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Plato's forms of love
Critical analysis of plato: the allegory of the cave
Critical analysis of plato: the allegory of the cave
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Plato’s Symposium introduces the metaphorical “ladder of love” which allows a person to ascend from the attraction of a beautiful body to beauty itself. Climbing this “ladder of love” to admire beauty itself can be achieved through following Eros, the god of love. However, Diotima states that some people misuse Eros not to admire beauty itself, but to achieve immortality by reproducing. Therefore, the analysis of Diotima's speech suggests that her character serves to criticise the use love for personal gain.
Humans are able to easily grasp the first two steps in the “ladder of love”; however, the third step is where they can get entangled. The first two steps are the particular beauty of a single body and the realization that all bodies are beautiful, while the third step is to realize that the soul itself is beautiful (Caluori). The acknowledgment that humans can easily reach the first two steps, of recognizing beauty, is evident when Diotima states, “[whenever] persons draw near to beauty,
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they become gentle and joyfully disposed” (Symposium 206D).
The ease arises, because “gentle[ness] and joyfull[ness]” are traits which are built into humans and can easily be brought about. Though humans can easily identify beauty, they become overly “disposed” in love and lose track of ascending the “ladder of love.” This over disposition is evident when Diotima claims that she is “amazed at [the humans] irrationality” around
the concept of human indulgence in the physical beauty of others (Symposium 208D). Diotima’s use of “irrationality” connotes that when humans are exposed to beauty they become overwhelmed and behave in irrational ways, which then clouds their rational mind, thus preventing the further ascension of the “ladder of love.” Without a rational mind, these humans focus on the first two steps, because they are satisfied by the joyfulness and gentleness of these steps bring about and feel no reason to go beyond further. Therefore, they focus their lives on beautiful objects and not trying to reach the state of admiration of beauty itself. This “irrationality” is the basis for Diotima’s criticism of humans using Eros for their own personal gain. Diotima believes that the humans are exploiting Eros for the virtue of immortality. This belief is evident when she states, “mortal nature seeks so far as possible to live forever and be immortal. And this only is possible in one way only: by reproduction” (Symposium 207D). Thus to an “irrational” mind, entranced by beauty, the virtue of immortality would sound appealing. This appeal to “live forever and be immortal” would influence a human to use Eros to bed as many men or women as possible, in order to bear as many children in an attempt to gain the virtue of immortality. Diotima even claims that “[any human] will do anything for the sake of immortal virtue… they are all in love with immortality” (Symposium 208E). By being “in love with immorality” it is evident that these humans have fallen off the “ladder of love,” because they no longer have any desire to reach the goal of admiration of beauty itself. Thus, these humans are not using Eros to guide them to the admiration of beauty itself but using him to gain a virtue of immortality. Another example of humans falling into the hands of beauty and forgetting their original goal is through Alcibiades, entrance. Alcibiades is acknowledged for his beauty throughout the play and after his entrance, the men forgot their original goal of praising love and instead began to talk about Alcibiades and his love for Socrates. Therefore, Diotima’s criticism serves to emphasize that it is human nature to use love, Eros, selfishly to gain personal satisfaction. This suggests that when we place our personal satisfaction ahead of everything else, we lose sight of the bigger picture. Once we lose sight of the bigger picture metaphorically fall of the ladder we were climbing in the first place. Diotima’s criticism can also present the reader a metaphorical question: whether to exploit Eros to gain a virtue of immortality or follow him and admire beauty itself which few people have seen.
In the poems, “EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges and “Eros” by Anne Stevenson both have similar yet distinct concepts of the God of love. “EΡΩΣ” describes the concept of love as being conflicted between humans view of Eros as the god of love and lust; where as Stevenson’s poem describes Eros as being bruised and beat up as a result of this constant misunderstanding by humanity. Thus, both poems are similar with their description of Eros’ constant struggles with human nature. “EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges has a contradictory concept of what humans view as love, thus the negative and positive comparisons are between Eros different angles in love and lust. For instance, Eros is described as both having “exuberant flesh so fair” yet
With imagery she provided a detailed visual of what that looks like, how it sounds and gave readers an understanding of what magic feels like. Finally, characters told the tale with ambiguity so that each and every member of the audience could relate and draw references to the people in their own lives. The poem perfectly unified beauty with basics, showing that true beauty does not always have to be elaborate. True beauty lies within the simplistic details, the character of those involved, the love that is felt and the goodness of mankind, that alone is magic. The theme that all moments are worthy of gratitude no matter how often they occur or how simple they appear is beautifully exemplified in the poem “Common Magic”.
