Metaxy is defined in Plato'sSymposium via the character of the priestess Diotima as the "in-between" or "middle ground".
In Plato
Diotima, tutoringSocrates, uses the term to show how oral tradition can be perceived by different people in different ways. In the poem by Socrates she depicts Eros as not an extreme or purity; rather, as a daemon, Eros is in between the divine Gods and mankind. Diotima thus exposes the flaws of oral tradition; it uses strong contrasts to express truth, thus revealing vulnerability to sophistry. This portion of the dialogue points to the idea that reality is perceptible only through one's character. Man moves through the world of Becoming, the ever changing world of sensory perception, into the world of Being—the world of forms, absolutes and transcendence. Man transcends his place in Becoming by Eros, where man reaches the Highest Good, an intuitive and mystical state of consciousness. Neoplatonists like Plotinus later used the concept to express an ontological placement of Man between the Gods and animals. Much like Diotima did in expressing that Eros as a daemon was in between the Gods and mankind. Love is the thing in between or child of Poverty and Possession.
Contemporary use
Contemporary political philosopherEric Voegelin used the term to mean the permanent place where man is in-between two poles of existence. Such as the infinite and the finite reality of existence or between the beginning of existence and the Beyond existence. As a technical usage Voegelin defined Metaxy as the connection of the mind or nous to the material world and the reverse of the material world's connection to the mind as "consciousness of being". Under Voegelin it can also be interpreted to mean a form of perception in contrast to consciousness a template of the mind in contrast to the dynamic and unordered flow of experiential consciousness. As a form of reflectiveness in-between two poles of experience. The whole of existence being expressed as the cosmos. The Metaxy being man's connection to the material world this as the ground of being. Voegelin taught that those who sought political power for its own end were sophists and those who were seeking meaning and truth in life or union with the knowable and true, were philosophers. Each of these positions manifests a different view regarding Plato's becoming and being; again the place in between each of these poles of experience is metaxy. The concept is also used by Simone Weil. She believed that compassion must act in the area of metaxy.
