Though many of the guidelines and characteristics of love set forth by Plato provide important incite to the meaning of love, some have become antiquated and cannot apply to modern society. The Symposium outlines the different popular views about love during Plato's time. Plato intentionall

Phaedrus soon builds on this point by stating that a true test of one's love for their mate is the value of their life. Comparisons between the fates of Achilles and Orpheus are brought up to emphasize his point. As we learn from the legend of Achilles, a man was rewarded for the value he put on his friends life. Achilles sacrificed his own life in an attempt to obtain revenge for his friend. For this act Achilles was rewarded and seen as a hero. Yet on the opposite side of the spectrum we learn of Orpheus who was punished for his selfishness, because he chose his own life over the life of his beloved. These examples help Phaedrus to show how the bonds of love can make a man dare to die for another.

y portrays some as ignorant and others as valid thoughts on the phenomenon of love. Within the discourse, the speakers told of the characteristics of the gods related to love as a definition of what love is. Within each of the lectures given, Plato injected certain messages he sought to relay about love and its effect on people.

Eventually Socrates begins to convey his philosophy on the idea of love, yet he goes about it in a different way than his predecessors. In the earlier speeches each of the men had thought of love as a god and gone about praising this god and giving their ideas as to what this god were like. Socrates, only speaking of things that he knew of through fact relays his story of his trip to a woman from which he wished to learn what love was. Through his story Socrates tells us that he believes love to be not a god nor is love a mortal. Socrates learns that love is a spirit that is neither rich nor fair as the others had thought, but in fact normal. The being is the mean between ignorant and wise and between good and evil. Socrates goes on to question what the nature of love is. After much deliberation Socrates comes to the conclusion that love is the everlasting possession of good things.

Soon after Pausanias completes his lecture, Aristophanes is heard. Aristophanes relays a legend to the group on the beginning of the world and the creation of man. In this myth, Aristophanes tells of the Greek legend of the two-faced, four-armed, and four-legged ancestors of present day humans. We are told that the beings grew to be very powerful and became a threat to the gods. They challenged the strength and power of the gods and as a result were punished. Each individual was split into two separate halves left to roam the earth in search of their other halve in order to feel complete again. The gods created sex so that once the other is found we may momentarily reconnect with them and temporarily curb our burning desire to merge with the other. The pursuit of the other half is what Aristophanes designated as love. The legend as Aristophanes portrays it is much like that of the modern new age philosophy of the soul mate. Many modern faiths and cultures believe that each person is originally a part of one being that is split in two and that their other half is their

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2038
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)