Agathon (Bem), Daimon (Amor), Kalos (Belo): uma interpretação fenomenológica dos conceitos do Banquete de Platão

Abstract

This dissertation studies the Good inside Plato’s Symposium. We chose this theme because of the concerns that came out of Plato’s dialogues when, in them, it was not possible, at least not clearly, to determine the meaning of Good. On the contrary, its meaning was not fully explored (as it is seen in the “Book VI” of the Republic, in which the character of Socrates diverts from the subject itself and moves on to discussing the son of the Good, the Sun). Because of this concern this research found a new angle to explore what that meaning could be inside Plato’s Symposium. Therefore, we study the meaning of Good as we dwell on Agathon’s paradigmatic character, as it receives the name agathon, the Good. Plato gives us clues in order to start an investigation on the character himself, such as: its name, its household, the order of the dialogues, the parts of his speech etc. The ways for our search about the meaning of the Good originate from a research on the concept of love (ti metaxy, daimon) and beauty (kalos), as all of them are intertwined, clarifying what love and beauty are, and they are connected explicitly inside the dialogue in Plato’s Symposium (203c), and this suggests a way for us to enlighten the meaning of the Good. This research has a phenomenological approach, as it favors most of Heidegger’s ideas. We opted by Heidegger because this contemporary philosopher is the most crucial one for our clarification of the Good, as in many studies concerning the Greek terms, mainly when talking about agathon, he presented the interpretative way that we needed in order to achieve a proper understanding on the meaning of Good through Agathon’s character. By studying the Love inside Plato’s Symposium this investigation concludes that he is an intermediate (203a). As it is possible to notice in our research the term ti metaxy brings with it the meaning of something “that is inbetween”, intermediating a passage. Another term by which Love is called is Daimon: “the one that makes everything bright and clear”. Love as the one that brings clarity. Beauty is connected to it because, based on our studies, it is “what is brought upon” by Love (203c). We understand that this is how Love originated Beauty as what appears. And, as for the Good, we see as justified in this dissertation, based on a Heidegger’s phenomenological study (he returns to the term agathon in its Greek meaning), that this concept is unveiled as “pure possibility, offering, support for something to happen”. When taking this path directly to Agathon’s character we notice, at last, that it occupies this position inside the Symposium by undertaking exactly the role of the Good, as it was the one that offered the possibility and the support so that the Love logos and the Beauty manifestation could take place in its household. Good as possibility, as the reader himself will be able to notice after going through all of our research in this dissertation, was exposed in that character. However, without a proper investigation approach, as the phenomenology, we would not be able to achieve these conclusions, and we would be looking at the character as a simple scenic game inside Plato’s Symposium.