Sexual Enticement in Academia (a Fable)
Sexual Enticement in Academia (a Fable)
Let’s consider a hypothetical case (I emphasize hypothetical). Suppose we live in a society in which a certain problem is perceived to exist in the universities—the problem of sexual enticement. The problem arises when a student, male or female, entices a professor, male or female, into a sexual relationship in exchange for special treatment. The student may feel no such attraction, or they may, but the main motive is to secure professional advantages—good grades, grant money, research assistantships, etc. We can suppose that the targeted professors tend to be lonely types susceptible to such advances. The advances need not be strictly sexual but may extend to romantic but platonic relationships. They may lead to good work being done by student and professor together and to professional advancement by the student; no one is harmed thereby. However, such relationships are frowned upon on grounds of unfair favoritism and are forbidden by the university’s by-laws. Still, they occur. In fact, there is quite a lot of it about—enticement and acquiescence. It’s agreed to be something of a problem.
Suppose now that there have recently been some high-profile rather flagrant cases of sexual enticement that have made the headlines (journalists love these stories). Students have successfully enticed certain famous professors into some egregious reciprocation, amounting to good money going to the student in question. It is getting to be a national scandal. Politicians have gotten involved. The university decides to crack down on this “epidemic of sexual enticement”. Administrators are afraid, with some reason, that it will affect funding: people won’t contribute money to the university if a lot of this sexual enticement nonsense is going on. They thus start to impose strict penalties on this kind of “sexual misconduct”: the student’s working relationship to the professor may be severed, which may derail the student’s career, and the professor may be subject to disciplinary action too (say, pay reduction). In extreme cases, the student may be expelled and her (or his) life ruined, but the crime is deemed sufficiently abominable that these measures are thought justified. This scourge must be stopped; we have zero tolerance for sexual enticement; etc. In a couple of cases harsh treatment has led to suicide on the part of the student (though never the professor), but this outcome is judged acceptable given the gravity of the offence—public ridicule and denunciation of the student are only to be expected in such a case. And indeed, some cases have been notably egregious—like that serial enticer from Bathsheba College who made a fortune from weak-willed professors, male and female (she was thought to be highly alluring). The hope is that such sexual and romantic quid pro quos would be eliminated from the universities: just say no to sexual enticement!
In truth, the atmosphere had become somewhat hysterical, fueled no doubt by the sexual element (people didn’t seem to care too much about simple embezzlement). People started to get rather worked-up about it, seeing it everywhere, even in simple friendship between student and professor. In fact, in a certain instance, things got out of hand. It happened like this. A student and a professor developed a warm relationship while engaged on a certain academic project. The student was very good and the project worthwhile (something in botany). There was no enticement and no sexual dimension (or even romantic) but it might be described as a loving relationship somewhat like a father-daughter relationship. However, another student in the same department grew suspicious and annoyed at their closeness and decided to report it to the authorities. He went to the human resource office and reported a case of sexual enticement (and complicity in enticement). The university officials, on being alerted to the situation, initiated an inquiry, summoning both parties for interview. They had had a couple of recent cases of this infringement of university rules and wanted to get on top of the situation, mindful of issues of public outrage and funding concerns. They concluded, however, that the report was false—there had been no such enticement, sexual or romantically platonic. The student and her professor were just good friends and (yes) quite fond of each other. There had been no impropriety at all. Still, as one seasoned dean pointed out, there could be a perception of impropriety, and the professor was actually rather well-known publicly. They needed to cover themselves in the event of bad publicity and consequent defunding, which seemed all too likely. But they could find nothing in the statutes that they could accuse the pair of, thus opening themselves up to accusations of being soft on sexual enticement. There were warm emails between the two that could be interpreted as verging on the enticing (“It was so nice to see you today” etc.). In the current political atmosphere these could be cited in support of a sexual enticement allegation. So, they decided to accuse the student of intending to initiate sexual enticement—involving what they called “micro-enticements” and “pre-enticement conduct”. They then severed pedagogical relations between the two and issued a reprimand to the professor for tolerating the student’s enticement-related intentions. This way they could claim to have punished the wrong-doers and therefore not face funding cuts for laxity about campus misbehavior. Nevertheless, the story made it to the college newspaper and then to the wider world, leading to the student having to leave the university and her career being destroyed. It was put about (falsely) by assorted enticement activists (generally disgruntled students) that this was a cover-up on the part of the administration, and that the student had blatantly seduced the professor in exchange for professional perks and a glowing reference letter. The last that was heard of her she was working in a Wendy’s somewhere, being unable to find another botany department willing to take her; she had been branded as a “predatory sexual enticer”. No matter that she denied it and that there was no evidence of it. Meanwhile the university administrators kept their jobs and got their pay raises. The sexual morals of the university had been preserved thanks to their zealous actions (and the funding kept coming in).[1]
[1] Let me repeat that this is intended as a cartoonish hypothetical story not a report of an actual course of events. I know of no actual situation that resembles this. The point is to put actual cases in a new light, revealing the political dynamics involved. It is also intended to be funny in a campus-novel kind of way—a satire, if you like.
