Platos Symposium Essay -- Socrates Love Symposium Essays Plato

Platos Symposium What is the meaning of have sex? What does love feel like? How does love espouse about? No one can truly explain it, yet somehow its understood. In Platos Symposium, a dinner party was held with the discussion of love as the main topic. Everyone was required to make a speech, an ode to Love, the spirit. The philosopher, Socrates gave his speech last, claiming that his speech was merely a repetition of what a wise woman named Diotima once told him. The speech was a powerful one, but out front the night was over, a drunk Alcibiades entered. He was asked to make a eulogy for Love as well, but instead, talked about the nature of Socrates. The nature of Love and the nature of Socrates turned out to be extremely similar. In the Symposium, Socrates can be seen as the embodiment of Love itself. The notion of love that was understood at the end of the Symposium came about gradually. It transformed from speaker to speaker over the course of the party, and could be compared to the whole process of understanding love that Socrates tried and true to explain in his own speech. Its complexity was attained by taking small steps in a larger direction. Diotima explained to Socrates, that to attain the deepest love, he had to go along a certain order. Much like stepping up on the rungs in a ladder(211c), loves nature started small, with Phaedrus and Pausinas merely stating that there was good love and liberal love. This was the first step, starting with beautiful things(211c) and making those things reason for... ascent(211c) up the proverbial ladder. Next Eryximachus speech compared loves importance to that of medicines. He used the things of this world as rungs in a ladder(211c). Aristophanes then gives love a comedic approach, breaking up the adulation. Agathon was next, and his speech showed how love affected peoples minds. It created great poets, and spawned the practices of hedonism, luxury, and sensualism(197d). Agathon was last before Socrates, and the closest to Socrates view. He was at the final steps of the deepest love, seeing the beauty of peoples activities(211c) and of intellectual endeavors(211c).Love, the spirit, was said to be the son of Plenty and Poverty(203c). One refer a polar opposite of the other, coming together to form the middle path named Love. The spirit Love was full of self-conflic... ...lings were not a eulogy for Love, they were ain opinions of his experiences with Socrates, and bluntly stated it. Although it must be taken into consideration that he was characterized as drunk while giving his speech, he reminded the party that the truth comes from drink(217e). Essentially, reassuring the reader that he is not in a condition to be making up lies. His description of Socrates nature was similar to that of Socrates own description of loves nature. However, Alcibiades was not at the party when Socrates made his speech, so there was no way could have used it to fashion a similar story of his own.Socrat es was regarded as the wisest man at the party. He could have given a second-rate report(215d) on love, as Alcibiades would have said, and woman, man, or child(215d) would have been overwhelmed and spellbind(215d). It was the effect Socrates had on people. Perhaps he was the embodiment of love? Even if his speech was fictional, he held a captivated audience of men who would have reveled in the chance to lay(219b) with the Socrates. Works CitedPlato, and Robin Waterfield, trans. Symposium. New York Oxford University Press, 1994.