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Even nowadays people are still looking for the ways of understanding the nature of the feeling that we call Love. Since the time of ancient Greece people have been arguing about this problem finding new and new explanations of this strange feeling, its origin, its nature, if it is necessary for people or not. Plato's Symposium is a store of the great Greek philosophers opinion. The most intelligent and educated people gathered to discuss the nature of Love and to build an opinion on the base of the real life situations: No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates. How can I oppose your motion, who profess to understand nothing but matters of love; nor, I presume, will Agathon and Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor will any one disagree of those whom I, see around me. The proposal, as I am aware, may seem rather hard upon us whose place is last; but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first.
Let Phaedrus begin the praise of Love, and good luck to him. All the company expressed their assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade him Love is abstract, we cant see it itself, but its manifestation. We cant see it but feel it. And those who dont feel it yet are living in the expectation. That is why it is too difficult to be explained. Greek philosophers defined too types of love: Common and Noble.
Of course, love is attracted and caused by beauty. We usually identify two types of mens beauty: physical and internal, the beauty of soul. The theory of two types of love, defined by philosophies is based on these two types of beauty. According to it, Common love is caused by physical attraction of the body, and Noble or Heavenly love is a result of the looking into the persons souls and finding it attractive, deep and beautiful.
The Common Love is for people who cant see the internal beauty through the outer shell. This kind of love was prevalent at the end of the twentieth century. Todays Love depends on the persons appearance, his job, his material position. The Noble Love is the love that can be felt only by people with beautiful souls and high values. They are looking for a person whose values are very much alike their own and, when find, they love him for his good treatment and high virtue. They understand that the person, whose attitude towards you is the best really, deserves your love.
This real love is lasting cause there are only some people in the whole world, whose values coincide with yours and those you can really love with this Noble Heavenly Love, that is really much more pleasant that the Common, the love of the physical body, not the soul. The Common love is temporary and after it you have an unpleasant sediment in your soul, that moves then to your unconscious and rule your life, making you unhappy. Unfortunately people do not understand this and keep deceiving themselves looking for the Common love. Of course the philosophies from Symposium didnt mean that love must not give physical pleasure. It is extremely gratifying but also if it is true. Then it gives long lasting pleasure.
When you truly love you already feel yourself happy. And if your love is mutual, you have all the reasons to call yourself the happiest person in the world and have a chance to get to know what the Paradise looks like, because it cannot be more happiness than when you love with the true love and have love in return. The Common love is only a flash that flash out and die down. Phaedrus began by affirming that love is a mighty god, and wonderful among gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth.
For he is the eldest of the gods, which is an honour to him; and a proof of his claim to this honour is, that of his parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor prose-writer has ever affirmed that he had any Pausanias even identified different kinds or I would rather call them cases of Common Love. In case when a person marries following his material interest his Love is Common. But the love of the rich person he marries is not Common course he is deceived and has virtue. According to Pausanias, virtue is the most important element of Common Love.
But still Greeks recognized that we must not completely deny Common Love. It is also very pleasant and important for us. But the most perfect is the combination of Common love and Perfect Love. It can last forever and bring the most happiness to the possessors.
This love can possess only mentally grown up people, not the foolish youth who cant understand the difference between the Love and sex. Adult people need more than game of love that satisfies teenagers. They need something real for their soul. Plato's Symposium is very important work that must be read by everyone who wants to understand deeply what love is. It not only must be read but also learned, understood and carefully analyzed in order to avoid the mirages that through ignorance you can falsely recognize as the Real Love. Among all the philosophies I would like specially distinguish the Diotema's opinion.
In Symposium each philosopher represents his own point of view: Pausanias speaks about dualism (Noble and Common Love), Eyximachos speaks about the balance. Aristophenes put the stress on the physical unity and Agathon introduce the creative unity. All of them have different points. And only Diotema took all of them and makes one conclusion, build one opinion. She talks with Socrates about love for the several times. According to her, love is a bridge between mortal and divine worlds, that means that love makes us godlike and opens for us the door to paradise where the gods are living.
This explanation is perfect because it is all-embracing. Really when we love - no matter our love is mutual or not -, we feel ourselves like in paradise. If our soul is growing, we become more wise and start understanding the sense of life. So we are becoming immortal creatures course our soul is immortal. And it is the Love that helps our soul to grow. she said, "if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old.
Nay even in the life, of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation -- hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing She helps Socrates to understand that those who wait for the good from love will at last have it. But to do that one must understand the essence of the good. We, mortal creatures get in touch with beautiful and as a result of it we have our children as a product of our body and art masterpieces as products of our soul. "Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children -- this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant -- for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions? -- wisdom and virtue in general.
And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice Plato's Symposium explains us that people have a dual nature, nature with two worlds inside of us. And love can help us to understand these two worlds inside of us. We can understand why we need them both.
Feeling Love we come closer to the God and his divine. you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible -- you only want to look at them and to be with them Love is always noble and kind. It is never jealous. Love does not get any pleasure form the sins of other people. It is noble because youll always have what you deserve; it is kind because if the person is looking for real Love he will have it. It can help us to understand our abilities to create something beautiful.
If you find something divine in the person you love, you are able to find it also in yourself to realize that you deserve the Love of this person and this person deserves your love. So I think that Symposium can be used by people at all times as an explanation of Love and its nature. It gives us the full picture of loves origin, its essence, components and role in our life. Maybe some people think differently, but I think that it is because they do not feel and meet their real love yet. Bibliography: Bat-Ami Bar On, Engendering Origins: Critical Feminist Readings of Plato and Aristotle (S.
U. N. Y. Press, 1994) Anne-Marie Bowery, "Diotema tells Socrates a Story: A Narrative Analysis of Plato's Symposium, in Ward, 175 - 94.
Page duBois, "The Platonic Appropriation of Reproduction, " in Than, 139 - 56. Gregory Platos, "The Individual as Object of Love in Plato, " in Platonic Studies (Princeton, 1973 / 1981), pp. 3 - 34. < William S. Cobb, Plato's Erotic Dialogues (The Symposium and The Phaedrus), translated with commentary (SUNY Press, 1993).
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