The Phaedrus : Love And Its Effects On The Soul

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.

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.

Plato is, in essence, alleging that the one who is offered – and the one who seizes – the opportunity to traverse “the intelligible realm,” or “the realm of knowledge” (63), cannot – and will not – be romanced by notions of returning to the other, more primitive state of existence, even if retreating to this state means that he, or she, will be bequeathed a certain measure of “prestige and credit” (62); that the one who has seen both insuperable marvels and the unsurmountable truth will, being wholly engrossed by, or taken with, these, opt to cling to their memory, even when, in doing so, he will be resigning – or, perhaps, condemning – himself to an existence governed by isolation. Plato is intimating that unaffected “truth and knowledge” are so incredibly rewarding in and of themselves that one could, and would, be happy and willing to eschew all else – including societal conventions and standing – in their pursuit.

Purposely difficult and intentionally obsessive, Plato’s Phaedrus is an exceedingly difficult read that defies all conventional logic as a piece of discourse. The text is extremely subjective, open to interpretation and individual creativity as to what or whom the narrative is about. Written by Plato, a close disciple of Socrates, this text is set along the Illissus river where Phaedrus and Socrates meet for a day of speech, debate, rhetoric and okay…flirting. Phaedrus leads of the day and recites a speech by his close friend Lysias, who Phaedrus considers to be a top speechmaker. Socrates then, after chiding by Phaedrus unleashes two speeches of his own that overshadow and refute Lysias claim so boldly that Phaedrus is so taken by the

However, Petruzzi explains that Plato's dialogical strategy leads to an assumption of the indeterminate nature of truth and a “philosophical rhetor who "knows" that she is not able to know with any certainty” (Petruzzi 16). He insists that the primary quality of Plato's texts is “that dialogue and dialectic express neither a technical skill nor a method, but rather a mode of being-in-the-world: Dialectic is not so much a techne-that is, an ability and knowledge-as a way of being" (Petruzzi 17). For Plato, rhetoric is is agreement between participants where its success is reliant upon them presenting opposing sides or bringing a problem under consideration. Petruzzi explains that Plato searched for a stable definition that would anchor a concept in “"one" unified and temporary intellectual position.” However, he struggled because the disclosure of truth, through dialogue and dialectic, “explicitly contains the perspectival and relational quality of aletheia, or unconcealment” (Petruzzi 17). As we see, Plato strove for truth, but his error with in thinking that there were absolute truths that don’t change. William Benoit said that Plato’s views stand in sharp relief against those of the Sophists because he believed in certain knowledge, for he declares rather bluntly in the Gorgias that "truth, you see, can never be refuted." In the Phaedrus, he

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

Why does Plato think that the soul is immortal? Is he right? Discuss with close reference to Phaedo 102a-107b.

He writes, “when turned towards the twilight of becoming and perishing, then [the soul] has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and seems to have no intelligence” (Book VI, p. 25). By establishing opinion as the opposite to the ultimate good, and by definition, the ultimate evil, he criticizes the use of rhetoric and persuasion while praising to his long-winded, circuitous form of writing. By continually asking questions and telling parables, Plato avoids direct advocation of his beliefs and allows his readers to discover the truth for themselves, rather than to be coerced through eloquent language.

In my eyes Plato is describing how the society today is full of “unenlightenment” or ignorance and how we as a culture have been conformed to accepted ways and if we were to step away from these accustomed ways we would be casted out and ridiculed by our peers. According to Swapnil

I believe having passion and appreciation for beauty is not a bad and might be important to living an exciting life. I used to be very passionate about things that happened ordinarily including the display of beauty in everyday life, most of that passion, excitement and exuberance has gone away. I am sure you know this because as the burden of duty takes over, the passion for beauty slowly deteriorates. Exchanging beauty for duty sounds inhumane. But I can assure you it is not as bad it sounds. As I am writing this I am reminded of a quote by Jean de La Fontaine, “Patience and time do more than passion.” What Fontaine is saying is that patience and time, which could be synonyms for duty, provide you with more in the long run. The passion for

“Love is complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace-its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to,” (Plato 183d). There are two different types of love that Pausanius refers to, which are the common and heavenly love. The common love is based on your love for someone for their body, sex or beauty making it physical love and desire for a person. Heavenly love is love for the mind such as your intelligence and strength, someone you can benefit from making one more wise. Any love that is encountered has a purpose whether is it the love between a mother and daughter or the love between a husband and wife. In the end, all love leads and is directed to virtue and improves the loved ones.

In the story of Milun, we meet a knight and the daughter of a nobleman that falls in love with one another. During this time, the perception of a woman was to wait until marriage to have sex and then a child with their husband and the morals of a knight was the be in charge and have a woman given to him. They both can bring great shame on themselves if they are found out of what they have done.

Overdosing on the drug Love is something that many people do quite often without even knowing it, until they experience the withdrawal symptoms. Book IV of the Aeneid by Virgil focuses mainly on Queen Dido and Aeneas’s love relationship. After Queen Dido falls in love with Aeneas he leaves her in Carthage to go focus on his own duties. Dido doesn't take this very well and the withdrawal symptoms of the love they had are fatal. Love is just as powerful as a drug.

In Book IV of Plato’s Republic, Socrates reasons that the embodied human soul is a tripartite plurality consisting of a rational part, an appetitive part, and a spirited part. An individual, or a society, thrives when these three parts strike a balance. In a just and perfect society, people from each of the three groups must maintain a delicate position compromised of control and influence relative to the other groups. An important feature of Socrates’ ideal city is its lack of intersectionality. Each person in the various classes must complete their specific job requirements, without meddling in outside affairs, in order to maximize the city’s efficiency. The ideal city is made up of the craftsperson, the auxiliary and the guardian ruler classes. The three classes directly parallel the three parts of the soul. The craftsperson represents the appetitive part of the soul, while the auxiliaries parallel the spirited soul and lastly, the guardian rulers embody the rational soul.