Essays on Symposium

The logistical problems of everyday human life are often concerned with the pursuit of love and beauty. The impracticalities of actively chasing after phenomena that we do not fully understand are considerable – unless, of course, you’re Socrates. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates, in his spoken...

In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates’ eulogy, though delivered with the stated intent of praising love, is not truly about love at all. Instead, Socrates claims that the typical definition of love does not exist and instead praises wisdom. In saying that love is desire, and that...

Plato’s Symposium is not only a discourse on the subject of love, it is a tribute to Socrates and his way of life, and the entire course of the discussion is guided by the ultimate objective of presenting Socrates as the representation of love itself....

Life is filled with dualities and opposing figures: love and hatred, light and dark, male and female, life and death. Aristophanes addresses a duality in the context of love in Plato’s The Symposium. The Symposium raises the question of what love truly is and means....

Plato’s “Symposium” is an essential piece of philosophical literature that concerns itself with the genesis, purpose and nature of love, or eros. Love is examined in a sequence of speeches by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. A symposia, or drinking party in ancient...

Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. – William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 62-65 Though Plato died nearly 2500 years ago, the English...

Through all the speeches of the Symposium, Eryximachus’ speech may be the most difficult to understand. Looking at Eryximachus’ initial, more scientific approach to love, under which he views love as something that can be quantitatively measured, one many find it difficult to accept the...

As long as history has been recorded, a woman’s role in society was dictated by man, for a long time women accepted this patriarchy. This arrangement can be seen in different societies and cultures throughout history; after all, the great literature that is studied in...

Platonic literature is famously recorded in the form of the dialogue. Dialogue is the method by which synthesis can occur in its purest form. Plato’s contemporaries were fundamentally fearful of writing, which was a new technique at the time, because when compared to dialogue, prose...

In Plato’s The Symposium, Plato details the events of a dinner party, a symposium for which the work derives its namesake, comprised of a group of seemingly well-educated individuals. Plato tells the story of the symposium and the dialogue of the individuals in attendance through...

The philosophical debate that is the focus of Plato’s Symposium culminates in the speech of Diotima. She is a mysterious figure, a brilliant woman with the powers even to put off a plague. What she does here is miraculous too: she manages to tie together...

Plato’s theory of love is one of the great thinkers’ most whimsical and inspiring dialogues. In his discussion regarding love, Plato theorizes that love is ‘neither beautiful nor good.’ Love represents the desire of the human individual to attain true pleasure and authentic happiness by...

One of the most famous passages in Plato’s Symposium and one that seems to receive the most attention in contemporary philosophy is Diotima’s Ladder of Love. Diotima explains that love is an ascent through a number of stages or steps on the ladder that ultimately...

Modern critics are quick to assert that Socrates failed in his role as a teacher to Alcibiades by refusing to engage in sexual relations. Upon closer investigation of both the traditional form and Socrates’ own revised form of pederasty, the reasoning behind the lack of...

In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades is the last person to give a speech. Former speakers praised love and gave their interpretations of it. However, Alcibiades arrives drunk and would rather speak about Socrates. In the past, Alcibiades wanted Socrates to be his lover and Socrates turned...

Similarities and differences in the Republic and Symposium The two texts of Plato, the Symposium, and the Republic seem to have various similarities in the definition of roles played by philosophers and philosophy. Both versions agree that a philosopher must be an individual that has...

The Iliad by Homer, the text which is often referred to as the beginning the Greek literary tradition, begins with an argument between Achilles and Agamemnon over a woman. This fight takes place within a war which started because of Helen, who was stolen from...

As society’s rules and ideals have changed over time, so have their definitions of evil been completely revolutionized. While today evil is something morally wrong, a violation of some universal law, it was not always seen in the same light. St. Augustine and Plato both...

In Plato’s Symposium and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, the two protagonists are overcome by their love and dedicate an eulogy in the form of a speech or a series of letters to their beloved. The multitude of letters composed by...