Response Paper 1: Plato’s Symposium Plato’s symposium wad seven speeches, but two that really made me think were from Phaedrus and Aristophanes. Phaedrus has mentioned that love is the oldest god. It is the highest good that tries to guide men. He tries to explain that love is so strong that is even exceeds honor and has the ability to please the gods. Many people have tried to fight for love and by fighting in the name of love the gods are honored. Phaedrus tries to explain that love is what makes people into a real hero. They are fighting for their beloved and will encourage people to get stronger for the people they care about. Love is an unstoppable force that people are even willing to sacrifice themselves for their love. He concludes …show more content…
Love will make you feel courageous even if you are timid or make you feel like you are the strongest person in the world even if you are weak. In the present, there are now more ways we can find love than ever before. I think that that nowadays it is a lot easier to find people and try to look for love. We have technology now that makes it easier to look for loves because we are so caught up in our lives that it makes it difficult in our search for love. I feel like the use of apps and online dating is making people fall in love with each other faster. It makes things feel more spontaneous. For example, you don’t know how the person will be in real life and you go on a date based on their profile. This to me makes it feel very spontaneous because you are taking a chance on the person. The only problem I do see with online dating is that people try to put up a disguise and not really show who they really are to people. They are really concerned with their appearances of the people they want love, just as Phaedrus comment about the opinion of the lover is very high to
Plato was one of the greatest Greek philosophers and was also considered as one of the most important personalities in history. He was known for his work in Apology, Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. The reason for Meno being so important is because it is probably one of the earliest dialogues created by Plato, and it starts off by Meno asking Socrates whether or not the virtue can be taught, and Socrates allures a slave boy to support his claim. Socrates asked the boy a mathematical question, and the boy answers the question completely wrong. This scenario was one of the first examples of mathematical problem.
The language in Plato’s symposium and the expression of Sappho’s poetry are similar in that they both deal with homoerotic love. Sappho, the only ancient Greek female author whose work survived, talks from the female point of observation, where as Plato’s work concentrates on the idea of love among males. In spite of the fact that both of their points of view are comparative in courses, for example, their thoughts of physical fascination and want, Plato’s work creates a better understanding of the nature of love then Sappho’s ideas. This understanding will be shown with three arguments and counter- arguments in order to demonstrate the dominance of Plato over Sappho. It will than be concluded with an overview of the main idea and a recap of the three arguments made for Plato.
All of the speakers speeches about love in the Symposium are important because they each have a unique idea to contribute about what is love and the idea of love. One of the speakers, Pausanias goes after Phaedrus’ speech. When it is his turn to speak he present his speech about love as not a single thing and therefore we shouldn’t praise it since there is more than one. Pausanias states that there are two kinds of love, he claims that since “there are two kinds of Aphrodite, there must also be two loves” (Symposium 13). The first Aphrodite is called Uranian or Heavenly Aphrodite since she is the daughter of Uranus, she is the oldest and has no mother.
In the speech of Diotima, she questions Socrates way of looking at love, Socrates said that love was something beautiful and good. Diotima describes love as needing happiness in order to have that love fulfilled; She thinks that happiness comes when one has beautiful and good things around them. Diotima describes love at the beginning of her speech, she says love was born when Aphrodite was born, Diotima also says that love is hardship and overcoming that hardship is what brings happiness to ones life. Love is described as a person, a person who has needs and desires, a person who is smart and always on the look out for opportunities. She always describes Love or Eros as being neither mortal or immortal, Love or as it is personified is the
Love is the ultimate natural law, thus proving Antigone's right to disobey the unjust decree. Antigone
Aristophanes’ major points on love are centered on a myth. According to Aristophanes, a long time ago there were three genders, male, female and androgynous, “…a distinct gender as well as name, combining male and female” (Gill 22). These people had two identical faces on one head and doubled the limbs. The three genders were very strong and eventually tried to attack the gods to gain power. To punish humans for their arrogance, Zeus decided to cut them in half, “I shall now cut each of them into two; they will be weaker…”
Many see love as a positive quality and for the most part it is. It gives us compassion for our fellow man, allows us to bond with each other, and care for our families. But it also has self-destructive properties too. In Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians feel a really strong patriotism to their city and empire.
