The ‘Scala Amoris’ (210a-212b), or ‘Ladder
of Love’, constitutes the philosophical and
aesthetic centrepiece of Socrates’ encomium
of Eros in Plato’s Symposium. Here Diotima
describes how a lover ascending up the Ladder
directs his erotic attention to a number of
difference kinds of beautiful objects, first bodies,
then souls, just institutions and knowledge, until
he catches a glimpse of Beauty itself. In this
paper I advance an ‘inclusive’ reading of the
lover’s ascent – to use Price’s 1991 terminology
– with a particular emphasis on justifying such a
reading concerning the final step.
