Classics: Love & Relationships - Plato Symposium

Speech 1: Phaedrus

- Says Eros is the oldest of the gods - most honoured and powerful

- Says love inspires someone to earn admiration for their beloved e.g. bravery of the battlefield

- Gives examples: Achilles + Patroclus, Alcestis + Admetus

Speech 2: Pausanias

- Splits love into: Common and Heavenly love

- Common love = sexual love, desire, accessible to all, non-rational, physical, attracted to body not mind

- Heavenly love = Nobler expression of love, shared knowledge and virtue. Only available those capable of ethical + rational development (men)

- Pederasty: ethical education in exchange for sexual gratification (emphasises this)

Speech 3: Eryximachus

- Over-emphatic about position as doctor, imposing orderliness

- Love = everywhere/ in everything

- Plato satirizes medical experts of his day

Speech 4: Aristophanes

- Origin story of love: used to be 3 genders - male, female, androgyny, each person double what they are now. Very powerful and so gods cut them in half. Longing for original nature = want to reunite with other half.

- Those interested in members opposite sex = formerly androgynous, same sex = formerly male/ female.

Speech 5: Agathon

- Love = young, sweet, courageous, wise, just, moderate, courageous - key Athenian values

- Therefore love is desired because love is beautiful

Speech 6: Socrates

- Dismantles Agathon's speech: for love to desire youth and beauty he must not have them himself

- Then switches to storytelling of conversation between Socrates and Diotima

- Ladder of Love:

1. Love for a particular body - desire for physical features

2. Love for all bodies - sees beauty in all bodies, learns love differences

3. Love for souls - physical features put aside, spiritual and moral beauty trigger love

4. Love for laws and institutions - love for practice, custom, foundation derived from people w/ beautiful souls

5. Love for knowledge - turn attention to all kinds of knowledge, love that there's knowledge to acquire everywhere

6. Love for love itself - sees beauty in its form. Everything is beautiful because of its connection to this form.

Speech 7: Alcibiades

- Embodiment of love = Socrates himself - encomium to Socrates.

- Curious of his intelligence + wisdom as well as sexually.

- Describes Socrates' virtues: valour in battle, immunity to cold or fear, modesty.

- Turns up late and drunk.