In Plato’s Symposium each philosopher shared a different version of love when they gave their speech. First of all, Phaedrus expressed that love was the oldest of all gods and the one that does the most to promote virtue in people. Second, the strangest speech of the night came from Aristophanes; he expressed love in the form of a mythical story. Here is a quote from part of Aristophanes speech on his version of love, “We are twice the people we are now, and the gods were jealous, Zeus decided to cut us in half to reduce our power, and ever since we had been running all over the earth trying to rejoin with our other half. When we do, we cling to that other half with all our might, and we call this love.” (Aristophanes…
The Ancient Greek word, 'Eros', translates into English as "Love". Love is generally viewed by society as an intense feeling of deep affection, however, love does not pertain to any one object or desire. Rather many various forms of love are believed to be in existence. Some of these more common forms entail romantic love, spiritual love, materialistic love, familial love, and sensual love, and many others. Within the Bernadete translation of the Plato's Symposium, a gathering is held between the characters, where the different philosophical dimensions of Eros are pondered and discussed by each character possessing their own opinions in regards.…
In the story of Crito, Socrates is in prison and awaiting his execution that he was found guilty by corrupting the youth and also supporting other gods that the city of Athens did not. Throughout his trial, Socrates argued each of the things he was charged for and made it very clear that it was not just for him to be found guilty for these actions. The jury ended up finding Socrates guilty through a very slim vote that was not necessarily fair by any means. As Socrates sat in his cell, one of his very faithful friends, Crito, decided to come talk to him. He gave Socrates the opportunity to escape prison and live the life of a wanted man instead of facing his execution. As the story of Crito goes on, he asks himself a number of questions deciding on what he was going to do and whether it would be just or unjust for him to escape prison. Socrates eventually decided that he was going to stay in prison and face his execution instead of escaping, for the act of escaping prison would be unjust and breaking the laws of the city. I agree with Socrates’ decision that he made and feel like he did the just thing by facing his execution.…
There are numerous charges against Socrates in the reading of The Apology. The basic charges against him include impiety, corrupting the youth, and theorizing about unknown topics. He does not believe in the gods that the state does, and therefore seeks for natural explanations to processes that occur in the world around him. He did not recognize the gods and introduced other new divinities. Socrates was charged with corrupting the youth. Due to the constant asking of questions and inquiry, it lead him to try to discover new things about life. Since he looked for natural reason, he began to teach others about his understandings. His followers soon began to imitate his methods and expose other people as unwise which was a threat to the order…
Socrates begins by cross-examining Agathon and drawing out the faults in his speech. Love, Socrates forces Agathon to admit, is always love of something, in the same way that a father is always the father of someone. Love desires what is beautiful and good, and we always desire that which we do not possess. Love, therefore, must be neither good nor beautiful in itself.…
“The most intriguing people you will encounter in this life are the people who had insights about you, that you didn't know about yourself” (Alder). This quote can be used to show why the great Greek philosopher, Socrates is deemed as being so intriguing. During his time, Socrates was seen as a great threat because he tended to break free from the normal way of thinking and inevitably, people became afraid of him. Socrates was eventually put to death on account of “corrupting the youth” and being an “atheist,” which were false claims against him to cover up the fact that his accusers simply didn’t like him or his ways. When reading Plato’s Republic, Socrates is shown as being very intriguing because of: his humble ways, his Socratic method,…
The main argument of Socrates is that being loved by gods and god-loved is not the same as the pious. They are the affects and qualities. I think, Socrates want to emphasize active and passive voice. He firstly talks about something loving and something loved. In case of something loved, there is one who loves. In that point, he argues “being loved” and says that “it is being loved because it is pious, but it is not pious because it is being loved.”(10-d)…
Socrates is known as the lover of wisdom and the lover of beauty. His speech is a response to Agathon who comically states that love is beautiful and young, the opposite of Socrates. Socrates inquires is love considered to be a love of something or of nothing? He compares that to how a father is a father to his children and a brother is a brother to his siblings. Socrates expresses that love’s desire suggests that one does not own what he or she loves. Socrates further explains this by giving the example of a healthy man having the desire to remain healthy. One’s desire for things is for the future. The desire rests in the preservation and not the lack thereof. This statement of love being a love of something shows that there is a connection…