In this paper, I will explain the deeper meaning of the passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiades crashes the party by explaining how it fits into the broader themes of the entire dialogue. As known, one of the most important theme of this dialogue is love. As I was reading the dialogue, I know right from the beginning of Phaedrus proposal that it is going to be not only entertaining but interesting. Indeed it was interesting reading what all of them has to says about what love is, what its functions are and so on. But, at the same time, I was eagerly waiting for Socrates’ turn.
The Aeneid:Virgil’s Representation of Obsessive Love It is said that love is one of the most influential feelings in the human body. This feeling of love can be pleasant and enjoyable, but it can also be blinding. When taken to the extreme, the power of love may result in substantial destruction of the individual. Book IV of Virgil’s epic tale
In ancient Greece, a common saying that all citizens had in their very core, a traditional Greek principle, was this: love your friends, and hate your enemies. This rule seems pretty straightforward and would appear easy to apply in real life. However, in the timeless play Antigone, Sophocles shows his audience a situation where this maxim does not apply. Sophocles concentrates on a complex story where the values and principles of the ancient Greek culture come into conflict. Religious or moral versus secular, family versus community, and living versus dead: all of these conflicting aspects are explored in Antigone.
Is it possible for one to love and also maintain their reputation at the same time? Throughout The Aeneid, Lanval, Medea, and Othello this question is answered and it is evident that maintaining your reputation and also choosing love is impossible. One must choose between glory and love because they are not compatible. Glory and love are contradictory. If you choose love you lose your reputation, while on the other hand if you value your reputation more than anything you will not have love.
Plato includes this quote to prove that Socrates is indeed the master of love because he pretty much casts a spell on Alcibiades that makes him attracted to something in Socrates that is not physical. The thing that Alcibiades is attracted to in Socrates is his wisdom because his ugliness wouldn't attract someone so handsome like Alcibiades. Socrates is the master of love in the sense that he can make people love his wisdom which is the best kind of love more than any physical characteristic. Anyone so ugly like Socrates who can make such a handsome man like Alcibiades fall in love with him over his wisdom rather than his beauty, has to be
Is It True: A central idea to Plato’s The Symposium is the idea that we should take Diotima’s ladder in order to see pure virtue and beauty in itself. Once achieved, we can become immortal through our virtuous actions. Plato writes about the end result of Diotima’s staircase as “he’ll be able to give birth not just to images of virtue, but to true virtue…has the chance of becoming loved by the gods, and immortal” (50). By seeing beauty in itself and virtue in all things, it makes the viewer more optimistic and inclined to offer more helpful and effective criticisms to those trying to achieve immortality themselves. For me, an example can be brought up from chess.
In Plato’s Symposium, love (Eros) is the subject of discussion and it does not directly illustrate Plato’s idea, but it implies his idea through a dialogue of men attending a hosted party, while in The Analects, it shows the idea of love in Confucius through the concept of Ren and the text shows Confucius’s idea through the dialogue between Confucius and his students. It is an interesting dialogue between Plato and Confucius as they are representing different cultures and political environments. The following story is about Plato walked into Confucius in a Chinese restaurant and they exchanged ideas of love during the conversation. One day Plato walked to a Chinese restaurant and saw Confucius. Confucius was drinking tea and reading a book,
Diotima asserts that love is neither mortal nor immortal but “halfway between mortal and immortal” (plato 555). While the conception of offspring and philosophical notions are mortal elements, the existence of both create immortality. While the distinction between earthly and heavenly love is rejected the superiority of love based in wisdom is still in place because ideas last longer