Plato s Theory Of Love - 1812 Words

Plato s Symposium is written in such a manner that each speech accounted has at least one insight into the nature of love or Eros that is latter expanded, contradicted or confirmed by the speech given by Socrates using Diotima s wisdom. Plato was very wise in his teaching on love, progressing from the simple to the much more complex, climaxing with the with the recounted exchange of Socrates and Diotima and then finalizing the instruction with a comical, but well-placed praise of the paragon of a beloved from a completely drunken fool. This ordering is contrived but serves as an excellent framework for investigation into the question of what exactly is Plato s idea of love. Building upon the notion that Diotima s speech illuminates the highest mysteries of the art of love, the best course of investigation is to review each speech with the context of Diotima s claims to distill out the recurring ideas. These ideas then can be constructed into a decent definition of Platonic Love. The first speech of the symposium was given by Phaedrus, and thankfully, it is not very deep or difficult to understand. The key to understand his speech and most of the following speeches is to understand the Greek habit of ascribing a pseudo-divinity to almost every facet of everything. In this case, Phaedrus is equating mythological being called Eros to the human concept of love. Unfortunately, Phaedrus speech does little to directly define the nature of love, instead, Phaedrus decidesShow MoreRelatedPlato s Theory Of Love1789 Words   |  8 Pages 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. 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