Virtue, rather than being a teachable piece of knowledge, seems to be an innate understanding. Every person in the world, save perhaps psychopaths and sociopaths, naturally has a strong moral compass. An example that proves this idea is the innocence of children. I have never witnessed a child perform an action with solely malicious intent. Children always have some outside motivation for any hateful actions they perform, so they never do it only to hurt someone. At this point you might think that, yes, children do not do anything with only malicious purposes, but the fact remains that they continue to perform such actions. This is true, but honestly, how have children learned to do such hateful things? No child would consider cursing at anyone if they were angry, but since they observe others performing these actions, the children begin to develop the idea in their minds that doing so must relieve their suffering. It seems, then, that humans learn harmful…
Throughout the course of the speech, Socrates describes love based upon an interaction with a woman named Diotima. After explaining to Socrates that good and bad and beautiful and ugly are more of a grey concept as opposed to a clear cut concept, she tells Socrates that love is a “great spirit” whose purpose is to fill the unknown space between humans and gods. Diotima then tells Socrates of the origin of Love, following Aphrodite’s birth, and how it relates to Love’s parents, the Penia, the embodiment of poverty, and Poros, the cunning and beautiful son of Metis. Additionally, she explains love as a cycle of continuous birth and death. She explains to Socrates that love is neither wise, nor ignorant which further illustrates her claim of love’s equivocalness.…
As the world becomes more immersed in advanced technology and more discoveries are made, we assume we know everything. If Socrates were here today he would repeat what he said to Athenians 2,400 years ago, that we know nothing. After Socrates encountered the Oracle of Delphi, which told him he was the wisest man in Athens, he went on a journey to try to disprove the oracle. He did this by asking politicians, poets and craftsmen questions. He knew that he didn’t know everything and along the way, he realized that the public didn’t know more than he did, just that they thought they did. He concluded that he knew nothing and because he acknowledged this, he was the wisest man in Athens. (The Apology of Socrates, 32-35).…
“The Death of Socrates” was painted by a French painter . His name was Jacques Louis David. The painting represents the scene of the death of Greek philosopher Socrates. He was condemned to die by drinking hemlock for the expression of his ideas against those of Athens' and corrupting the minds of the youth. The painting also depicts both Plato and Crito, with the former sitting at the edge of the bed and the latter clutching the knee of Socrates. Socrates had the choice to go into exile and , hence, give up his philosophic vocation or be sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. Socrates chose death. In this painting, someone hands a confident Socrates the goblet of hemlock. Socrates' hand pointing to the heavens indicating his defiance of the gods and fearless attitude to his death.…
In the trial of Socrates I am going to show that the defendant is not guilty on the first charge of corrupting the youth. My justifications for this vote are as follows. Socrates didn't corrupt the youth, he just shared his ideas with them and they in turn chose the path to take these ideas.…
Judgment is everywhere, inside schools, in public, workplaces, and even inside churches. Judgment separates humans apart from other humans, making them feel less of themselves just for being the person the Universe created them to be. So many people have experienced and dealt with the judgment on an everyday basis, such as African Americans in the 1900s, Greek Philosophers, and even different religions. Judgment has been an ever-growing problem all across the world, still to this day. Every human being has their own rights, their rights to be themselves, judgment takes away those rights.…
Throughout his work Plato is well known for implementing dialogue, typically with Socrates as the main interlocutor, to express his philosophical thoughts in an engaging, dramatic fashion. The Symposium is no different and is often considered Plato’s crowning achievement in terms of creating a harmonic interplay between drama and philosophy within his dialogue. Beyond simply presenting his ideas in an entertaining manner, this dialectic method of composition lends a masterful wordsmith such as Plato the ability to build his ideas very convincingly through character interaction. He can present a character with conceptions similar to those of potential readers, only to have those conceptions completely broken down logically towards exposing the “right” conception all through his mouthpiece Socrates.…