Socrates and Love

A detailed Summary of Socrates and Love

We have heard definitions of love through our lives that have been passed

on for decades. Some of us have felt love, and some of us have been in love. But

no one ever seems to question what love is, as if it is something that just plainly is.

People tend to just go with it, and think that what they are feeling is really

complete and substantial love. In Plato's The Symposium, the reader is confronted

with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and

Socrates, to name a few. Each man at the dinner party has a different point of

view on the issue of love. Some of the men are old lovers, and some are just

friends, and each puts in his thoughts of love as the evening wears on. Socrates'

theories of love are a little different than everyone else's'. Being the great

philosopher that he was, he had quite a different take on the issue. Socrates strove

to find the truth in love. He was the "ideal lover of wisdom", never allowing

himself to divert from the real pursuit of beauty: Since beauty is one of the true

and ultimate objectives of love. Socrates states that, "Love is the conciousness of

a need for a good not yet acquired or possessed." In o

will need good things too." (44). In this line Socrates states his conclusions of

it is bad, "...wouldn't love have to be a desire for beauty and never for ugliness?"

want to or not, you have them." (42). Socrates is seeming to disprove the age old

others have said because he is ultimately smarter than them, and a bit more

soul. We see love in our world as the ultimate feeling of happiness. A place in

love. In the pursuit of love, according to Socrates, we search for things that are

Approximate Word count = 1031
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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