If the purpose of philosophic thinking is to arrive at truths, then a male and a female engaging in philosophic exchange must both have the same purpose. But men and women rarely have the same ends in mind. They must both be trying to reach truth. In philosophical exchange between a male and a female, each will want to arrive at truth and will try to find out where the other stands on certain questions. Diotima’s method, therefore, is not a mere intellectual game, nor does she teach through mere questions and answers; rather, it is a method of philosophic inquiry that requires a certain kind of mental discipline. The questions put to Protagoras in Plato’s dialogue about the Sophists also show Diotima’s inquisitive nature. For male-female philosophical dialogue to work, the woman must have no personal stake in the outcome of the philosophical exchange, no need to prove a point or to win a contest. Instead, her purpose is to ask what the male will say, then wait patiently to see where he will go.
We learn of Socrates’ method, too, in a later dialogue between Socrates and Diotima, in Plato’s Symposium. In this dialogue, in the course of an argument about the nature of love, Diotima says, “We know, then, that the soul and reason have their proper offices among us; but of what sort and of what nature they are we know not, and yet it is for this very reason that each of us is a lover of wisdom and knowledge and desireth to reach the truth; for if the nature of the soul is such that she is the principle of her own nature and can think and judge for herself and if, besides this, reason is her guide, to whom else can she turn but the wise? For a soul that is without knowledge of what is, of what there is and of what the truth is, cannot have any good or evil within her, nor will she know what kind of a life is good and what kind evil; wherefore, if such a soul be born, she must of necessity be born in ignorance.” This passage reveals how Diotima and Socrates were coming to grips with the nature of the soul, and it is clear from the context of the Symposium that Socrates was not simply making a general point about his own pursuit of wisdom, but was trying to prove something about the very nature of the soul, the very nature of human nature.
Male eros in Socrates’ day was viewed as impure, as having the character of a blind animal. And yet, male eros was a powerful force, a winged demon, and was responsible for much of human achievement. Male eros had been the dominant force in the development of Western culture, as Plato wrote in The Symposium. Diotima says: What is more useful to mankind than this capacity, this passion of love, and what is there that produces the greatest and most useful fruits? It is this that is the cause of cities and of constitutions and laws and arts and all the other things we see to be most useful to men.
Plato, here, is trying to show us that eros is not just a kind of sexual appetite but something even more powerful than this, the force behind human civilization.