Symposium Aristophanes Speech Analysis

In the Symposium, there are many people who make speeches about their belief in the definition of love is. There are many philosophers at the party, such as: Phaedrus, Pausanias, Aristophanes, Agathon, and of course, Socrates. All of whom are very wise and make very good points about love. Aristophanes speaks about how he believes that long ago humans used to be one being, and that we were separated from our other half. Now we all are searching for the other half, to make us whole again. Although, Aristophanes speech made a lot of sense and made me think, Socrates speech is the one that truly spoke to me. He talked about how love desires beauty, and the love is good. There is more meaning to love than just beauty.
In the Symposium, Aristophanes makes an interesting speech about his view on love. He focuses on the mythical aspect of how love is among humans. He starts by explaining that many, many years
ago, that there were several types of human beings: male, female, and a being made up of a combination of male and female parts. He goes on to say that we were once all round, and had four legs and four hands, two faces, and two sets of sexual organs. Basically, these beings were strong, fast, and overall a force to be reckoned with. These beings, decided to try and attack the gods. Zeus thought of cutting them in half. This would result in reducing their strength, and increasing their number, which would be more worship towards the gods. So, that’s exactly what Zeus did, and now each half roams the Earth, longing to find their match and make one whole again.
Although, many philosophers may think Aristophanes theory of love, is unrealistic, and silly, I believe it makes a lot of sense. In our modern world, everyone is looking for love. Often times, people are looking for that special person who will “complete” them. This is what Aristophanes was talking about. When you find your “other half,” you find that they share a lot of common interests and habits that you yourself have. It is almost like they have known you for years, and that you have a previous special connection. According to Aristophanes, this would make sense because you were connected previously in your life, before Zeus separated you.
After some more speeches about love, eventually it’s Socrates’ turn.
He follows up Agathon’s speech by praising him, as well as the other speakers. But he states that none of them actually praised love. He then begins to speak, in his own way, about what the definition of love. He states that love desires what it does not have. What he means by that is that an ugly person would not desire another ugly person, but they would desire a beautiful person (201a). Socrates believes that “love is the love of something” and that he loves what he needs. He goes on to remind Agathon of his claim of that there is only love of beautiful things, not ugly things. Therefore, love desires beautiful things, and since he only loves what he does not have, love needs beauty and does not have it (201c). Agathon then surrenders, saying he cannot argue against Socrates. Socrates goes on to say that one can desire beauty, and be beautiful themselves. His wisdom of love is very inspiring and truthful. Socrates speech, in my opinion was the best speech out of all of them, and was the
wisest.
I believe that Socrates’ speech is actually superior to the others in a way. While the others made good points about love, Socrates’ speech felt the most compelling to me. He begins his speech by stating that no one actually praised love, even though they appeared to do so. I agree, all the speakers talked about love, but they never actually praised love for its value. Socrates praises the complications of love. He has Agathon agree that love must be love of beauty, which implies that love must be wholly without beauty. So, according to Socrates, there is not love without beauty. This makes sense, if you do not think someone has beauty, or is beautiful, and then there is no love between you and that person. Socrates actually speaks about love, while the others never mentioned love, the simply implied it. He also talks about how beauty equals good, and that good, is the source of happiness. Love understands the good as immortality and that it’s everlasting. These explanations of love, is why I believe Socrates’ speech was superior to others. He actually went on to praise love and talk about its true meaning in life. Love is truly beautiful.
In the Symposium, there are many great speakers. One of my favorite speeches about love was made by Aristophanes. He talked about how we were once one being, and that we had been separated for our other half, and our quest for love is to find our other half. Although his speech spoke to me, and made me think more than Aristophanes. Socrates made an even more compelling and meaningful speech. He talked about how love desires beautiful things, and that beauty, the good, is the source of happiness in life. And I believe that someday this knowledge and wisdom from Socrates will be of great value to me.