Minimalism and Maximalism in Philosophy
Minimalism and Maximalism in Philosophy
There are two broad tendencies in philosophy, which I will label minimalism and maximalism. Minimalism tends to minimize the number of entities and kinds in the world; maximalism tends to maximize them. The few versus the many. Occam’s razor characterizes the former tendency; the latter has no established metaphor, so I will call it Liberace’s pompadour. The spare versus the luxuriant. One likes desert landscapes, the other prefers tropical jungles. Minimalism is influenced by epistemological considerations (ease of thought); maximalism is excited by ontological variety (the more the merrier). The minimalist loves the general; the maximalist loves the particular. This polarity operates across the whole field of philosophy and determines its shape. We would do well to decide which doctrine is true.
Let’s first consider mental minimalism, arguably the paradigm. It comes in several forms: a single substance (usually the body), ideas and impressions, behavioral reflexes, beliefs and desires, brain states, computational states. The maximalist is less easily characterized, but the general idea is to include more kinds of mental state: perceptions, emotions, decisions, intentions, images, thoughts, meanings, bodily sensations. These are held not to reduce to items on my first list, e.g., beliefs and desires. An ultra-maximalist might add telepathic powers and forms of mental energy (more on this later). Depending on the details, there might be, say, ten times as many items on the maximalist’s list than the minimalist’s list. Typically, the maximalist will insist on an irreducibility thesis, such as that intentions are not reducible to beliefs and desires (reasons). The minimalist will try to get by with as little as possible while saving the appearances. He will brandish Occam’s razor, while the maximalist will groom Liberace’s bouffon. The mental minimalist will typically be an anti-maximalist, as opposed to a right-off-the-bat minimalist for whom it is evident at first sight that the mind consists of only a couple of basic natural kinds; ordinary language certainly does not encourage such a view. Minimalism is reductive in the sense of reducing the number of mental kinds in the world.
What about linguistic minimalism? The Tractatus is extremely minimalist—just names and assertive sentences. The Investigations is exuberantly maximalist: there are indefinitly many kinds of sentence and words are irreducibly various. Frege and Russell are also minimalist. J.L. Austin is of the maximalist school, what with his performatives and illocutionary forces. Davidson is a minimalist regarding logical form and he takes truth as semantically universal. Chomsky is both syntactically minimalist and syntactically maximalist at different periods. Kripke is maximalist about proper names compared to description theorists (there are two semantic categories here not one). Grice is maximalist about the structure of meaning (those complex intentions) but minimalist about the scope of his theory (it is supposed to apply to all speech acts).
In logic we also have the minimalists and the maximalists: the only true logic is first-order predicate calculus (Quine), or there are many equally worthy logics using different basic concepts (second-order, modal, tense, deontic, etc.). Logical maximalism would not jib at granting logical status to any type of valid inference, including simple analytic inferences. It might even talk of a “logic of emotion” or some such. The extreme logical minimalist might favor the rejection of quantifiers from logic proper (where would that end?), preferring the purity of the propositional calculus, perhaps using only the Scheffer stroke. Then there are those ultra-maximalists who fear not a paraconsistent logic—contradictions are just another kind of logical form useful for certain purposes.
