Well, I know it has been forever since I have written. I was posting all my papers from school and over the last few semesters I been taking math classes so no real papers to post. Well, I am now taking a Philosophy 101 class and will have a few papers to post. Got my first one back. Got 95/100 with it so not bad. Professor gave me some really awesome feedback:
The
Form of Love
Plato
used Symposium to
explain or explore his idea of love. He explored the origins of love.
He spoke of how love begins and grows into perfection. Using Socrates
and Diotima's dialogue, he spoke about different kinds of love and
what love seeks. Exploring these ideas, and more, we will see what
Plato believed love to be.
After
reading Socrates’ speech from Symposium,
we see Plato’s idea of love. Love or Eros, was considered then to
be a god. However, during the discussion between Socrates and Diotima
it is said that he cannot logically be a god. Diotima reasons that,
since Love wants, it cannot be a god, for a god already possess all
things good. She goes on to explain, that Love is not mortal either,
but a means between the two. This is why Love (Eros) is, what she
called it, a daimon. The idea that love is ambiguous, in a way, is
interesting. Love is often seen as pure or perfect. To think love is
not pure, nor is it evil, was something I reflected on. During the
speech Diotima suggests that we love, in part, for our quest of
immortality. I found myself agreeing with this wholeheartedly. When I
look at my children, I see myself moving forward in them. The love I
feel for them is immeasurable. I feel, in loving them I carry on. So
I myself, not being immortal, can find a means to immortality in
loving them. Plato also addresses this later, when he speaks of two
kinds of pregnancy: of the body and of the soul. My example of course
being of the body.
So,
if Love is seeking something it does not have, what is it seeking?
Diotima tries to have Socrates answer this question in the dialogue.
She ask, “ ... What is given by the possession of beauty?”
Socrates answers, “I have no answer ready.” She then goes on to
ask, “Let me put the word 'good' in the place of the beautiful, ...
If he who loves good, what is it then that he loves?” he replies,
“The possession of the good.” This point is then expanded that
beauty is good and therefore good is happiness. So in essence Love
seeks happiness. This was in part explained by Love's creation story
that Diotima tells. That Love was born of Penia (Poverty) and Poros
(Plenty) in Zeus’ garden on Aphrodite’s birthday. She explains
love is a means of his parents. He is a follower of beauty because of
his link to Aphrodite. “He is poor ... rough and squalid ... like
his mother he is always in distress.” She goes on to tell, “Like
his father too ... he is always plotting against the fair and good;
he is bold, enterprising, strong ... keen in the pursuit of wisdom
... a philosopher at all times ...” The idea that Love is a
philosopher was interesting to me. It was interesting to think that a
god could not be a philosopher because they already possess all that
is good nor could the wise or the ignorant, because they are content
and do not seek wisdom. To me, this rang as Plato’s love for
Socrates. I think here he was saying, philosophy was perfect love, or
at least the key to achieving it.
As
I briefly mentioned, there were two types of love discussed by
Diotima and Socrates: bodily love and the impregnation of body
(between a man and a woman) and that of “being pregnant of the
soul.” When we are discussion the Ladder of Love it is more the
latter she was addressing. I read in “Love and the Ascent to the
Beautiful” that the “pregnant of soul” concept was more equated
to homosexual love (Reeve). I disagree with this point. If I were to
try to define any type of love that it pertained to I would say it be
pansexual or blind to gender. The concept of loving the soul doesn’t
need a gender assignment and I don’t believe the ideals of Plato’s
forms would agree with this idea either. The idea was the perfect
form of Love.
Now,
let us look at the ladder of love and how love progresses. Diotima
speaks to Socrates about the progression of love. She speaks of how
love begins from the beauties of the earth, and its link to our own
quest for immortality. She speaks about how the love of a single body
grows into loving two things. This offers the perspective that all
fair bodily forms are worthy of love. Love however continues to
expand to all bodies and practices which are fair and good and from
here all fair notions. Love ends in an understanding of absolute
beauty. Here is where one discovers the perfect Form of Beauty. To
have love transform in this way, Plato was saying you had to be a
Philosopher, because you first must desire something. In having that
desire, you can then grow to discover true beauty and therefore true
love.
Plato
believed only things that had a perfect form were worth pursuing in
life and he believed love had a perfect form encompassing all things
good and fair. He believed by loving a single thing one could then
grow to understand all good and fair things are worthy of love.
However, to do this one must first desire and to desire made one a
philosopher. In essence, this was the idea of Plato and his Forms.
Works
Cited
Plato
Symposium The Internet Classic Archive 360 B.C.E Web 11 Feb 2011
http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html
Reeve,
C. D. C. “Love and the Ascent to the Beautiful” Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 5 Feb. 2007. Web 11 Feb. 2011.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-friendship/#LovSoc
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