the extent that we desire what we do not have. But, as the saying goes, love is blind. Philosophy is, for Socrates, erotic. The desire for wisdom. We all want for ourselves what is good, but we lack the wisdom to discern what is good. The Republic is an extended argument that attempts to persuade his listeners that justice is good for the soul and the city, that is, good for each of us and all of us.

In the Apology Socrates says that he does not know anything noble and good. (Apology 21d). And yet in the Symposium, a dialogue on eros, he claims:

I know nothing other than matters of eros ... — Fooloso4

It seems the idea of eros and the erotic are quite different in these dialogues to the carnal desire it is generally associated with in modern culture. Almost like an allegory.

I wonder if the 'madness' that Socrates refers to might be likened to ecstacy (ex-stasis, outside the normal state)?

It seems the idea of eros and the erotic are quite different in these dialogues to the carnal desire it is generally associated with in modern culture. Almost like an allegory. — Wayfarer

May I be corrected if wrong, but I’ve so far understood Ancient Greek eros to in essence be passionate desire for or attraction, not necessarily of a romantic/sexual kind. This is most typically lacking in storge, philia, and agape, but since it's part of romantic/sexual feelings, the latter will be classified as eros. Still, so interpreted, a desire for or attraction to wisdom, Truth, the Good, or some such ideal would thereby technically be eros (rather than agape, philia, or storge).

That's also how i understand it, but am looking for a better insight into it. I understand The Symposium is also relevant to this topic.

That's also how i understand it, but am looking for a better insight into it. — Wayfarer

Not sure if this is in tune with what you're after, but the desire to become one with X, here spiritually addressed, would then be eros for X. X could then for example be God just as much as it could be a lover. In the context of this thread, the desire to become good (hence, to become one with the Good) would then be eros as well. As @Fooloso4 previously mentioned, although this desire is innate (everyone wants to be good at what they do, for one example), we don't quite know what the Good we're wanting to be in fact is.

If I'm way off in terms of what your asking for, maybe someone else could give a better answer.

---------

Edit: just realized, beauty, the aesthetic, too would here be classified as a form of eros and hence erotic in this sense. At least if by beauty we mean a pull or calling toward something not yet fully known that nevertheless beckons to us as a welcoming abode, or something to this effect.

If I'm way off in terms of what your asking for, maybe someone else could give a better answer. — javra

Not at all, I think it's more that I haven't read the primary sources, so I'd better do that.

https://www.platonicfoundation.org/phaedrus/

https://www.platonicfoundation.org/symposium/

It seems the idea of eros and the erotic are quite different in these dialogues to the carnal desire it is generally associated with in modern culture. — Wayfarer

just realized, beauty, the aesthetic, too would here be classified as a form of eros and hence erotic in this sense. — javra

In the Phaedrus Socrates speaks,

... in praise of your master and mine, Phaedrus, Love, the guardian of beautiful boys.

(265c)

We might expect him to say the opposite, beautiful boys are in need of a guardian against eros. How to sort this all out is the problem that Socrates immediately goes on to address. A major theme of the dialogue is speech, more specifically, beautiful speech. As the dialogue ends we see that whatever Socrates' attraction to Phaedrus might be, he speaks but does not act.

It is not simply a matter of separating speech and action but of their connection. Indeed, looking at the text that surrounds this we find what Socrates calls a "veritable game", one of joining and separating, bringing together and holding apart. So too, this is what love does.

Twice Socrates connects the just and beautiful and good (276b, 278a) At the end of the dialogue he prays:

O beloved Pan and any other gods who are here, grant that I may become beautiful within, and that all my outer possessions be in friendly concord with the inner.

(279b)

"Beloved Pan" is associated with eros in its carnal form. We might wonder whether Aphrodite is also present. She is the mother of the fourth kind of madness, love or eros. (242d, 265b) Aphrodite is known for her beauty. Pan is not. Socrates is known for his outward ugliness, and by his friends for his inner beauty.

So... sociopaths have no soul?

