Comparing The Theaetetus And The Nature Of Love

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.

Our human nature was not what we always thought of it to be, in simpler times two were made as one. We roamed the earth in unity with our other halves without the burden of trying to find them. However, Zeus did not find this to be in his best interest because of how we behaved so he split each being in two. As a result of this split we must now go about our lives in search of our other half. This is the speech that Aristophanes gave in Plato’s Symposium a book composed of various speeches from many different famous Greek people. Aristophanes’ view of love is compelling because it describes our very human nature to find our love, it justifies the reasoning of why there are different sexualities, and it gives an explanation as to why our bodies are the way that they are today.

The Symposium revolves around a Greek party made up of various men throwing around their views on love, building up to height of the evening by a speech from Socrates. Socrates knows the true way to obtain love, and tells of a tale between him and his mentor, Diotima. Through Diotima, Socrates is able to

Eros, desire, and love. These three terms can be easily confused with one another. However, they contain various characteristics that sets each one apart from the other. In the Symposium, by Plato, the men create speeches in praise of “Eros”. In these speeches they explore Eros, love, desire, what is desirable, what is worthy of love and even the concept of romantic love that we are familiar with today.

Diotima, Socrates' great teacher from the Symposium, a work by Plato was one of the most influential women thinkers of all time, whether she was a real person or a literary fictional character. She related to Socrates the theory of love that he described to the partygoers at Agathon's banquet, a celebration of Agathon's victory at the competition of Dionysis in Athens and of Eros.

Socrates sees love as something that is in between being beautiful and ugly and believes that love is a search for beauty and wisdom. Much like Diotima, Socrates presses Agathon to have him admit that love is not beautiful as it desires beauty, and one does not desire what one already has therefore it is not beautiful. Socrates view contrasts with that of Aristophanes from the benefits of love to the nature of love, as Socrates sees no benefits in something that is not beautiful. Love is seen as primarily a relational property by Socrates that holds between things rather than a desire or a need for another person. Love is not itself beautiful or good or anything specific as much as it is a relation that holds between the beautiful, the good, and those who

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

Comparing Socrates' speech on love in the Symposium and what he says about wisdom in Apology, through the perspective of wisdom and ignorance, there is definite contradiction. The reason being that in Symposium, Socrates first implies the idea that people already have knowledge that they do not know they have, and that by question and answer, we can bring out that knowledge. In the Symposium, Socrates' speech on love is a retelling of a story he was told by Diotima. He claimed that love and beauty is only a concept to the ignorant and uneducated people. It is said that through question and answer, people can develop and become aware that love and beauty is a real being instead of an object. Socrates claimed that “[Diotima] [was] the one who

Phaedrus, an aristocrat, takes the stage first at the symposium. He explains that Erōs is one of the primordial gods, and that the love between a boy and a lover is the greatest love that exists. The lover is meant to guide the boy, and the two must lead each other to examine themselves and feel ashamed. “...[The boy] is especially ashamed before his lover when he is caught in something shameful” (Sym. 178E). Phaedrus later adds that “...Love is...the most powerful in helping men gain virtue and blessedness…” (Sym. 180B). Alcibiades is the perfect example of shame when he speaks about Socrates. He says that “Socrates is the only man in the world who has made [him] feel shame…” (Sym. 216B). Alcibiades adds that Socrates traps him and tells

The entrance of Alcibiades to symposium shifts the dialogue and suggests the reader his speech must be considered separate from the previous speeches. The first five speeches; the speech of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon contradicted each other and were reconciled in Diotima’s speech about love as in between mortal and immortal, in between beauty and ugliness, and in between wisdom and ignorance. To achieve it, one must give birth to true virtue. () However, Alcibiades speech changes the topic of the conversation from praising Eros/love, to praising Socrates. While the topic changed and this speech is separate, Alcibiades’ speech unknowingly to him, illustrates the arguments Diotima made about love by

The Symposium presents a philosophical discussion about love between specific historical individuals, including well-known Athenian poets and intellectuals, and the politician Alcibiades (introduction). Each person at the symposium needs to deliver a speech that represents his idea of love. At the end of The Symposium, Socrates expresses his sophisticated point of view by presenting a conversation he has with Diotima, an objective fictional character who represents his idea of love. By providing a logical, fundamental and comprehensive examination of love, Socrates’ speech contributes significantly to The Symposium in the effort to promote the philosophical approach of objective truth. This effective inspection of love makes readers understand

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

In Socrates speech from Symposium, All of the Philosophers are sitting around together drinking and discussing each of their opinions of what Love truly means and is . During Socrates turn of discussion he explains what he heard from Diotima a woman from Mantinea. She stated that “Eros is not a god but Daemon who desires everything that is beautiful and since wisdom is one of the most beautiful things Eros desires wisdom.”Wisdom is a very powerful trait to have, many of the Gods already obtain wisdom so they don't desire nor love it.Those who are unknowledgeable are not wanting of wisdom and content with how they already are. People who are inlove desire to love delightful things.

He makes love seem like some sort of being associating it with being poor, insensitive, sleeping on the ground, and is always demanding for attention. Resource and poverty are the parents of love, therefore love embodies their characteristics. In a way Socrates is describing himself when talking about love, because he is very poor, often sleeps on the ground, and in some way is always in need of attention. This can been seen by how Socrates is always searching for more knowledge and wisdom.The root word ‘philia’ means love, and since Socrates is a philosopher he is always searching for wisdom, because he loves it. Pausanias shared the very same view as Socrates. He said, “ As I said earlier, love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace-its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to”. I believe that the main point Socrates is trying to make about love, is that is more complex than any other emotion. Some may consider love simple, but that is not the case. The way we behave around others is a key role in how love

Diotima could often be read as the most important speech in The Symposium, therefore she should be the last speech because her speech is based around the conception of love. Socrates begins to question Diotima about what love actually is. She says: “I think that’s why love struck you as beautiful in every way: because it is what is really beautiful and graceful that deserves to be loved, and this is perfect and highly blessed; but being a lover takes a different form which I have just described.” When someone loves something beautiful, they long for