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'''Diotima of Mantinea''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|d|aɪ|ə|ˈ|t|aɪ|m|ə}}; {{lang-el|Διοτίμα}}; {{lang-la|Diotīma}}) was an [[ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] prophetess and [[philosopher]] (possibly fictional), thought to have lived circa 440 B.C.E., who plays an important role in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]''. In the dialogue, her ideas are the origin of the concept of [[Platonic love]]. Beginning in the 1980s, the dehistoricization of Diotima became a subject of interest for several feminist scholars, including Mary Ellen Waithe.<ref name=":1">{{cite book|title=A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD|last=Waithe|first=Mary Ellen|date=1987|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff|ISBN=9789024733484|editor-last=Waithe|editor-first=Mary Ellen|place=Dordrecht|pages=83–116|chapter=Diotima of Mantinea|accessdate=October 10, 2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5taj_6aiEwC&lpg=PA83&vq=Diotima&pg=PA83}}</ref> In 2005, [[Margaret Urban Walker]] a specialist in moral and feminist philosophy, summarized Waithe's research, stating that "the evidence for Diotima's reality is substantial, even if not conclusive, and that her imaginary status appears to be a fifteenth-century fiction that stuck."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Urban Walker|first=Margaret|date=Summer 2005|title=Diotima's Ghost: The Uncertain Place of Feminist Philosophy in Professional Philosophy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3811120?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents|journal=Hypatia|volume=20|pages=153-164|via=JSTOR}}</ref>. Historians of ancient philosophy, such as Luc Brisson, one of the foremost specialists of Platon in France, are more dubious.
'''Diotima of Mantinea''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|d|aɪ|ə|ˈ|t|aɪ|m|ə}}; {{lang-el|Διοτίμα}}; {{lang-la|Diotīma}}) was an [[ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] prophetess and [[philosopher]] (possibly fictional), thought to have lived circa 440 B.C.E., who plays an important role in [[Plato]]'s ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]''. In the dialogue, her ideas are the origin of the concept of [[Platonic love]]. Beginning in the 1980s, the dehistoricization of Diotima became a subject of interest for several feminist scholars, including Mary Ellen Waithe.<ref name=":1">{{cite book|title=A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD|last=Waithe|first=Mary Ellen|date=1987|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff|ISBN=9789024733484|editor-last=Waithe|editor-first=Mary Ellen|place=Dordrecht|pages=83–116|chapter=Diotima of Mantinea|accessdate=October 10, 2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5taj_6aiEwC&lpg=PA83&vq=Diotima&pg=PA83}}</ref> In 2005, [[Margaret Urban Walker]] a specialist in moral and feminist philosophy, summarized Waithe's research, stating that "the evidence for Diotima's reality is substantial, even if not conclusive, and that her imaginary status appears to be a fifteenth-century fiction that stuck."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Urban Walker|first=Margaret|date=Summer 2005|title=Diotima's Ghost: The Uncertain Place of Feminist Philosophy in Professional Philosophy|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3811120?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents|journal=Hypatia|volume=20|pages=153-164|via=JSTOR}}</ref>. Historians of ancient philosophy, such as Luc Brisson, one of the foremost specialists of Plato in France, are more dubious.


==Identity==
==Identity==

Revision as of 15:39, 12 January 2019

Diotima of Mantinea
EraAncient philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolClassical Greek
Notable ideas
Platonic love

Diotima of Mantinea (/ˌdaɪəˈtaɪmə/; Template:Lang-el; Template:Lang-la) was an ancient Greek prophetess and philosopher (possibly fictional), thought to have lived circa 440 B.C.E., who plays an important role in Plato's Symposium. In the dialogue, her ideas are the origin of the concept of Platonic love. Beginning in the 1980s, the dehistoricization of Diotima became a subject of interest for several feminist scholars, including Mary Ellen Waithe.[1] In 2005, Margaret Urban Walker a specialist in moral and feminist philosophy, summarized Waithe's research, stating that "the evidence for Diotima's reality is substantial, even if not conclusive, and that her imaginary status appears to be a fifteenth-century fiction that stuck."[2]. Historians of ancient philosophy, such as Luc Brisson, one of the foremost specialists of Plato in France, are more dubious.

