Leo Strauss on Plato's Symposium

The Leo Strauss Foundation & Boston College put together this online discussion of a new release, course notes Strauss prepared for a course on the Symposium he taught in 1959 & a version of which he agreed to publish, but never got around to it, but, edited by Seth Benardete, it eventually was published in 2000. That commentary is famous, because, like the dialogue, it shocks by daring—we can amuse ourselves by calling it Strauss’s moment of hubris. Now, the course notes add quite a bit of material & some clarification, at least for readers who have the dedication. You can read some of those notes here. As for the online discussion, I happen to know some of these people, Zarko Minkov & Alex Priou, Ronna Burger, & others, & they’re wonderful to listen to!

Speaking of which, I reviewed Alex Priou’s brief, funny, provocative commentary on the Symposium, Musings… for the Acton Institute. You can buy his book here! Here’s a teaser from my review:

My favorite back-to-school reading this year has been Alex Priou’s Musings on Plato’s Symposium. I hurry to add that I’ve long been out of school, but I did pick up the habit of reading there, & what’s more American than lifelong learning? I knew the author’s reputation & so hurried to read his musings. Almost nobody muses these days, I’ve noticed, but it’s deeply human to be thoughtful without being serious, to be playful without being silly. There’s much of the life of an intelligent man that has been driven out of public life & therefore out of our private lives, too.

I also confess a fondness for this beautiful Platonic work. The Symposium is the one case where Plato put a lot of literary effort into imitating, impersonating a comic poet & a tragic poet, as well as other impressive Athenian gentlemen, as they give speeches in praise of eros. You could say they’re the people for whose sake Pericles managed such an amazing empire. There’s wine involved somehow, too—the title means drinking party—& Socrates, the most famous philosopher in America as in Athens, seems pleased, even eager about the proceedings, like you or I might be. If philosophy could be quite this much of a novel or a movie scene, America would be a happier place.