Twice Socrates connects the just and beautiful and good (276b, 278a) — Fooloso4

I was aiming more at this conception rather than beauty as sexual/carnal attraction. If the Just, the Beautiful, and the Good are interwoven (if not in fact being the same thing), I'm thinking the motif of penetration commonly enough attributed to Pan of that age and specific culture could be interpreted spiritually using sexual intercourse as an allegory. As in being penetrated by the Just, the Beautiful, and the Good. All speculation, of course. This could however relate to:

In the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era,[16] Pan is identified with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros.[17] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_(god)#Worship

Here assuming Hellenism to be in significant ways derivative of Plato's writings.

Still, the connection between the three ideals/forms mentioned - and a person's possible attraction, hence eros, toward this nexus - is where my main interests personally are.

So... sociopaths have no soul? — LuckyR

:grin: I could see how that could be allegorically stated. :up: Still, technically, I will argue that sociopaths too want to be good at what they do, and so are in their own way innately attracted to the good, even though their conception of it might be easily considered perverse.

Are Plato's dialogues the first that deserve to be taken seriously? What does it mean to take a written work seriously? The playfulness of Plato's works has often been noted. Can a work be both playful and serious? — Fooloso4

Something of the same applies to the Symposium: after a profound debate on the nature of eros-love, the whole thing ends in confusion, a great deal of wine-drinking and some participants forgetting altogether what was discussed :)

To me the 'erotic' emphasis is entwined in the Symposium with female imagery, the desire to beget, and pregnancy. These features make it startling: Socrates does not quote himself on love, he develops a dialogue-within-a-dialogue in which the woman Diotima explains love's nature to him, and thence, through him, to his male companions. So the centrality of eros, even where it focuses initially on male-to-male desire (as apparently some of the Greek verbs do, in a way that's disguised by English translation), is built on eros as an expression of a craving to beget - to become pregnant with knowledge of the good and the beautiful. Personally I really like the image of pregnancy-with-the-good, which seems to segue from being a metaphor to a kind of true state, though there's lots of scholarly debate about the image.

Still, the connection between the three ideals/forms mentioned - and a person's possible attraction, hence eros, toward this nexus - is where my main interests personally are. — javra

The Forms are said to each be one and separate, but Plato often tread the just, the beautiful, and the good together.

The Greek term kalos is translated as beautiful, or noble, and sometimes good. We should not conclude, however, that Plato was unaware of the problematic aspect of beauty as attraction. As with the desire for the good, attraction plays a role that should not be overlooked or disregarded.

In Melville's Moby Dick Ishmael asks:

How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head, and sweetly perished there?

Something of the same applies to the Symposium: after a profound debate on the nature of eros-love, the whole thing ends in confusion, a great deal of wine-drinking and some participants forgetting altogether what was discussed — mcdoodle

Good point, but to the end and having drank copiously, Socrates appears to remain sober. The dialogue ends:

Then Socrates, having lulled them to sleep, got up and went out, and Aristodemus followed him as usual. When he got to the Lyceum he washed himself, spent the day just like any other, and having done so, he went home in the evening to rest.

... eros as an expression of a craving to beget - to become pregnant with knowledge of the good and the beautiful. Personally I really like the image of pregnancy-with-the-good — mcdoodle

In the Theaetetus Socrates calls himself a midwife to men but who is himself unable to give birth. (150 b-c)

So... sociopaths have no soul? — LuckyR

Psychopaths, at least, are often described as 'soul-less' for the total inability to empathize.

I could see how that could be allegorically stated. :up: Still, technically, I will argue that sociopaths too want to be good at what they do, and so are in their own way innately attracted to the good, even though their conception of it might be easily considered perverse

I don't disagree, though you're saying that "good" is subjective thus essentially anyone's chosen behavior can be labeled "good" if you equate intentionality with seeking to do "good".

Psychopaths, at least, are often described as 'soul-less' for the total inability to empathize.

I can live with your description if you can live with a "soul" being a reflection of one's behavior/outlook (as opposed to an innate entity that all humans possess).

I think 'the soul' simply refers to 'the totality of the being'. Obviously when you die, the body remains, but it is no longer animated. And the soul is 'what animates' - the totality of the being, conscious, unconscious, what is past, what is yet to come. (Aristotle's 'De Anima' is usually translated as 'on the soul'.)

though you're saying that "good" is subjective thus essentially anyone's chosen behavior can be labeled "good" if you equate intentionality with seeking to do "good". — LuckyR

I'll honestly say "yes" and "no" (at the same time but in different ways). But will keep it at that for now.

