Plato and Love Essays

Submitted By kialee1993
Words: 876
Pages: 4
Open Document
The Symposium - Plato
Kyung Min Lee
Recitation Leader: Matthew Goldstone
2-24-15
Texts and Ideas

Plato’s Symposium is a series of speeches of Love given in honor of the tragedian, Agathon. They deal with questions of: what Love is; interpersonal relationships through love; what types of love are worthy of praise; the purpose of love; and others.
The original teller of the story is Aristodemus but in the Symposium, Apollodorus retells the story to the readers. The story itself is told from Aristodemus’ point of view, who ran into Socrates on his way to Agathon’s symposion. He invites Aristodemus, and they have food and drink at Agathon’s, along with Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Aristophanes among others. After they have finished eating, each person makes a speech in praise of the god of Love.
Phaedrus begins giving a speech focused on the virtue of bravery in love. He tells the origin of love as the youngest god, son of Chaos and Earth. His stories of Achilles’ and Alcestis’ acts of self-sacrifice for the lover and beloved exemplify the bravery of love.
Pausanias splits Love into Common and Heavenly Love, attributing the latter solely to homosexual, male relationships. He praises Heavenly Love and discusses the role of law, justice, and customs in leading beloveds to make a virtuous choice regarding taking lovers.
After Pausanias, Eryximachus, the doctor, speaks, suggesting that good Love promotes moderation and orderliness. Love does not restrict itself to human interaction, but can be found in music, medicine, and much else besides. He extends the idea of love beyond interpersonal relationships, claiming love is found in the coexistence of opposites, the harmony of nature.
Having been cured of his hiccups, Aristophanes gives the most original speech on love. He tells an origin story, where Zeus cut humans in half. Humans used to have a different shape, somewhat like two human beings stuck together and there were three sexes: male, female, and androgynous (male and female). Due to their disinterest in revering the gods, they were split, and now humans search for their other half, on a pursuit of wholeness. He warns that we may be split again, if not pious and revering of the gods.
Agathon, the host of the gathering, gives the fifth speech. He praises love with beautiful prose. He reiterates all the virtues each of the past speakers focused on separately when defining the moral character of love: Courage, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom . He describes Love as possessing beauty and good things. He also sees Love as responsible for implanting all the virtues in us. Socrates questions Agathon's speech, suggesting that Agathon has spoken about the object of Love, rather than Love itself.
This description of Love is further explained when Socrates tells them a dialogue he had with Diotima on Love long ago. He and Diotima establish that Love is between beauty and ugliness, and between wisdom and ignorance. According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty. Love expresses itself through pregnancy and reproduction, either through the bodily kind of sexual Love or through the sharing and
Show More

Related Documents: Plato and Love Essays

Essay Poi8 Chap03 SG

CHAPTER 3: SOCRATES, PLATO Main Points 1. Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.) was the pupil of Socrates (470–399 B.C.), and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was the pupil of Plato. Socrates 2. Socrates was not interested in arguing with his fellow Athenians merely for the sake of argument—as the Sophists were—but rather he wanted to discover the essential nature of knowledge, justice, beauty, goodness, and the virtues (such as courage). 3. The Socratic (dialectic) method: a search for the proper definition of…

Words 1003 - Pages 5

goodrich aircraft brake Essay

Love as Desire for Goodness Plato’s renowned piece of literature, "The Symposium", is outstanding with its speeches of love, which transforms to desire. According to Aristophanes, love is what drives us to look for our better half and that it is what makes us whole again. He also suggests that love is a primordial wound imposed to us by the gods as a penalty for our arrogance. Since those ancient ages, everyone is half of what he or she is destined to be. This theory proposed by Aristophanes gives…

Words 526 - Pages 3

Plato Vs. Augustine's The Republic

After studying Plato and Augustine one may say that they are shadows of each other. They both strive for similar things, such as aspirations and always trying to achieve perfection. Plato and Augustine both want to live in a just society, but their opinions of what just should be are not the same. Augustine disagreed with Plato when it came to politics and how religion should play into a just society. Plato preferred to have his main focus on politics. In class we read a passage where we learned…

Words 646 - Pages 3

Bless Me Ultima Speech Analysis

What is the meaning of love? How or where does love come about? No one can truly explain it, yet somehow it’s understood. Love is considered to be an ultimate feeling or something that people concern about because that’s what happiness means to them. It is the principal that reinforces all human activity, and the obstacle of all human race goes through which is striving, resulting, and examined carefully. In Plato's symposium, a dinner party was held and the main discussion that everyone on the…

Words 927 - Pages 4

Essay on Philosophy outline

instruction • What does Plato want to prove with these three arguments? Plato wants to prove the error of skepticism and relativism • What are the Platonic Forms? The forms are not anything we can smell, taste, touch, or see, but that is not to say they are unreal or imaginary. You can’t know what is not, for the simple reason that in that case there is not anything there to know. You can only know what is; if you do know something, there must be something in reality for you to know Plato agrees with Parmenides…

Words 2004 - Pages 9

Euthyphro Essay

that this piece has a deeper goal that belonged to Plato. It seemed that he wished to expose piety for the sham that it is to shame those that executed Socrates. I believe this because before Socrates was executed he asked that a goat be sacrificed to the god of medicine. I believe this showed that he believed in an afterlife, which indicates belief in the gods. I believe that this dialogue did not actually happen and was simply written by Plato after the death of his teacher. I think this is…

Words 1289 - Pages 6

the republic essay

or punishment may be? All these questions are imperative that it be answered, that is why I shall aim to dive deep into this phenomenon using Plato as my mouthpiece allowing us to arrive at a solution. Hence, in order to start solving these questions we first need to understand “what is justice” (socratic elenchus), what is the definition of justice? Plato in “The Republic” defines justice in such a manner that enables him to defeat two challenges or problems that he is faced with; he must prove…

Words 2057 - Pages 9

Exploring Plato's Symposium

In the dialogue “The Symposium”, written by Plato, Apollodorus recounts the tale of a drinking gathering or symposium that happens long prior. Socrates and Aristodemus go to a gathering given for Agathon, since Agathon has quite recently won a challenge for the execution of his tragic play. The men there talk and drink and afterward choose that each ought to give a discourse in acclaim of the god or Eros, or the god of Love. Plato's Symposium is not just a talk regarding the matter of affection,…

Words 422 - Pages 2

Plato's Division Of Labor

ANCIENT ECONOMIC THOUGHTs –PLATO Plato was classical Greek philosopher. The coveted Academy was founded by him in Athens, a pioneering institution in Western world for higher learning. He was considered as an important personality who had contributed for the development of philosophy, mainly the western tradition. Plato was pupil of Socrates and master of Aristotle. These three are popularly known as Intellectual Trios who put foundations to Western Philosophy and Science. His famous writings are’…

Words 1544 - Pages 7

Momolu Dorley Philosophy Mid Term Essay

Momolu Dorley 10/22/2014 The Human Person Midterm Paper Plato­ Phaedrus Plato was an extraordinary philosopher estimated to born around the time periods of 428 and 427 BCE and dying around the time periods of 348 and 347 BCE. Plato has many great and well known writings. One of which is called Phaedrus. In Phaedrus, Plato does an excellent job of explaining the human self. Although the full purpose of this reading wasn’t based on that specific topic, it still covered the human self in a gist…

Words 1236 - Pages 5