The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2008) Vol. XLVI Phenomenological Reduction, Epoche, and the Speech of Socrates in the Symposium James McGuirk Bode University College, Norway Abstract The point of the present article is to investigate whether the key conceptions of epoche and reduction as found in Husserl’s phenomenology can be brought to bear in a fruitful rereading of the speech of Socrates in Plato’s Symposium.’ In pursuit of this goal, I will begin by revisiting the traditional reading of this speech in terms of a scala amoris in which the erotic subject is guided from attachment to a series of inferior objects to the Beautiful and Good itself such that the value of all preceding attachments is suspended. The critique that this approach to love instrumentalizes all but the transcendent Good is one that is found both within and without the text. In opposition to this reading, however, I will suggest that Husserl’s notions of epoche and reduction enable us to read the speech not as an instrumentalizing scala but in terms of a reflective distance in which our immersion in and with the erotic object is suspended so that we might reappropriate the real meaning of erotic engagement. According to this reading, Plato does not negate the particular or lower forms of eros but reinscribes them with a value derived from their position in relation to the ultimate. The suspension of the lower forms, then, is not final but is merely employed in order to let what occurs in erotic engagement show itself. In perhaps one of the best known commentaries on Plato’s theory of love, Gregory Vlastos maintains that “the individual, in the uniqueness and integrity of his or her individuality, will never be the object of love.”2 Thus, while Vlastos is often critical of the rather extreme position of Anders Nygren that reads Platonic love as purely self-serving e g ~ t i s m , ~ he does insist that, James McGuirk received his PhD from the K. U. Leuven with a dis- sertation entitled Eros and the Indictment of Philosophy (2004) which dealt with the relationship between philosophical eros, ethics, and poli- tics in Plate$ Symposium. He has recently published articles on the philosophy of Nietzsche and on Heidegger’s reading of Plato. He is cur- rently Associate Professor at the School of Professional Studies at Bod0 University College, Norway. 99