Socrates Speech On Love

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

Aristophanes views erotic love as a punishment originating from God (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, p. 18). A punishment due to the fact that erotic love involves searching for our soulmate and until we find our missing half, we are incomplete (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, pp. 18-19). Comparatively, Alcibiades views on erotic love is shown in how he longs for his love interest, Socrates. Unfortunately, Alcibiades pursuit of Socrates fails and he experiences being rejected by Socrates (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, pp. 30-31). Thus, representing how erotic love can be cruel and is a risk that can result in feeling pain and suffering. Initially, Socrates view of erotic love started with the idea that we desire love because we lack an object of beauty or goodness (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, p. 22). Through Diotima, Socrates comes to understand that his search for knowledge is inspired by love and as a result, he finds wisdom beautiful (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, pp. 23-24). According to Diotima, she views erotic love as existing somewhere “between ignorance and wisdom” (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, p. 23). Diotima explains to Socrates that the truth about love is the desire for an enduring possession of the good (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, p. 24). According to Diotima, immortality can be accomplished through procreation or creating new ideas to educate the next generation (Solomon & Higgins, 1991, pp. 24-25).

While Socrates and Lysias do imply that love is madness they both take it a different direction about the lover. In Socrates second speech he completely goes against Lysias' attempt to persuade a person to give favors to a nonlover. However, he does this through the explanation of the soul and its wings. The wings are heavily stressed as it is implied that they bring the soul closer to the gods. This is very important as anyone would in theory want to be as close to godlike as possible. After saying this Socrates captures not only his audience's attention but also sways their opinion about the nonlover and lover. Socrates creates this intricate image that love allows the souls' wings to grow and heal which in turn will allows the soul to ascend

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

In the Symposium Plato places Socrates in a dialogue with the goddess Diotima. She says two things of interest to this paper about love. Firstly, at 206a that humans when they love long to possess the good and do so for ever, and secondly that at 206b that "To love is to bring forth upon the beautiful, both in body and soul (Hamilton 558)." The first statement makes a claim about what love is, a desire to posses the good, and the second a statement about what love does, bring forth the beautiful. I will now briefly analyze both claims.

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

One of the overarching themes that spanned over the many books we read over the semester, was the nature of love and the search for meaning. Love is an inherent aspect of humanity, and while it is an often inexplicable and complex sentiment, it is intrinsically connected with mankind's search for meaning in life. Love often leads a person in directions that they do not expect, and this is obvious in the very different applications of love in different books. However, one common idea about the relationship between love, suffering, and wisdom, can be argued for based off the ancient texts that we read. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Antigone, and The Tale of Genji, love is used as a vehicle for wisdom through suffering and loss.

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

Socrates has convinced Euthyphro that the discussion should be corrected by stating that what all the gods hate is impious and what all the gods love is pious. (9d) Socrates comes to question this by asking if the pious is being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? (10a) Socrates elaborates on this by showing how something that is seen is seen because it is being seen and not that it is being seen because it is something seen. (10b) They follow this logic to show that something loved is not being loved because it is something loved, but rather it is something loved because it is being loved. (10c) Socrates then applies this logic to the pious, showing that the pious is being loved because

Alcibiades’ speech changes the direction of the conversation from praising Agathon to praising Socrates. It might be the reason why Plato ends symposium in this way and also highlights “Platonic Philosophy of love ”.

According to Aristophanes, love (eros) – the highest form of love that one human being can feel towards another – is the desire of dissected halves, one to another, for restoring the wholeness of the nature’s origin. I will explain what does Aristophanes mean by his metaphor and why do people fall in love.

Erotic love presents itself in two different ways—the traditional pursuit of a soul mate and a more abstract way—according to Nussbaum’s interpretation of Plato’s Symposium it has “two kinds of value [and] two kinds of knowledge” (Nussbaum 312). The first kind of knowledge and value is described by Aristophanes and Alcibiades, which defines love as the pursuit of wholeness. It constructs the idea that life is about finding the other half, Aristophanes explains a tale of traditional Greek mythology which reveals the concept of humans once being whole, but as punishment were separated into two beings, as a result life became the desire to become one again. Furthermore, Alcibiades contributes to Aristophanes description of love by telling his own life story of being unable to find his other half and describing himself as enslaved to love. Considering both accounts, Aristophanes and Alcibiades both share the common thesis that erotic love is defined by “[human] desire to be complete” (Plato 21). Despite Alcibiades contradiction of the theory through his fear of rejection, frustration, and loss; it is still prevalent because lessons can be learned from his hardship. Only through experience can this form of erotic love be understood. On a completely different page of understanding Socrates and Diotima argue the pursuit of being ‘whole’ is merely just a step towards the pursuit of erotic love. Socrates discloses erotic love as a ladder, starting with loving one person and progressing to loving the soul, eventually loving the form of beauty itself. Furthermore, Socrates argues loving the form of beauty exceeds the risk of frustration and rejection—the Forms are a constant that will never fail to please an individual. He believes the pursuit of knowledge through love’s desire for wisdom is the purpose of erotic love. However, his perspective is found to be abstract and complicated, his view is “removed from affection for concrete human beings” (Nussbaum 281). Particularly, it is difficult to understand his idea that human life could exist without jealousy, fear, affection and the emotions mixed with love. Ultimately, humans are drawn to relationships and connections with others; to introduce the notion that erotic love

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.

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.

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