Eros for the good is innate. We all desire what is good. The problem is, we do not always know what that is. — Fooloso4

Ah I see. So Eros for the good is innate, but people may be thwarted in their efforts to get to the good because they don't know what it is. They may end up pursuing pleasure, for example, thinking that it is the good. So that's where Plato's city-state would come in, educating its citizens on what the good is.

However, the good itself can never be fully grasped because it is not only a "form," in the realm of being, but something beyond forms that actually informs all forms themselves, too.

So the human Eros for the good, even if appropriately applied, would never be able to reach the true and full concept of the good (whatever that may be.)

Don't be shy, what do you think?

Thus the soul in your context, disappears when we die, right?

Don't be shy, what do you think? — LuckyR

Already stated.

Think of it this way, the same can be generally applied to an innate attraction to justice. What is just is in one way subjective to individual judgments in concrete particular contexts while, in another maybe far more important way, can all the same be perfectly determinate in the sense of being universally fixed, this as something like "fairness in given and take".

Not an easy topic to address though. So I'll be shy from here on out. :smile:

So that's where Plato's city-state would come in, educating its citizens on what the good is. — dani

Plato's city-state in the Republic is a city made in speech. It has never existed in practice and was never intended to. It is created in order to see justice in the soul writ large. The underlying premise being that a just soul is like a just city. We might wonder why he did not simply point to an existing city as an exemplar. The somewhat troubling answer is that no city is truly just.

If then there is a just soul it is not the result of the city's education.

The cave is "an image of our nature in its education and want of education". (Republic 514a) Education in the cave is at best a likeness or image of the truth. The truth can only be found when one is able to escape the cave, that is, when one is able to escape one's education in the city. The philosophers, who have escaped the cave, are compelled to return in order to rule.

An important question arises. Do they transform the cave or is it still illuminated by the light of the fire? As far as I can see, the cave/city remains in the realm of opinion.

However, the good itself can never be fully grasped because it is not only a "form," in the realm of being, but something beyond forms that actually informs all forms themselves, too. — dani

All of this is, in my opinion, Plato's philosophical poetry, intended to replace the teachings of the traditional poets. In the Republic it is not simply that poetry is banned along with the traditional poets, they are replaced by Plato's own images of the just, beautiful, and good.

Thus the soul in your context, disappears when we die, right? — LuckyR

I see a single life as part of an unfolding of a continuum which neither begins at birth nor ends at death, although the metaphysics are difficult to fathom.

My question is: if this Eros is not innate to the soul (having to be instilled in society), where does it start? — dani

In the mythological explanation provided by Diotima in Plato's Symposium, Eros is the child of very different parents:

Now, as the son of Resource and Poverty, Love is in a peculiar case. First, he is ever poor, and far from tender or beautiful as most suppose him: [203d] rather is he hard and parched, shoeless and homeless; on the bare ground always he lies with no bedding, and takes his rest on doorsteps and waysides in the open air; true to his mother's nature, he ever dwells with want. But he takes after his father in scheming for all that is beautiful and good; for he is brave, strenuous and high-strung, a famous hunter, always weaving some stratagem; desirous and competent of wisdom, throughout life ensuing the truth; a master of jugglery, witchcraft, [203e] and artful speech. By birth neither immortal nor mortal, in the selfsame day he is flourishing and alive at the hour when he is abounding in resource; at another he is dying, and then reviving again by force of his father's nature: yet the resources that he gets will ever be ebbing away; so that Love is at no time either resourceless or wealthy, and furthermore, he stands midway betwixt wisdom and ignorance. The position is this: no gods ensue wisdom or desire to be made wise; — Plato, Symposium, 203b

What is innate is the condition of constantly moving between receiving the benefits of Resource and undergoing the desperation of Poverty. This ever-shifting ground shows us that the urgency of desire is not only a movement toward fulfillment but is a form of life.

What is the highest good for the lover requires this urgency in order to come to life.