Then we have epistemological minimalism and maximalism. The maximally minimalist view would be that all knowledge fits the empiricist paradigm, i.e., all knowledge is based on sense experience. Maximalism would find room for a priori knowledge, itself subdividing into the analytic and the synthetic, and possibly including ethical knowledge. It might further be maintained that knowledge divides into a large plurality consisting of the special sciences, history, folk psychology, aesthetics, and bottle washing. Just as there are many language games, so there are many knowledge games, each with its own style of justification. Some enthusiasts may claim knowledge in areas not usually deemed respectable, such as telepathic knowledge; or suggest that female knowledge is separate from male knowledge. The minimalist will shake his head, observing that this is what you get if you reject epistemological minimalism. Epistemology should be minimized not maximized (naturalized minimalism being the preferred doctrine).
Further, we have ethics: does everything good and right spring from a single source or is it that ethics divides into many goods and rights? Thus, utilitarianism versus deontology—one big right or a plurality of little rights. It is the same pattern repeating itself, depending on temperament or philosophical conviction. Do we prefer a single general principle or a variety of sui generis principles? The universal or the particular? Minimalism offers to simplify moral reasoning, while maximalism promises to respect complexity. Do we reduce or multiply, level or differentiate? Should there be a moral Tractatus or a moral Investigations (and why didn’t Wittgenstein talk about this?). We can even extend the question to mathematics: are there many kinds of numbers linked only by family resemblance or are all numbers basically the same (variations on the natural numbers)? Is arithmetic a menagerie or an assembly line? In the case of natural languages, we have the dispute about whether all languages are basically the same or whether there are as many languages as dialects (Chomsky versus the anthropologists, roughly).
Finally, metaphysics: is the world, reality, one or many? Is it all physical or all mental or both? Monism versus dualism. What about the abstract? And then we have extreme ontological pluralism: there are indefinitely many types of things and no overarching categorization of them. Our love of generality deceives us about the real variety of nature. Distinctions like particular and universal are too general to capture the full range of reality. It is plurality all the way down. Then too, we have substance ontologies and event ontologies: do we need both or can we get by with only one of them? Are there several types of substances and a great variety of events or just one of each? Should we give up trying to generalize and unify and instead revel in multiplicity? Is it life’s rich pageant or the Sahara Desert? After all, even elementary particles have revealed considerable variety in their basic types, as have celestial bodies. The observable universe is a zoo of giant objects; or do they all reduce to a common denominator? Astronomical minimalism or astronomical maximalism?
Is there any pattern in this range of subject-matters? Can we infer minimalism in one area from minimalism in another (say, mind and language)? Does maximalism spread from one area to another? How minimal can things get, or how maximal? Is there such a thing as total minimalism in which a single natural kind covers the whole of Creation–as it might be, Euclidian extension? Could ethics be a variation on geometry? On the other hand, could maximalism dispense even with the idea of shared properties, holding each thing to be its own unique universe? Could things have nothing in common? Or could there be a kind of law governing reality according to which there is an upper bound on ontological multiplicity—say, never more than 99 kinds of things? A kind of universal constant limiting how various things can be. There doesn’t seem to be any upper bound on how many biological species there could be, but is the same thing true of particles or numbers or ethical duties or emotions? Are there any relations of dependency among classes of things—for example, are there as many kinds of mental state as there of are brain state? How many kinds of logic are there and does this bear any relation to the kinds of lexical item in human language? What about the varieties of knowledge and the varieties of being? Is there a kind of arithmetic of philosophy, whereby the numerosity of an area correlates with that of another area? For example, are there precisely double the number of emotion words as the number of emotions? Is there a kind of philosophical mathematics?
Are there any a priori reasons to favor philosophical minimalism or philosophical maximalism? Minimalism goes with simplicity, so is there any a priori reason to believe that reality is simple? It would make things simpler epistemologically, to be sure, but isn’t that a rather anthropocentric attitude? Isn’t it, frankly, suspiciously anti-realist? Why should the universe care about our cognitive limitations? Maximalism allows the world to outstrip our classificatory powers, or at least tax them; this is something a realist will want to allow. Yet is there any a priori reason to suppose that all universes are complex and multi-storied? Why not a universe conforming to strict minimalist principles? It seems to be an empirical question how variegated a universe is (God had a lot of leeway). Ours is actually pretty complicated to judge by appearances—our minds, our bodies, our language, our ethics, our types of knowledge, our sciences, our mathematics. Simple it isn’t. We might well have to make room for what could be called mysterian maximalism: there are a large number of unknown, or even unknowable, kinds of fact in the universe. We have only scratched the surface of the universe’s plurality. We have certainly expanded our sense of variety as our knowledge has advanced, and we might be in store for more of the same (types of matter, types of force, types of mind). There could be more kinds of things than Horatio has ever dreamt of. Unless, dream of dreams, it all comes down to a couple of basic kinds, hitherto unknown.[1]
[1] I have not in this paper tried to adjudicate between minimalism and maximalism, or between the different varieties of these doctrines, but it should be evident that I side with the maximalists in most cases (though not in the case of telepathy or unicorns or phlogiston–I am a moderate maximalist). Rather, I wanted to set out an identifiable common theme in philosophy, to be set beside realism and anti-realism and like dichotomies. What I find interesting is this temperamental or doctrinal split—its origin and dynamics. How and why does it arise and play out as it does? Why are some people in love with the One while others adore the Many?
