Consider how the form of the dialogue functions in Plato’s Symposium, apparently an inquiry into the nature of love. How and why does Plato utilize this form? What forms does the dialogue take throughout the work? Is the work a series of successful dialogues or does dialogue break down or totally fail at some points? If so, how and why? You may consider the dramatic, rhetorical, and logical aspects of dialogue in the work, among others.

The Symposium, by Plato, is on its face, a dialogue about the true meaning of love. Although, after reading the piece, the most I could ascertain was that it was not a simple dialogue but at some points a dialogue within a dialogue within a dialogue. The work begins with a dialogue between Apollodorus and a friend, who asks Apollodorus to recant the dialogues of love given by Socrates, Agathon, Aristophanes, Eriximachus and Alcibaids. How he expects him to do so for each person is a feat unto itself, but Apollodorus does attempt it, sharing each persons speech regarding love as they go around the table at a party, although he repeatedly said throughout the piece “it’s what he thought he heard.” The most challenging part for Apollodorus though, was when he got up to Socrates, who proceeded to make his elaborate point through questions to Agathon, and a dialogue between himself and a mythical Diatoma. How he did that is beyond me, and how Plato managed to tell it to us even more so. Although we learnt more than just the meaning of love from this dialogue, we were also afforded a glimpse into how Socrates went about teaching, he didn’t say it outright in fancy prose or rhetoric like the many members at the table, but did so in what has now been dubbed the socratic method of teaching. He strung Agathon along, asking him a series of simplistic questions allowing him to derive the conclusions on his own. And though that elaborate process he not only proved everyone else wrong but himself right. For truly, “Love is in between and being ignorant.”