The Teachings Of Phaedrus And Alcibiades

The Peloponnesian war lasted from 431 to 404 B.C. and was profoundly influenced by two Athenian men, Pericles and Alcibiades. Though Pericles and Alcibiades were related by blood they were quite different. Pericles was a diplomat, he approached matters with a level head and tried to find a solution that did not end in bloodshed. Alcibiades was less stable, he either fought, manipulated, or ran when confronted with a problem. Both men spoke eloquently enough to move almost the entire city of Athens, using their words to bend people to their will.  What was different between them was what their will was, one cared about the city and its wellbeing, the other cared about his own wellbeing.

Aristophanes view on love as a punishment from God can correspond to how Alcibiades is

Finally, we can appreciate how love, just as any instantiation of our moral framework, comes as embodied in a human ideal – and here we witness the figure of a familiar figure. If as we have seen above Lear considers Socrates as a prime example of someone who strived to achieve humanity, and if to achieve humanity is to become enter in an ever stronger relationship with love as our moral source, it follows that Socrates can be seen – as Lear does – as an ideal of what I shall call an erotic life. This, implies that there is a connection between living the life of the ironist and that of living the life of the eroticist. However, in order to fully explain this link between irony, love, and individuation, we must now consider how Lear describes

In Phaedrus, Plato expands on the social implication that those who wield rhetoric ought to be just and act justly when utilizing it. This recurring theme is clearly portrayed through his analysis of love, the soul, and rhetoric itself. Phaedrus is written as a dialogue, with Phaedrus and Socrates discussing their views on rhetoric. Plato structures his writing so that Socrates is the one bestowing knowledge upon Phaedrus, his young and playful pupil, by asking pointed questions to which Phaedrus replies. The relationship between Phaedrus and Socrates is both one of a student and teacher but also one of lovers, made clear by Socrates’ soft attitude and affection towards Phaedrus.

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

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

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

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 ”.

In his speech, Aristophanes tells the story about the origin of the nature of human beings. He tells that once, there were no humans, but only creatures that were round, had four hands, as well as, four legs and two faces. There were three kinds of such creatures: males, females, and androgynous – the form that was made up of male and female elements. They made an attempt on the Gods, and that pissed Zeus off, so that he ordered to split them in half. That is, how according to Aristophanes, humans appeared. Those who belonged to the male creatures wanted to reunite with males, those who belonged to female creatures wanted to reunite with women and those who belonged to androgynous wanted to reunite with the opposite sex.

thesis what Aristophanes defines as love. He believes that love is innate: " love is born into

Platonic love only partially identifies with Pausanias’s theory. Pausanias’s speech and the speeches of the rest

In these two instances, it is clear that Socrates is the beloved, and the two men admire his self-discipline and "uprightness." If standing still is indicative of nobility then fleeing or running away is naturally indicative of the opposite –shame and vulgarity. Alcibiades had a habit of running away because of the shame that Socrates caused him to feel. When Alcibiades speaks of other encounters with Socrates he says: "I have become a runaway to avoid him" and "I stopped my ears and took off in flight, as if from the Sirens, in order that I not sit here in idleness and grow old beside him" (279). On the surface it is clear from this passage that Alcibiades is not the most noble of men, but further significance is contained in these words with respect to Agathon’s eulogy of Eros. In his eulogy he says: "First he is the youngest of the gods…for with headlong flight he avoids old age" (256). Alcibiades likens himself to Agathon’s Eros, who, according to Socrates is not the lover, but the beloved. Alcibiades, as stated previously, is most certainly the lover of Socrates, and this is why, at the end of his speech (which is not really a eulogy to Eros, but a praise of Socrates) he warns

Sophocles first displays the failure of love through the war and deaths of Polyneices and Eteocles. Polyneices, the brother of Antigone and Eteocles, has broken familial ties and gone against his own people, as he is a commander in the Argive army that attacked his home city of Thebes. With this background, Sophocles is able to reveal how anger can be a stronger emotion than even love as the two brothers met “face to face in a matchless rage” (195). Here it is emphasized that love can be overshadowed by rage and greed as both brothers neglected their shared blood and history and instead were motivated by a place of hate as they fought for power. Rage not only overtook filial love between Polyneices and Eteocles on the battlefield, but before this. Eteocles and Polyneices were unable to share the crown after their father Oedipus’ death. The fight for power ultimately led to Polyneices being exiled from Thebes. This fight for the crown functions as a smaller internal war between the two brothers. Both the internal and external wars allow for love to be exposed as fickle. Love is fickle as it can easily be transformed into hate and this is shown when to loving brothers are torn apart by a single quarrel. With love comes strong emotions and when these emotions are transformed to hate, such hate is unconquerable just as “love (is) unconquerable” (224).

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

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.