Levels of Philosophy
Levels of Philosophy
Tennis players talk about their level. Some players play at a higher level than others: their abilities exceed those of others. In this vein we may speak of a player as at a different level from his potential rivals—a cut above, in a different class or league. We might even say that a single player plays at a different and higher level than all other players living or dead. Can we say the same of philosophers? I think not. Certainly, some philosophers are better than others, but I don’t think anyone stands out as in a class of his own, as operating at a higher level than anyone else. Nor do I think a select few occupy a level that others can’t reach. I don’t think the rationalists operate at a higher philosophical level than the empiricists, say. I don’t think Kant is at a higher level than Hume (or Locke or Berkeley): he is not better at philosophy (as Alcaraz is better at tennis). I don’t think Wittgenstein is at a higher philosophical level than Russell (or vice versa). I think some artists and writers are at a higher level than others (Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Poussin). The Beatles are at a higher level than other rock bands. And so on. But philosophers seem to be equal in their level (though not in their proximity to truth) in the upper echelons. Just list all the famous philosophers in history—do you think any of them are head and shoulders above others in raw philosophical ability? I think the same can be said of physicists and mathematicians—much of a muchness. The human brain seems to max out at a certain point in these areas; no one is above all the rest (or some small group). There is no singular philosophical superstar standing out from all others—not even Plato and Aristotle, stellar as they were. Such a one is conceivable, but none is actual.
And yet even the very best philosophers are startlingly limited. They are limited in scope, clarity, creativity, and staying power. It seems logically possible that someone could stand out from the pack in these respects. For a while it seemed that Wittgenstein could be such a one, but that dream has crumbled, dramatically so. It was tempting for a few years to think that Kripke could be the singular superstar, but that hope has also faded with the passage of time (if only he could have gone on producing work at the level of Naming and Necessity!). All men are mortal, I guess. There have been many excellent philosophers, but no one whose level surpassed that of others (no Shakespeare or Michelangelo or Simone Biles). In fact, the limitations are as evident as the achievements: Kant’s grotesque prose style, Wittgenstein’s obscurity, Russell’s overconfidence, Kripke’s lack of productivity (neurosis), Quine’s behaviorist myopia, etc. There seems to be logical room for a truly outstanding philosopher to stand on, but no one outstanding enough to stand there. No one operating at another level. No one with the complete all-round game–with no weakness in the backhand or second serve. Someone you can watch and say: “There is no one else at this level”. I don’t mean there is no bestphilosopher; I mean someone whose game exists on a higher plane altogether, outclassing all others. An undisputed champion, a uniquely exceptional performer. No one of whom we say that we will never see his like again. If Plato and Aristotle were alive today and had the finest of philosophical educations, I still don’t think we would accord them this accolade: they would not qualify as philosophers of a level unheard of in anyone else. Sure, they were good for their time, even great, but they were not of a different philosophical caliber from other men, made of superior stuff. They were not intellectual gods (Plato rambles a bit, Aristotle doesn’t ramble enough). And yet there could be such gods—they are metaphysically possible. Just improve your prose style, make yourself clearer, be more self-critical, get down to work, don’t fall for the latest craze in psychology. It’s not that hard to raise your game, but people seem incapable of doing it. Many philosophers could have been a contender for the coveted title, but for some reason or other couldn’t get it together (like Alcaraz refusing to turn up for practice). It’s not as if you have to learn to do philosophy with your left hand, after all; you just have to put in the work necessary to get your level up a notch or two.[1]
[1] (I’m trying, in tennis and philosophy.) It is almost as if the great philosophers don’t deign to put in the necessary work, thinking that they have it made already. They are like tennis players who refuse to practice their serve, thinking it adequate as it is. In particular, they are content to work in a limited area in which they have made their mark, declining to expand their game. Or else they just find it all too tiring and would prefer to sleep late. No one seems genetically at a higher level than others, or to work harder than others.