The Greek god of love, Eros, is seen in varying perspectives. To some, he is a powerful force that takes a leadership role in life. He is mighty and unwavering. To others, he is a servant of the people. One such concept of servitude is portrayed in the poem “Eros,” written by Anne Stevenson. Through the use of rhyme, alliteration, and other literary devices, Stevenson produces the reader with a clear image of a beaten god. Because of this, “Eros” can easily be approached with the formal critical strategy.
Plato's Phaedrus is a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus. In this conversation the young Phaedrus is overjoyed to tell Socrates of the speech that he had just heard Lysias, "The best writer living" (Plato Phaedrus 22), tell. In this speech Lysias uses his rhetorical skills to argue that physical love without emotional attachment is preferable to physical love with emotional attachment, "That is the clever thing about it; he makes out that an admirer who is not in love is to be preferred to one who is" (Plato Phaedrus 22). Socrates listens to this speech, as relayed by Phaedrus and quickly becomes aware that this speech was a ploy by Lysias to get Phaedrus into bed with him. Socrates then fashions a speech, on the spot, that argues the same points that Lysias did. Socrates? speech is going well but is interrupted by "divine sign." Socrates then has to fashion a new speech that renounces the blasphemous nature of the first. Socrates? second speech contains the famous image of love as a charioteer with two horses. He also addresses the nature of the soul and the effects that love has on it (which will be ...
Here, Herodotus accounts the story of Candaules’s fond passion for his wife’s beauty, thinking her the “fairest women in the whole world” and he wants to show off his wife to his trusted bodyguard. Herodotus explains how Candaules has respect for the beauty of his wife, but does not respect any of her wishes or desires upon showing herself to a stranger bodyguard.
beauty before we can truly cherish other forms of beauty around us. “Two or three things
I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someone's body rather their mind. In Plato's Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly love brought up by Pausanias and the important role that Diotima plays in the symposium.
The third and final form of love expressed through the use of heat and cold imagery in Thousand Cranes and Woman at Point Zero is that of intimate relations. It is f...
This passage marks the first of several types of love, and gives us an intuitive
As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually ranging from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55). The first five speeches bond with each other. Each of them mentions the opinions of the former in order to either support or against them. However, just like the elements of a beautiful picture, they fail to show us the integration of love.
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
When most people think of love, they imagine a beautiful concept, one of which is and should be a part of life. Some will imagine the unconditional love of God, others will picture a spouse or family members, and some may even think about materialistic things. While there are many ways in which love can be defined as, it usually has positive connotations. This is not necessarily the case in Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces, at least through the character Orual. Love is a major theme in the novel and is portrayed in both a humanly and a divine way. The humanly love which Lewis displays is mainly shown through Orual and is demonstrated as a perverse love. The divine love is presented through Psyche and is portrayed as selfless. In Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis differentiates perverse love and selfless
One of the best summarizes of Greeks’ gods attitude toward human is the claim of Aphrodite in Euripides’ Hippolytus that she will treat well the people who revere her power, but will “trip up” those who are proud towards her, and this pri...
It is easy to fall in love with bodies. I Breathe skin, lose time to anticipation and pleasure, hair, lips, thighs; tangled in another person, I am lost in a jungle. Transcendence. Society teaches us to break a body down: we love legs, butts, breasts; we take images and splice them into the form of our perfect desire. Like Pygmalion we are desperate to breathe life into our conception of beauty, our imagination of a perfect creature. Reality is easily redrawn around a body whose presence in a place reorganizes the map of the world. Nothing exists but the texture of skin, its taste thick in the mind's imagination. Against our animal world, ideas and numbers seem strange, misplaced, insignificant to desire and love, to connecting with another's warmth. Trying to fulfill a fantasy, it is the dreamer who is recreated. It is time that is filled in.
Some people believe that there is no such thing as “true love” they believe that love is nothing but an illusion designed by social expectations. These people believe that love ultimately turns into pain and despair. This idea in some ways is true. Love is not eternal it will come to an end one way or another, but the aspect that separates true love from illusion, is the way love ends. “True Love” is much too powerful to be destroyed by Human imperfection; it may only be destroyed by a force equal to the power of love. Diotima believed that “Love is wanting to posses the good forever” In other words love is the desire to be immortal and the only way that we are able to obtain immortality is through reproduction, and since the act of reproduction is a form of sexual love, then sexual love is in fact a vital part of “True love”. Sexual love is not eternal. This lust for pleasure will soon fade, but the part of love that is immortal, is a plutonic love. You can relate this theory to the birth of love that Diotima talks about. She says that love was born by a mortal mother and immortal father. The mother represents the sexual love, the lust for pleasure. The father represents the plutonic love that is immortal. Plutonic love is defined as a true friendship, the purest of all relationships. A true plutonic love will never die; it transcends time, space, and even death.