Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Plato s Symposium, Sequential Speeches Praise The God Of...
In Plato’s Symposium, sequential speeches praise the god of Love, but they stray from truth until Diotima’s speech provides a permanent form in which love â€Å"neither waxes nor wanes†(Sym. 211A). Through the speeches, love shifts from identifying with the concrete to the abstract, but still ultimately advances goals of present: Phaedrus sees love as helping â€Å"men gain virtue,†Aristophanes as only a â€Å"promise†to restore humans to their â€Å"original nature†and Pausanias and Eryximachus have to use two changing notions of love (Sym. 180B, 193D). In contrast, Diotima relates love as the closest humans can come to immorality, a future goal motivating us to seek completeness and an uninhibited timelessness. She uses this shift to explain love’s†¦show more content†¦211A). Diotima continues to rise towards abstract concepts as she attempts to explain love’s purpose. This contrasts both Phaedrus’ and Aristophanes’ descriptions of love. She broadly states that â€Å"a lover does not seek the half or whole†unless it is â€Å"good†because people will even amputate, or separate, part of their own body if diseased (Sym. 205E). Aristophanes argues â€Å"love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness†but Diotima explains this cannot be true if the other half is bad, even if it seems to bring wholeness, such as bodies with a temporary veneer of beauty (Sym. 192E). So, love must be explained by separating it to an upwards trajectory, rising towards the concept of good. Otherwise love is only an impermanent â€Å"promise†(Sym. 193D). Therefore, Aristophanes’ lack of separation from the concrete cause love to come from incompleteness and a fallen condition (Dutton Lecture). Likewise, Phaedrus’ speech lacks a removal from the present and therefore fails to explain love’s effects, as seen in hi s Achilles and Patroclus example. To Phaedrus, Achilles still dying after Patroclus passes is love, for â€Å"no one will die for you but a lover†(Sym. 179B). But, Diotima claims this love is unhealthy as it fails to represent the abstract notion of beauty. Since beauty is something to be indirectly experienced, it is unmeasurable and instead â€Å"preservesâ€
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