Platonic Love In Plato's Symposium

Symposium is a gathering hosted by Agaton to celebrate his first tragedy award for playwriting. Each of the guests gave a speech about love. The speech dealing with questions about what is love; interpersonal relationships through love; what types of love are worthy of praise; the purpose of love; and others. A series of speech about the love ended by the entry of Alcibiades, known as a wealthy aristocrat of Athens for his good-looking, and political career. He entered the discussion drunkenly supporting by a flute-girl, follow upon his speech about love. His unexpected entrance and speech dramatically changed the mood left from Diotima’s serious dialogue with Socrates about the ideal love. The first five speeches contradicted each other and were reconciled in Diotima’s speech, especially her speech about “Ladder if love” and “love of wisdom ”, which implies the delicate relationship between Alcibiades and Socrates.

Plato’s Symposium introduces a speech in which Diotima teaches Socrates of Love—what he is and art of him. The dialectic tells of how Love came to be, the very nature of Love, and that Love is something entirely separate from beauty, yet he participates with beauty. Her dialogue expresses the faults in Socrates’ previous stance, along with Agathon’s, “that Love is a great god and that he belongs to beautiful things” (201e).

In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes and Alcibiades share a specific view on love, while Diotima and Socrates share another. Aristophanes sees love as a pursuit of wholeness and ultimately the desire for humans to be complete. Aristophanes explains the origins of how humans came to have two arms and two legs as well as one sex organ. Humans used to be creatures who existed with eight limbs as well as two sexual organs, however they were far too ambitious and had even made an attempt on the gods. When this event occurred, Zeus and other gods met in council, and in their meeting, they came to the conclusion to cut humans in half, to ensure they could still exist yet not be overly ambitious. Humans have been on the pursuit to find their literal other half ever since separation. In other words, to find their soulmate.

Agathon hosted a gathering for a small group of philosophers to talk about how they perceive love and what their own unique ideas are of beauty, virtue, honor, or anything else that may fall under the category of love. Eros, or Love, is a god that the philosophers have decided to praise with a speech of their own perspective. You get to see each philosophers different style and way of thinking within their speeches. All philosophers have agreed to drink while each other is speaking, but there is no pressure from one another or one’s self to drink excessively. The first to kick off the speeches is Phaedrus, an idealist, who believes that being shamed upon who you love most is of the highest caliber of embarrassment, even compared to relatives

Plato is often criticized for preaching the gospel of me first. The claim is that his understanding of love is essentially egoistic, and this is seen as troublesome for the obvious ethical reasons. But there may be an even more troubling issue with Plato's understanding of love. In this paper I will attempt to argue that for Plato, love is in a sense impossible; that it can only ever be a desire for something out of one's grasp. The stakes are high but perhaps there is a way to understand this problem in a way that seems a little less damning. To do this I will analyze arguments from the Lysis and the Symposium, first questioning even the possibility of love and then attempt to show that love is in fact possible, all though in weaker

In the Symposium, Alcibiades says that Socrates is the only man who has made him feel shame. Alcibiades’ shame seems to indicate that he has reflected on his actions, thus has learned something from Socrates. However, I believe that he is not ascending towards the beautiful nor has he learn anything from Socrates as his desire takes precedent over love for Beauty. This essay will first analyze the role of shame as self-awareness in the Ladder of Love. Next, through two accounts recalled by Alcibiades in the Symposium, they will emphasize the importance of shame in the Ladder of Love. Lastly, the essay will conclude with how shame does not indicate that Alcibiades is ascending towards the beautiful or has learned anything based on the aforementioned

