Socrates and Love

In the Symposium, written by Plato, Socrates and others engage in a dialogue in the home of Agathon on love. Instead of "singing the honours" (94) of love like the other participants, Socrates uses a retelling of a discussion that he had with a woman named Diotima to tell the audience of what he perceives to be the truth of love.

He first speaks to Agathon in order to be on the same wavelength with him. Socrates asks Agathon a series of questions - which leads to Agathon being thoroughly confused and completely re-thinking his entire speech he just made. Agathon is no longer sure if Love is beautiful and good, which was his primary definition of it before.

Socrates has Agathon confirm that when one does not have the thing that he desires and loves, that is when he desires and loves it. They agree that one "loves what he lacks and has not" (96). In Agathon's view of love that he expressed earlier, love is always of beautiful things. Therefore, if one loves what he lacks, then "Love lacks and has not beauty" (96), Socrates says. Agathon says this must be the case and no longer has any idea of his previous statements. If Love loves beautiful things, then it is not itself beautiful. And if everything beautiful is good, then love also lacks goodness.

Socrates tells Agathon that Diotima, a woman who advised him on the matters of love, had asked him the same series of questions before. This leads Socrates to ask Diotima, `if Love is neither beautiful nor good, is it ugly and bad?' Diotima says no, because the nature of love is in between the opposites of ugly and beautiful, good and bad.

"He is not good and not beautiful, as you admit yourself, but do not imagine for that reason any the more that he must be ugly ...

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... movie is bigger news than earthquakes or hurricanes killing many people outside of the United States. In today's society, we are saturated with the preoccupation of exterior beauty, regardless of the fact that ultimately a soul's beauty will satisfy us far better than any physical beauty. Without changing the values of our society, it would not be possible for us to believe in Socrates' view of love.

Socrates' arguments may have been suitable in his time period or for himself, but it does not work today because of the implications mentioned above. However, the best way to measure his argument would have been to read it at the time of Plato. It's also not possible to make a fair judgment of his argument because its style is quite different from what we know as an argument today. At this time, they were just beginning to develop exactly what an argument was.