Alien Mouth Science
Alien Mouth Science
“How was your expedition to planet Earth?”
“Oh, it was quite interesting. We gathered some fascinating specimens. One was a strange species that talks with the same organ it eats with”.
“Wow. How is that possible? How do they talk while they are eating?”
“They don’t. They have to alternate. It’s quite comical to watch them as they try to chew and speak in some organized way. Sometimes they almost choke—it’s hilarious. You can see the food in their mouth as they struggle to tell a joke!”.
“Disgusting. Next you are going tell me they spit food out as they talk to each other!”
“That’s exactly what happens. They have this funny little muscle in their talking organ that flits about in there and sometimes expels bits of food and saliva. It’s gross.”
“Sounds like a weird way to have a conversation. Anything else?”
“Well, yes, and it gets even weirder. They kiss with the same thing!”
“What? They kiss with the organ that eats and also talks! Isn’t that really unhygienic, not to mention revolting? Doesn’t the food get on the other person’s lips and in their mouth?”
“Indeed it does, copiously. It spreads disease and makes kissing taste funny.”
“But how can they talk as they kiss?”
“They can’t. The kissing is eerily silent. Plus, they can’t have a snack while kissing.”
“That’s no way to kiss—one wants to have a chat and a nibble while enjoying a kiss.”
“Obviously. But that’s not all: the kissing is done by an organ that can be used for biting. Kissing and biting exist in the same spot, if I may put it so. And the biting can be quite nasty.”
“Isn’t that very confusing for them, and also scary? The person you are kissing could easily bite you, like a piece of food or an enemy.”
“Our way is much superior: talking, eating, kissing, and biting are all handled separately.”
“Whoever thought up that plan? It’s cruel and illogical. Is there anything else?”
“Well, yes, but I was trying to avoid the topic. The genitals are in a separate location, some distance from the kissing organ. Instead of putting them in the same vicinity, which is obviously the best design, they are at some distance from each other, so the act of love is carried on in two places simultaneously.”
“That is positively perverted: they kiss with a body part that they eat and talk with, but when they copulate, they have to shift to a different area of the body!”
“Exactly: they have to use two organs together. How do they coordinate the two?”
“One point of clarification: where do they defecate from? Presumably from the same place they eat, like us, but how does it work with the talking and kissing?”
“Oh no, they defecate from a quite different place, at the end of a tube that sort of spits it out.”
“Again, counterintuitive, but not unreasonable given the other functions performed by the mouth. Better to eat and defecate from the same place at a reasonable distance from the genitals and talking organ. I wonder why they concentrate everything in the oral area?”
“Who knows, evolution is a peculiar business. Would you like to come and see them yourself? We have some of them caged for public display. It is a sight to behold.”
“By all means, if I can stomach it.”
PTSD
PTSD
I am 76 and I suffer from PTSD. In fact, I have two doses of it. One is medical: cancer and its treatment, dating from 2023. The other is psychological, dating from 2013, and concerns my departure from the University of Miami. I have no wish to discuss either situation and indeed generally avoid discussing either of them (I would like to expunge both from my memory). But I would like to say something analytical and therapeutic, in case it may help someone else and to clarify my own thoughts on the subject. In my experience, this condition is characterized by a chronic apprehensiveness—that there may be a recurrence. It feels as if the world might suddenly give way beneath your feet for no discernible reason. You never know what might happen and you can’t stop it from happening. All you can do is ride the wave as best you can. There is an initial shock and then a drawn-out aftermath. It is like being hit on the head from behind and concussed. You are constantly looking over your shoulder. There can be intense anger, a sense of outrage. Some people around you behave well, others badly (incredibly badly). You go into survival mode. Sleep is an ordeal. What is particularly troubling is the accumulation of aftershocks over a longish period of time. It never seems to be finished, and you have to think about it—your life depends on it. Your life feels threatened. Small things like car accidents get magnified. Pet deaths hit you hard. People close to you suffer too, through no fault of their own. It is not so much post-traumatic as traumatic.
