The Symposium book club questions

The reading plan

Meeting 1: Parts I to III

1. When an uninvited jester struggles with a silent company, who bears more responsibility for the failed entertainment?
2. How might gathering guests around Autolycus shape the way they treat one another?
3. What can entertainment teach about self-control that a direct lesson might not?
4. Why might moderate drinking belong in the same conversation as training and courage?
5. Does Socrates turning entertainment into conversation seem like an improvement or an interruption?

Meeting 2: Parts IV to V

6. What would make poverty a more convincing source of pride than money?
7. Should laughter and learning face the same standards when guests defend their worth?
8. How would you judge the worth of a claim to divine friendship?
9. What might matchmaking offer as a source of personal worth that beauty cannot?
10. How persuasive is Socrates' argument that useful features deserve admiration?

Meeting 3: Parts VI to IX

11. When jokes turn hostile over the guests' attention, how should responsibility be shared between entertainers and audience?
12. What does Socrates' effort to check the quarrel suggest about the limits of joking at dinner?
13. Does proposing gentler entertainment seem a strong response to hostility, or a way of avoiding it?
14. Is asking personal attraction to lead to friendship and self-discipline a fair demand?
15. How convincing is the link Socrates makes between personal attraction and public service?

Themes to talk about

Tips for the host

1. Open each meeting with one question everyone can answer, then go deeper.
2. Anyone who fell behind can catch up with the 15-minute summary.