symposium's platonic love

8/21/2019 Symposium's Platonic Love

1/10

Plato: Love is a Serious Mental Disease

Symposium (189d-193d), Speec o!"ristopanes: A myth about the origin of

sex—once human beings were completely

round, with back and sides in a circle andwith four legs and arms. We were separated

by Zeus who, as a punishment, divided each

into two separate individuals. Sundered from

our other half,! we run about trying toreconnect and so to become whole again.


2/10

Plato: Love is a Serious Mental Disease

Symposium (19#e-191a) Zeus cut those human beings in

two, the way people cut sorb"apples before they dry them orthe way they cut eggs with a hair. As he cut each one, he

commanded Apollo to turn its face and half its neck toward the

wound, so that each person could see that he#d been cut and

keep better order. $%hen Apollo& 'drew skin from all sides

over what is now called the stomach, and there he made onemouth, as in a pouch, with a drawstring and fastened it at the

center of the stomach. $%hen he shaped people& using some

such tool as shoemakers have for smoothing wrinkles out of

leather on the form. (ut he left a few wrinkles around the

stomach and navel'!


3/10


4/10


5/10

Symposium) *ove as the search

for our other half.!

Symposium (191a-c), "ristopanes: +ow

since their natural form had been cut in two,

each one longed for its own other half, and sothey would throw their arms about each other,

weaving themselves together, wanting to grow

together. n that condition they would die from

hunger and general idleness, because theywould not do anything apart from each other.!


6/10

'each one longed for its

own other half, and so they

would throw their arms

about each other, weavingthemselves together,

wanting to grow together.

n that condition they would

die from hunger and

general idleness, because

they would not do anything

apart from each other.!

Symposium) *ove as the search

for our other half.!


7/10

+ussbaum on the silliness of this story - the absurdity of sex)

rom the point of view of desire,' the penetration of a part of

one#s own body into some opening in the loved one#s body is anevent of excitement and beauty. rom the outside it /ust looks

peculiar, or even grotes0ue1 2'3 As we hear Aristophanes#

distant myth of this passionate groping and grasping, we are

invited to think how odd, after all, it is that bodies should have

these holes and pro/ections in them, odd that the insertion of a

pro/ection into an opening should be though, by ambitious and

intelligent beings, a matter of the deepest concern. 2'3 rom

the outside, we cannot help laughing. %hey want to be gods—

and here they are running around anxiously trying to thrust apiece of themselves inside a hole1 or perhaps more comical

still, waiting in the hope that some hole of theirs will have

something thrust into it.!

4artha +ussbaum, 5678.%he ragility of 9oodness, 5:;"<


8/10

Symposium ($11c-d) %Ladder o! Love& (Scala "moris):

Speec o! Socrates, e'plainin at e learned !rom a

teacer o! is, Diotima* +e says se told im:

%his is what is is to go aright, or to be led by another,

into the mystery of love) one goes always upwards for

the sake of this (eauty, starting out from beautiful

things and using them like rising stairs) from one bodyto two and from two to all beautiful bodies, then from

beautiful bodies to beautiful customs, and from

customs to learning beautiful things, and from these

lessons he arrives in the end at this lesson, which islearning of this very beauty so that in the end he

comes to know /ust what it is to be beautiful.!


9/10

reory lastos.s /aracteri0ation o! Plato.s ie:

We are to love the person so far, and only insofar, as they are

good and beautiful. +ow since all too few human beings aremasterworks of excellence, and not even the best of those we

have the chance to love are free of streaks of the ugly, the

mean, the commonplace, the ridiculous, if our love for them is

to be only for their virtue and beauty, the individual, in the

uni0ueness and integrity of her individuality, will never be the

ob/ect of our love. %his seems to me the cardinal flaw in =lato#s

theory. t does not provide for the love of whole persons, but

only for love of that abstract version of persons which consists

of the complex of their best 0ualities. 2'3 %he high climacticmoment of fulfillment—the peak achievement for which all

lesser loves are to be >used as steps#—is the one farthest

removed from affection for concrete human beings.!

""?lastos, 9. 56:


10/10

Boes =lato Advocate =latonic!*oveC

uestion: s ?lastos rightC s =lato#s view of love

>impersonalC# A possible counterexample, butfrom an untrustworthy character 2Alchibiades3)

Symposium ($12a-$$$c) e Speec o!"lci4iades: Speaks of his particular love for a

particular person 2Socrates3, expressed in terms of

Socrates#s uni0ue characteristics. ?ery unlike theimage of love presented in Socrates#s own

speechD

symposium's platonic love

Documents