How to deal with it? There may not be a uniform formula, but I can talk about my own case. I did things I valued and spent time with people I liked. I kept away from people and things I didn’t like. Here I was fortunate. I wrote and read, played tennis, played music, threw knives, swam, sang. In particular, I wrote articles for this blog: these are my answer to PTSD, medical or psychological. This gave me an escape from the ongoing psychological torments of trauma. I dedicated myself to daily tennis, because I needed to make a physical recovery. Slowly and steadily, I regained normality—I mean, over a number of years. It took work and concentration. I was lucky in some ways: I didn’t die and my mind wasn’t permanently damaged. Of course, I bear the scars (I will show you them if you like) and they will never go away. There is a reason people are called “survivors”: it isn’t victory but sheer persistence. You don’t beat it, but it doesn’t beat you. Is there anything good about it? Not that I can see, though I suppose it does concentrate the mind (like the death penalty). And it really is about death: will it kill you or will you come out on the other side? Am I a better person for it? I don’t think so, perhaps slightly worse (I have less tolerance for idiots—you see what I mean?). I think it is good to recognize PTSD for what it is and face up to the challenge; there’s no use denying it. I have no uplifting positive note to end on.
Persuasion and Imagination in Philosophy
Persuasion and Imagination in Philosophy
Persuasion clearly plays a large role in philosophical practice. We do it by means of logical argument based upon generally accepted premises; we don’t tend to marshal new evidence. In consequence of this we encounter a good deal of refutation, or at least resistance and rejection. We try to persuade people and respond to their objections. We are trained to be good at it, with some better than others. We also make liberal use of the imagination: we imagine possible scenarios and construct thought experiments. Do these activities have counterparts elsewhere? Indeed they do—in human life and in other species. People and animals act persuasively all the time, and also use their imagination. We philosophers are employing basic biological traits. What kinds of persuading and imagining are most common and salient in human and animal populations? I take it that I will surprise and shock no one if I cite sexual varieties of these talents: animals persuade other animals to mate with them, and human beings (I don’t know about animals) engage in sexual fantasy. Attempts at procreative persuasion may be met with rejection and resistance, just like philosophical arguments. Sexual imagination can be more or less ingenious and can be performed alone. It is a not implausible theory that imagination in general stems from sexual imagination, though the biological function of such imagination is obscure (private practice?). A person might, on occasion, imagine a sexual act and then try to persuade someone else to do it with them. Persuasion and imagination are clearly basic human traits, and sex is just as clearly written deep into them.
The point I am laboriously leading up to is that (you guessed it!) these two traits lend to philosophy an erotic edge—a sexual vibe. All that persuading and imagining, performing and fantasizing! I hereby offer the following compelling proof of this bold conjecture: you can “proposition” someone for sex and you can also do it when delivering a philosophy paper (“I would like you to accept the following proposition”). You are trying to get their assent. You are trying to persuade someone to believe that p, and you are trying to persuade someone to agree to F (you see what I did there). When you invite your audience to imagine a state of affairs in a philosophy talk, you are asking them to do something resembling sexual fantasy. The same faculty is being activated. If your talk is about the philosophy of sex, you might ask them to imagine merely possible ways of having sex. The sexual connotations of persuasion and imagination will not trail far behind, contributing to the sexual aura of the activity. Socrates was always propositioning people in the marketplace. Kant was a tireless seducer (of opinion). Russell had a highly alluring patois. Sartre knew how to turn on the dialectical charm. Wittgenstein knew how to mesmerize. Of course, we suppress these connotations normally, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that they operate somewhere in the background. The mind is susceptible to natural affinities. They can be added to other ways in which sex and philosophy intersect, as I have discussed elsewhere.[1]
[1] See various papers on this blog. The social psychology of philosophy should not be ignored: theatrical performance, charisma, humor, style, competition, intellectual fashion, peacocking, charm. In Plato’s Symposium, the assembled individuals relax on couches, eating and drinking, and proceed to give rousing speeches on love, aiming for persuasion, employing imaginative examples; the atmosphere is thoroughly sexualized. Socrates is the star turn and he turns in an erotically charged performance in front of his would-be lover Alcibiades. This is the model for many a philosophical “symposium”.