Diotima

The priestess of Mantinea whom Socrates, in Plato's Symposium (201d–212a), names as his teacher "in the things of love" (ta erōtika) and whose doctrine of love he reports. Diotima delivers the dialogue's philosophical core: love as lack and as a daimōn intermediate (metaxu) between mortal and immortal; love's true object as "possessing the good forever," hence immortality through "giving birth in beauty"; and the ladder of love ascending to Beauty itself. She "seems an invention" (Cooper) — a device by which Plato distances the ascent-doctrine from Socrates (whom Diotima warns "probably cannot follow" her to the "final and highest mystery") — and is the one substantial female philosophical voice in the dialogues.

Key Points

• The teacher of the erotic ascent. Socrates reports rather than asserts the doctrine; the ladder of love (210a–211c) and the vision of Beauty itself (211a–b) are placed in Diotima's mouth.
• Love as metaxu. Diotima refutes the assumption that Love is a beautiful god: love is of what it lacks, so Love is a "great spirit," intermediate — the philosophos who loves wisdom because he lacks it (202d–204c).
• "Diotima is an invention" (Cooper). The nesting of voices (Socrates reporting Diotima, who doubts Socrates can follow) is read as Plato's signal that "this theory of the Beautiful is his own contrivance, not really an idea of Socrates" — a distancing device. See claims#symposium-dramatizes-its-counter-thesis (candidate).
• Possibly historical, probably not. The dialogue gives her a precise origin (Mantinea) and a feat (postponing the plague), but no independent attestation exists; ancient and modern readers divide.

Connections

• is the voice of eros — the Symposium's teaching on love as lack, the metaxu, birth-in-beauty, and the ladder to Beauty itself.
• is reported by socrates — who names her his teacher and disclaims her highest mystery.
• is an invention of plato — the priestess who distances the ascent-doctrine from Socrates (Cooper).
• teaches the ascent that contrasts with anamnesis — beauty as a ladder climbed, not a vision recollected.

Sources

• plato-symposium — Diotima's teaching (201d–212a): love as lack and metaxu, the good and immortality, "giving birth in beauty," the ladder, and Beauty itself.