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FIVE ARISTOPHANES: EROS, SOUL, AND LAW The failure of Eryximachus’ attempt in the name of the city to solve the human problem on the assumption that what is ordinarily understood to be an attribute of soul, namely, Eros, can be deduced from bodily first principles (and so “treated” by the science of body) makes room for Aristophanes’ claim that as poet he possesses the knowledge of soul that alone is competent to articulate and deal with the problematic character of man. In his speech, he will argue that soul and the desires of the soul constitute a realm that is irreducible and in some way separate from body and its needs. Soul and its structure, he will claim, are the chance products of law and lawful piety and, as such, grounded in accident and unreality. The poet, in full knowledge of the phantom character of the distinctively human, practices a therapeutic art that trades in such phantoms. But neither science nor art is competent to dispel these phantoms and allow man access to a good that is real. For what human beings long for, according to Aristophanes, is not the good, but what is their own and that there exists that which could rightfully be called one’s own is simply the most persistent and ineradicable illusion by which human life is haunted and human desire misled. Enlightenment is impossible not only for the city, but for man as man as well. In Aristophanes’ speech, the implications of the failure of Eryximachus’ science are made clear. The city cannot be understood to be grounded in or derived from cosmological first principles and the human things must be seen to constitute a distinct and independent realm. Aristophanes’ own argument, however, leads to the conclusion that this realm is defined primarily by the soul and its experiences and that as such it is ultimately unintelligible. His knowledge of soul has at its core, then, his knowledge that ultimate knowledge of soul and, therefore, of the human things is not available. Precisely because the human must be considered apart from cosmos it is cut off from what Aristophanes still seems to presume to be the 59 60 EROS AND THE INTOXICATIONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT true measure of intelligibility—what is by nature in the sense of what is primordial or original. Though in one sense liberated from the pretensions of Eryximachus’ science, in another Aristophanes still shares and labors in the light of its most fundamental presuppositions. He is strangely situated in a no-man’s-land between pre-Socratic wisdom and Socratic knowledge of ignorance. It is on the basis of the superiority of his knowledge of soul over Eryximachus’ knowledge of body that Aristophanes disputes the legitimacy of Eryximachus’ presumption to act as the “guardian” of the comic poet and his speech (189b): the city of arts is not competent to exercise rule over the poet and his art.1 On the contrary, it is the latter that possesses the power to alleviate the difficulties of the former insofar as it is inseparable from the city of law. The joke that Aristophanes makes at Eryximachus’ expense that is the starting point of this dispute reveals the funny or ugly truth that the physician cannot admit, but of which the poet claims to know the grounds, namely, that disorder can be treated only with further disorder (189a). Eryximachus, however, scores two points against Aristophanes that prove to be keys to the limitations of his speech. He enjoins him to “look at what you are making” (hora ti poieis), that is, to look to his activity as a poet, and to “take heed” in regard to—or literally to “turn his mind” (proseke ton noun)—to his speaking (189a–b). As to the first point, Aristophanes himself declares that Eryximachus “speaks well” (189b). However, he does not attend to either Eryximachus’ remarks or his own approval of the first with sufficient literal-mindedness—it is precisely mind and speech, and, therefore, his own account as it embodies his own alleged insights that Aristophanes consistently ignores or abstracts from in offering that account. Aristophanes’ speech does not include within it a reflection upon itself and the grounds of its possibility. By his own account, Aristophanes has nowhere to stand. Aristophanes begins his speech by announcing the advent of a new religion centered around a new god (189c–d). Not science, but poetry is competent to initiate the sort of religious revolution proposed by Eryximachus. According...

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