"Anderson takes more seriously than anyone else has the dramatic aspect of the Symposium. Obviously almost everyone pays attention to that feature of the dialogue, most especially Stanley Rosen, to whom Anderson owes a considerable debt. But Anderson pushes this interpretation farther, with mid-Western common sense and an elfin sense of humor. The emphasis on Dionysos is very well taken, for he correctly observes that this theme holds the dialogue together, and it also (more or less by implication) holds his book together too.

"This is a significant addition to the scholarship on this dialogue, and a significant contribution to Plato scholarship and interpretation generally, particularly since it also participates in a lively and rapidly expanding trend in contemporary philosophy." — Anthony Preus, State University of New York, Binghamton

"This is a suggestive, imaginative interpretation of the Symposium. The emphasis on the Dionysian element is made plausible and represents a real contribution to the literature on the Symposium." — Drew A. Hyland, Trinity College

Preface

Introduction: A Note On Method

1. Dionysos; The Lovers; The Symposiarch

2. Phaidros; Pausanias

3. Empedokles; Eryximakhos; Aristophanes; Agathon

4. Diotima; Knowledge; The Ladder; Sokrates and Agathon; The Pure Form of Beauty; Mortal Existence; Love and Existence

5. Love and Immortality; The Two Concepts of Immortality; Phaidros and the Written Word; Symposium as a Dialectic With Plato; The Same and the Different

6. Sokrates and Eros; Sokrates and Silenos; Sokrates and Marsyas; Sokrates and Apollo; Sokrates and Alkibiades; Alkibiades and the Dialectic; The Failed Seduction

Appendix: Plato's Meno

Notes

Bibliography

Index