Identity

Jadwiga Łuszczewska, who used the pen name Diotima, posing as the ancient seer in a painting by Józef Simmler, 1855

The name Diotima means "Zeus Honor", either in the active sense of a woman who honors Zeus, or in the passive sense of a woman honored by Zeus.[3]

She was said to be from the Peloponnesian city of Mantinea, which allied itself with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. The Greek form of this place, Mantinike, appears to contain the root "mantis", meaning "prophet, seer", and strongly suggests that Diotima was herself a prophetess, or at least somehow associated with prophecy. Diotima Mantinike thus would sound like "Diotima from Prophet-victory". Socrates provides additional significant information for his fellow symposiasts about Diotima Mantinike that hints at her victorious prophetic powers.[3]

Since the only contemporaneous source concerning her is Plato, doubts have been raised about whether she was a real historical personage or merely a fictional creation; however, nearly all of the characters named in Plato's dialogues have been found to correspond to real people living in ancient Athens.[4]

Plato was thought by most 19th and early 20th century scholars to have based Diotima on Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, so impressed was he by her intelligence and wit. However, Aspasia appears under her own name in Plato's dialogue Menexenus, and some scholars have convincingly argued that Plato did not use false names: therefore, Diotima could be a historical figure.[5]

A first century bronze relief found in Pompeii depicts Socrates and an unnamed female figure, along with a winged Eros; although some have supposed the seated woman in the image to be Diotima, others have argued her appearance (notably a necklace) would suggest she is in fact more likely to be Aphrodite or Aspasia. It should be noted that writings from the second through the fifth centuries A.D., refer to Diotima as a real person, although Plato is probably their only basis for this. The suggestion that she was a fictional creation was not introduced until the 15th century (notably by Marsilio Ficino), probably based on the fact that she was a woman[1]; however, this plausible hypothesis (with numerous parallels in the study of Platonic dialogues, for instance Callicles in the Gorgias) was in fact put forward because Diotima is not mentioned by contemporary or near-contemporary sources and because her very name and origin could be understood as symbolic.[citation needed]

Role in Symposium

In Plato's Symposium the members of a party discuss the meaning of love. Socrates says that in his youth he was taught "the philosophy of love" by Diotima, who was a seer or priestess. Socrates also claims that Diotima successfully postponed the Plague of Athens. In a dialogue that Socrates recounts at the symposium, Diotima gives Socrates a genealogy of Love (Eros), stating that he is the son of "resource and poverty". In her view, love is a means of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Diotima, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of Divinity.[6] The beautiful beloved inspires the mind and the soul and directs one's attention to spiritual things. One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty, to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity.

Relief of a woman holding a liver for hepatoscopy, probably a depiction of Diotima of Mantineia.

Influence and use of name

"Diotima" has often been used as a title for philosophical or artistic projects, journals, essays, etc.:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b Waithe, Mary Ellen (1987). "Diotima of Mantinea". In Waithe, Mary Ellen (ed.). A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. pp. 83–116. ISBN 9789024733484. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  2. ^ Urban Walker, Margaret (Summer 2005). "Diotima's Ghost: The Uncertain Place of Feminist Philosophy in Professional Philosophy". Hypatia. 20: 153–164 – via JSTOR.
  3. ^ a b Evans, Nancy. "Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato's Symposium." Hypatia, vol. 21, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810989.
  4. ^ Ruby Blondell The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p.31
  5. ^ Wider, Kathleen. "Women philosophers in the Ancient Greek World: Donning the Mantle". Hypatia vol 1 no 1 Spring 1986. Part of her argument focuses on the point that all scholars who argued "for" a fictitious Diotima were male, and most used as a starting point Smith's uncertainty of her actual existence (Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870).
  6. ^ Plato, Symposium, 210a–212b

References

  • Navia, Luis E., Socrates, the man and his philosophy, pp. 30, 171. University Press of America ISBN 0-8191-4854-7.
  • Evans, Nancy. “Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato's Symposium.” Hypatia, vol. 21, no. 2, 2006, pp. 1–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810989.
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