Beginning his own attack on the misconduct of love Socrates concentrates on the objective that the “lover is an exploiter”. (Weaver p. 10) Socrates describes love as a kind of yearning passion that conquers rational thought and leads toward the pleasure of physical appearance. The lover desires for the obtained item of affection to delight him essentially as much as conceivable but only individuals who are consumed with this love, only the item possessed will please them. Therefore, the lover views everything that is superior, equal to, or is disputing with resentment. Thus, the lover attempts to make the beloved subsidiary to oneself in each reference. Throughout the time the lover is maintaining the beloved from acquiring any more knowledge and physical strength, this implements an unhealthy effect that the beloved is helpless in any critical situation. The lover exercises continual compulsion over the beloved depriving of all praiseworthy qualities, and this is the price the beloved pays for accepting a lover who is beyond logical reasoning. Socrates reveals the beloved as the inferior in every account, keeps the beloved weak and dependent, this lover is not motivated by benevolence or humility but selfish appetite. The lover is an exploiter and has the kind of desire that dismisses rational opinion and moves toward enjoyment of physical beauty. They only want

In Plato’s Symposium the main purpose of Alcibiades’ speech is to prove that Socrates is the ideal lover, thus improving himself and his reputation through his association with Socrates. Alcibiades does this by telling stories of his love and admiration for Socrates. Through his speech Alcibiades displays the characteristics of Socrates that are similar to the speeches about love and the ideal type of love. Alcibiades hopes to justify his actions of pursuing socrates by showing that socrates is the ideal lover. He also hopes to gain a high reputation by telling the story of his pursuit of socrates, and his pursuit of the knowledge that socrates possesses. The argument Alcibiades makes about Socrates being the ideal lover is effective in convincing the members of the party that socrates is the ideal lover. However, Alcibiades fails to improve his own reputation by telling his story.

Phaedras continues on and speaks of the things that Love can inspire men to. Though he does not confine these benefits to homosocial interactions, he does specifically include them. After stating that older men are more prone to die than be humiliated in the sight of their eromenos, he goes on to say that, ??as for abandoning his boyfriend or not helping him when danger threatens ? well, possession by love would infuse even utter cowards with courage. ? Moreover, only lovers are prepared to sacrifice themselves ? and this goes for women as well as men.? (Phaedras, 179a)

As with any speaker in the symposiums, Pausanias would define romantic love as the good kind of love. People should be loving people for what they bring to the table in terms of personality instead of beauty and lust. As old and cliché the saying

love is good and only becomes ugly if a lover's motive is exploitation. Pausanias has brought out

In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes

Plato was a philosopher from Classical Greece and an innovator of dialogue and dialect forms which provide some of the earliest existing analysis ' of political questions from a philosophical perspective. Among some of Plato 's most prevalent works is his dialogue the Symposium, which records the conversation of a dinner party at which Socrates (amongst others) is a guest. Those who talk before Socrates share a tendency to celebrate the instinct of sex and regard love (eros) as a god whose goodness and beauty they compete. However, Socrates sets himself apart from this belief in the fundamental value of sexual love and instead recollects Diotima 's theory of love, suggesting that love is neither beautiful nor good because it is the desire to possess what is beautiful, and that one cannot desire that of which is already possessed. The ultimate/primary objective of love as being related to an absolute form of beauty that is held to be identical to what is good is debated throughout the dialogue, and Diotima expands on this description of love as being a pursuit of beauty (by which one can attain the goal of love) that culminates in an understanding of the form of beauty. The purpose of this paper is to consider the speeches presented (i.e. those of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon) in Plato 's Symposium as separate parts that assist in an accounting of the definition and purpose of platonic love.

In the Symposium by Plato, seven great speaker talk about love. In each speech they discuss what does love mean to them. In one of these speeches love makes the most sense and can be agreeable. In another speech makes sense also but disagreeable. These two speeches are spoken by Aristophanes; a comic poet, and Agathon.

Love can make people do crazy things. There is scientific evidence that proves love creates chemical changes in our brains. Love is a powerful force - one that can inspire greatness and one that can inspire madness. It is one of the strongest emotions we are capable of feeling. Erotic love is described as a sexual yearning, love, or intimacy, or the sum of all instincts for self-preservation. It is the spiritual force that helps us achieve transcendence within the deepest of human bonds. However, erotic love can affect us like a chemical addiction, causing obsession, intense euphoria, and reckless behaviors. The purpose of this essay is to explore the concept erotic love, according to Plato in the Republic and further prove that erotic love is a tyrant in the sense described by Plato.