Plato's Symposium Analysis

9/20/2013
PHIL 203
Plato’s Symposium When most people think of love, they think of love between a man and woman, love between a father and son, mother and daughter, etc. Many do not think of love as a desire. However, Socrates, through his speech in Plato’s Symposium puts love in a different light. Plato’s Symposium examines the topic of love through the speeches of six men. These six men include Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, and Socrates. When first reading this text, I was very shocked at how pederasty was somewhat socially accepted and just thought that the men were talking about erotic/sexual love. And while some were just talking about sexual love, we are able to see that love encompasses so much more
than just sexual pleasure. Socrates, especially, rejects what has been said by the other men of love and turns everything around. Whether he meant to or not, Socrates makes himself out to be love itself. The speeches of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon precede Socrates’ speech.
While these speeches just seem like a build-up to Socrates’ speech, they all have very valid points. Like many believed at that time, Phaedrus starts off saying “that Love was a great god, among men and gods a marvel” (178a). He believes that “Love is by various authorities allowed to be of most venerable standing; and as most venerable, he is the cause of all our highest blessings” (178c). The feeling of love, more than any other feeling, can guide us toward a good life. Phaedrus emphasizes the passionate love between a man and woman and that this love is better than any status, wealth, or pleasure in the
world. Pausanias believes that there are two kinds of love because there are two of Aphrodite. There is heavenly Aphrodite and common Aphrodite, so then there is heavenly love (Eros Uranios) and common love (Eros Pandemos). The love that deserves praise is heavenly love. Common love is the “Love we see in the meaner sort of men; who, in the first place, love women as well as boys; secondly, where they love, they are set on the body more than the soul; and thirdly, they choose the most witless people they can find…” (181b). On the other hand, heavenly love “springs from the Heavenly goddess who, firstly, partakes not of the female but only of the male; and secondly, is the elder, untinged with wantonness; wherefore those who are inspired by this Love betake them to the male, in fondness for what has the robuster nature and a larger share of the mind. Even in the passion for boys… they love boys only when they begin to acquire some mind—a growth associated with that of down on their chins”(181c-181d). This means that Pausanias believes that heavenly love, the one worthy to be praised, can only be of love between a man and a mature boy. Eryximachus talks about how love is not only found in human relationships and is not “merely an impulse of human souls towards beautiful men but the attraction of all creatures to a great variety of things, which works in the bodies of all animals and al growths upon the earth, and practically in everything that is…” (186a). He gives examples of how love can be found in medicine and music. Aristophanes talks of a myth in where there used to be a third sex which consisted of both male and female body parts a long time ago. Also, “the form of each person was round all over, with back and sides encompassing it every way; each had four arms, and legs to match these, and two faces perfectly alike on a cylindrical neck...” (189e). After a threat to the gods, Zeus cut people in half and since then people are always looking for their other half. This “craving and pursuit of that entirety is called Love” (193a). Agathon says that “while all gods are blissful, Love… is the most blissful, as being the most beautiful and the best” (195a). While Agathon says that love is delicate, young, and beautiful, Socrates argues against Agathon and says that Agathon has talked about the “character of Love, and then to treat of his acts”, but has not talked about love itself. Socrates rejects all these ideas on love by proceeding “with the discourse upon Love which [he] heard one day from a Mantinean woman named Diotima” (201d).
Diotima says that instead of Love being a god, Love is “a great spirit…interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men…the son of Resource and Poverty…and far from tender or beautiful as most suppose him…But he takes after his father in scheming for all that is beautiful and good…Love is a love directed to what is fair; so that Love must needs be a friend of wisdom, and, as such, must be between wise and ignorant” (202e-204b). Diotima in other words says that “love loves the good to be one’s own for ever” which means that love is a desire to possess the good forever(206a). Diotima goes on to say that love is expressed through the “bringing to birth”. Not just of the sexual love that brings to birth a baby, but of the reproduction of thoughts and knowledge. Lovers should love the “beauty of souls than on that of the body” (210b). According to the Symposium outline in the course booklet it says that “we should pass from the love of bodily beauty to the love of beautiful souls, to the love of sciences, and finally to the love of absolute beauty.” I believe that Socrates is the representation of this love that he talks about. Socrates is a lover/friend of wisdom and he schemes for all that is beautiful and good. He has no interest in sexual pleasure which can be seen in his relationship with
Alcibiades so that means that he has passed on from the love of bodily beauty to a love of deeper things. He was told that there is none wiser than him, which gives Socrates an almost higher authority than other men. This can almost mean that he is the “spirit” that mediates between humans and the divine. Socrates’ view on love is totally different from the views of the other men. Socrates looks at the core of love. While the other men focus on love between a man and woman, love within music or medicine, and while these may be examples of love, Socrates looks at the true definition of love which is the desire to possess the good forever. One can desire for the good within sex to last forever, one can desire for the good in a marriage to last forever, one can desire for the good within their family to last forever, one can desire for the good within the world to last forever, and this is all love. I agree with Socrates’ view of love. I believe that if one truly loves something, they would want to pursue it and possess it forever. To accept this definition of love and follow it, one would have to be “pregnant” with it and “reproduce”, meaning they would have to bring it out into the world and share it with others. As seen through the Symposium, Socrates can be seen as the personification of love itself. Though love may be different for everybody, Socrates captures through his speech the true essence and core of the meaning of love.

Works Cited
Plato. Symposium. Trans. Seth Benardete. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001. Print.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Symposium.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 19 Sept. 2013.