Socrates' View Of Love Essays

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.

In Plato’s Symposium, sequential speeches praise the god of Love, but they stray from truth until Diotima’s speech provides a permanent form in which love “neither waxes nor wanes” (Sym. 211A). Through the speeches, love shifts from identifying with the concrete to the abstract, but still ultimately advances goals of present: Phaedrus sees love as helping “men gain virtue,” Aristophanes as only a “promise” to restore humans to their “original nature” and Pausanias and Eryximachus have to use two changing notions of love (Sym. 180B, 193D). In contrast, Diotima relates love as the closest humans can come to immorality, a future goal motivating us to seek completeness and an uninhibited timelessness. She uses this shift to explain love’s

order to get what you want, you may have to give up a few things along the way in order to reach

I conclude that Socrates’s claim of purifying one’s soul is the most important thing in life and cannot be overshadowed by superficial materialistic items that grant instant gratification.

Every day we think about what we do and what others do, what’s right from wrong what we want and what others want we usually forget what we want for our self’s.

Meno begins to understand the type of definition, Socrates is looking for of virtue, rather than stating examples or qualities. He asserts that “Virtue is to desire beautiful things and have the power to acquire them” (Meno 77b), meaning men who desire beautiful things desire good things. From this definition, one can see that both Meno and Socrates agree that what is beautiful is also good. However, the notion of what is beautiful differs significantly among people. What is beautiful for one man can be something undesirable or bad to someone else. In this sense, the “good thing” is what is virtuous, but since all men consider different things to be good and bad the definition cannot be applied universally. Socrates premise is that no one desires bad things and therefore humans have an instinct to aim for what is good and beneficial to them. Socrates builds his argument by further questioning Meno. They concluded that there are people who desire bad things and some that desire good things. Socrates distinguishes people who desire bad things into two separate arguments. Socrates first objection is toward how men knowingly desire bad things. He states that when men recognize that what they desire is bad, then they also know that it is harmful for them. It is impossible for them to not be miserable when they are being harmed. But, no man wants to be miserable

“Love is one of the most profound emotions known to human beings” (psychologytoday.com). Everyone has had at least one relationship in their lifetime filled with fervor and jubilation. In fact, it typically starts at birth with a loving family ready to endure their cheerful child. Since it is different for everyone, the next amorous relationship could lie within anything from friendly relationship to a romantic one. The wondrous emotions that are felt are something people search for forever, but not everyone encounters every kind of relationship there is.

In the classical tradition, Aristotle explains that long-term happiness is the fulfillment one’s “natural needs.” As a result of human nature, there are certain natural needs that are the same for everyone. People try to fulfill their natural needs by acquiring different types of goods, but some goods are only “apparent goods” while others are “real goods.” Only real goods satisfy natural needs because they are essential for humans to live a meaningful life and are always truly

In life, it is natural to desire things, whether it is to open doors for one person or being able to see your family once last time. This type of desire has spanned over generations from the 1400s to modern day, from Verona, Italy to outer space. Critically acclaimed William Shakespeare, Pulitzer Prize winner Conrad Ritcher, Tony Award winner William Gibson, and Oscar winner William Broyles Jr. demonstrate an important message in life. Nothing worth having comes easy but you should never give up.

In The Symposium, Love is described to be a goddess by the men who are praising her powers in several eulogies. However, Socrates proves that their claims are incorrect evaluations during his speech. Socrates chooses to analyze and discuss the truth of love through rhetoric rather than submit to the ‘illusionary’ art of poetry that the other men used. Although the context of Love is set up in the mythological sense, Socrates’ speech transcends the topic from merely describing the goddess’ powers to separating her as an entity from the actions and emotions that go along with the conception of ‘loving’: “I think you saw Love as the object of love instead of the lover” (Plato, 40, 204b). Socrates, takes the route of philosophy and aims to

In Plato’s Symposium, Agathon, Aristophanes and Diotima discuss the goodness and purpose of love. The men are gathered at a drinking party hosted by Agathon and begin their accounts on love. Aristophanes praises love and discusses the origin of desire while Agathon discusses the nature of love and that to which it is attracted. However, Socrates conception of love, as narrated by Diotima, questions the origins of love and what Love is himself. During her speech Diotima refines the various theories of love as discussed at the party and concludes that we grow in our conception of love to closer characterise the beauty and goodness of it.

Through Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse we are able to determine that in life seeing life slowly and taking it step by step always with a good attitude is the way to live a happy good life. When wanting something taking a break from the steps we are taking to reach our goal and actually seeing analyzing and seeing things through will help reach self

Scott offers a modern example to support this. Suppose someone is on a certain kind of medication that requires them to not drink alcohol otherwise the medication will not work and they will be in great pain. They are completely aware of this and know that if they drink they will be ‘miserable and wretched’. Meno thinks it is quite possible for a person to want to drink regardless of this knowledge. Socrates would be determined to argue that if you know something is bad overall you cannot desire it.

want, but this is untrue. When the urge for the newest item emerges, the cycle just repeats

In the Symposium on that night, Socrates’ speech is one of the most important of the night as he is clearly a central figure, admired by the other guests. Socrates begins by presenting his argument that if love is nothing, then it is of something, and if it is of something, then it is of something that is desired, and therefore of something that is not already possessed, which is then usually beautiful and good. Human beings begin by loving physical beauty in another person, then progress to love of intellect and from that level to see the connection among people and ultimately, the lover of beauty enjoys a kind of revelation or vision of universal beauty, which we find ourselves in the pursuit of during our own study of Plato’s work. The