I found that the thoughts presented in
Plato’s Symposium build upon each
other like a set of stairs. In this way, the concepts that create love are
hierarchical, each stacking upon another to ultimately establish what love is,
its purpose, and how to attain it. In his dialogue with Diotima, Socrates
establishes that that love is the inclination to have that, which is good.
Expanding upon this notion, Diotima asks Socrates, “but shouldn’t we add that,
in loving it, they want the good to be theirs forever” (206A). At the onset of this
conversation however, Diotima establishes that, “love is neither beautiful nor
good,” however this does not mean that it is in fact ugly (201E). Diotima
clarifies that while love’s nature is not necessarily beautiful, it does not
rely on the universal negative of ugliness. This “in between” places love in
the realm of the spiritual, not of the mortal or immortal. We see in this
definition of love that it is transcendent of the concreteness of both
mortality and immortality. Furthermore, this spiritual nature of love acts as
the first stepping stone in the process of understanding love’s goal, and
consequently how to attain it.
Throughout Diotima’s speech, the true
goal of love is, “giving birth in beauty, whether in body or in soul” (206B).
Pregnancy produces a new life; reproduction, “is what mortals have in place of
immortality” (207 A). By giving birth,
whether literally or metaphorically, humans have the ability to live forever
through their physical and mental offspring. In saying this, Diotima clarifies
that, “no one can possibly give birth in anything ugly; only in something
beautiful,” further shedding light on the objective of love to exist in beauty
(206D). In understanding the purpose of love, man must act to realize true
beauty and goodness through love, a task, which has stages of action within
itself.
The process by which one fulfills the
goal of love is strenuous, requiring the lover to love the beauty of the body,
then love the beauty of all bodies, and finally realize the beauty of the soul
(210B). Only then can the lover reach absolute beauty and absolute good, “starting
out from beautiful things and using them like rising stairs…so that in the end
he comes to know just what it is to be beautiful” (211C-D). Once again, this
idea of the hierarchical disposition of love comes into play, now in the
process by which one carries out love.
Lauren does a good job laying out the steps Diotima uses to illustrate her argument. I found it interesting how the end of Diotima's argument is that the reason one should embrace love is that it can lead one to understand the nature of beauty. Althought Lauren does not mention it in her post, one of the key parts of beauty is that "it always is and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes" (211A). It occurs to me that this is very similar to the goal lain out by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita; the understanding of the immortal is a key part of the transformation of individuals in both texts.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading Lauren's post, her use of the word 'transcendent' jumped out at me and made me think about The Second Sex and the parallels between the definition of woman and the definition of Love. Simone de Beauvoir asserts that "one is not born, but rather becomes, woman" (283). The properties of woman are attributed to her by society. In a similar way, each of the men at Agathon's house have their own definition of Love. None of the men are really able to ever say "Love is x", and I think this is because everyone's personal definitions of Love combine to become what society defines Love as. In short, Love is just given a set of attributes because there isn't really one definition, just as there isn't really one definition of woman.
ReplyDeleteI found Emma's point about the link between what something is and what it is perceived as extremely interesting. As the concept of Love is something non-physical and intangible, it is impossible to take something and say that it is a perfect example of love. As such, everyone views love through their own lens and have their own take on it, and each interprets it through the view of their own field, for that is how they have experienced life. Socrates' speech is the most intriguing, for it is told through the frame of an allegory. Socrates is a philosopher, and his speech mocks the profession -- Symposium shows it to be a satiric mockery of the speeches of the others, which relies on deceptive language to trick others into agreeing with Socrates and to construct his arguments.
ReplyDeleteI liked Lauren's emphasis on the importance of pregnancy. one of the things i found interesting was the extremely positive stance that Diotima took regarding pregnancy. she seemed to view the creation of new life and ideas as a process which could, by its very nature, produce only good and beauty. this is quite different to the views of De Beauvoir. she views intercourse and the physical burden a woman bears to procreate as a barbarous and ugly process. she sees the creation of new life as something which alienates women and drags them down into abject immanence due to the biological facticity of pregnancy and birth. I found this contrast striking
ReplyDeleteLauren's conclusion that the lover reaches absolute beauty through the process of defining beauty, and seeing it in "all bodies" and "the soul". This is similar to Aristophanes' definition in that ""Love" is the name of our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete" (193A). I find this significant because both Aristophanes and Socrates conclude that love is a process. Socrates shows that the result of this process is giving birth to new life to continue beauty, whereas Aristophanes says that love essentially makes people better and that virtue is the final result.
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