He stumbles to Agathon’s couch to crown him with a wreath in honor of his victory, but is horrified to find Socrates sitting next to Agathon.

Alcibiades, drunk and nearly naked, literally crashes the party after attending another symposium elsewhere. Suddenly, there is a crash at the door, and in drunkenly stumbles the perfect proof that love is not always a good thing. Each speaker presumed that love was an excellent and praiseworthy thing, all presenting very similar views, and Socrates contradicts them all while gaining their admiration. This fits with the presentation of Socrates in the Apology, as a talented debater who can show others that they do not know what they presume to know. Socrates does not put forward a positive position as much as relativise the praise of all the earlier speakers, showing that something of what they say is true, but only to a certain extent. Socrates explains the nature of love, but love is ambiguous, mysterious and on both sides of various oppositions, evading our judgements of it.

This is similar to Confucius, who says that people are far too preoccupied with sex and that wise, great people give to others what they desire for themselves and improve others in order to improve themselves. The genuine philosopher is inspired by love to improve all people, not have sex with the young men they find attractive. If the lover, which increasingly becomes the philosopher, comes to value wisdom, beauty and virtue above particular attractive people and things. At first we love physical beauty, and because we desire people and things we find beautiful we are inspired to create beautiful ideas. Diotima taught that love is a mystery, something we rise into beyond what we know in its lower forms.

Mortal humans want to be immortal, and they attempt to do this by creating offspring with their bodies as well as ideas with their minds which live beyond them. Diotima taught Socrates that human beings are all pregnant (surprise!) with the desire to procreate both mentally and physically.

The banquet plato