Platos Symposium The Beauty of Love
Plato’s Symposium - The Beauty of LoveAccording to Plato’s Symposium, Love and philosophy are synonymous with one another. Love is the pursuit of beauty and since wisdom is beautiful, the pursuit of love is actually the pursuit of philosophy. The love, as discussed by the characters in the Symposium, is homosexual love because some people at the time believed that homosexuality alone is capable of satisfying “a man’s highest and noblest aspirations.” Whereas heterosexual love is placed at an inferior level, being described as only existing for carnal reasons; its ultimate purpose being procreation.
These dialogues are cluttered with differing views regarding Eros but the six speeches can be divided into two main categories. Phaedrus, Pausanius, and Eryximachus were the first to speak and are lumped into a category praising love, the benefits humankind reaps from it, and how it should be worshipped. For example, Phaedrus worshipped Love’s beauty and youth and the guidance one has when in love. He says that the most honorable soldiers would refrain from doing shameful acts when on the battlefield with their lover and only engage in noble acts so their lover would not be disappointed in them. Pausanius basically talks about two different types of love: vulgar and noble love. Vulgar love is second-rate and it is the love for women and boys while noble love is homosexual love involving the beloved. Eryximachus did not have anything substantial to add to the conversation and merely talked about love and medicine, music, meteorology, and divination.
The second category of speeches from Aristophanes, Agathon, and Socrates is far more important and the theme changes to the nature of love rather than the benefits of it. Aristophanes gives a very modern idea of love in his speech when he contradicts his peers by treating heterosexuality at the same level as homosexuality, arguing that both are predestined. Aristophanes considers himself as the comic poet and he begins his discourse as such. Yet as the speech continued, he professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that of either Pausanias or Eryximachus. “Mankind,” he said, “judging by their neglect of him, have never at all understood the power of Love.” He argued that if they had understood him they would have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honor. He sought to describe his power and wanted to teach the rest of the world what he was teaching at that moment.
Aristophanes spoke first of the nature of man and what had become of it. He said that human nature had changed: the sexes were originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two. At one time there was a distinct kind, with a bodily shape and a name of its own, constituted by...
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