Diotima on Eros, Eudaimonia, and Immortality

Abstract: In Plato's Symposium , Diotima ends her speech suggesting that erōs is the key to immortality. This raises two problems. First, if erōs is aimed at one's own immortality, then it seems selfish and not a genuine form of interpersonal love. Second, she argues that erōs leads us to procreate, but procreation is a way of producing others, not ourselves. In this article the author argues that our misunderstandings of erōs and eudaimonia account for the trouble we have in seeing how Diotima succeeds in explaining a reasonable balance between prudent self-care and genuine love of others that leaves room for a genuine, albeit exotic, personal immortality.