The Symposium: A Philosophers Guide to Love
As much as our society has become involved in the advancement of feminism and the
equality of the sexes, there is one fact that neither gender can ignore; none can survive
without the other. Love and the want of a soul mate keeps each member of man and
womankind in constant search of the perfect person with whom to become one. Yet if this
bond is a necessity of the human race then why has the meaning, purpose and pursuit of it
eluded us for so many generations. There has yet to be a one universal explanation of
love and there has yet to be one who understands it's powers fully. As we see from
Plato's Symposium, even the wisest of men in a time when the search for knowledge was
seen as the pathway to enlightenment love was still a concept that was not understood and
unknown. Though many of the guidelines and characteristics of love are wise, some may
not apply to modern society.
The writing serves as a pamphlet that depicts some of the guidelines of love as the
philosophers of Plato's time saw them. The intervention of the God's in the orations of
the philosophers can be interpreted to mean the different aspects of love and their
effects on people. The text goes into many characteristics about the god or gods that
were love , yet for the purpose of this essay, it would seem relevant to stick with the
guidelines and ideals that were presented in the speeches given by the men. It seemed as
though in each of the lectures given, Plato put a message into each one. Each man
brought up valid guidelines for dealing with love and each should be concentrated on.
The speeches started with Phaedrus who began to state many of the powers of love. He
spoke about the honor between one and their beloved and how it was a great virtue in a
relationship. The point that Phaedrus made was that a man of any nature would rather
suffer humiliation in front of a great mass of people or all of mankind itself than to
suffer the loss of respect or the loss of dignity in front of their lover. This point
is definitely true yet Phaedrus failed to make a definite cause as to why this was
prevalent. It may pertain to modern society that to suffer indignation in front of a
lover as seen by the male would be to suffer the loss of one's masculinity and the
inability to protect their lover, whereas for the female it may be the fear of
inferiority that keeps the strive towards honor a constant venture in the relationship.
In any case it seems that the main reason Phaedrus's point is valid is because in one of
the driving forces in a relation is fear; fear of inferiority, fear of humiliation, and
fear that they may lose the other person's respect.
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 in that he would sooner have his loved one die than threaten
his own existence. Because of this, Orpheus was punished. These examples help Phaedrus
to show how the bonds of love can make a man dare to die for another.
Later on in the text we find a less dignified motive behind the sacrifice of one's self
for another from the woman who teaches Socrates the meaning of love. We are once again
faced with the idea of respect as one of the driving forces in love. The woman proposes
that the main motive behind the sacrifice may be that it is a way to gain immortality. By
dying for another they would be considered a hero.. This may have been a valid reasoning
during Plato's era because virtue and honor were seen as great characteristics of men.
People were judged daily on these credentials and thus it is important in that era. Yet
today our values of honor have changed. Honor is still a superior quality, yet the
degree to which someone will go to gain the respect of another seems to be more relative
to what the relation is between them and the person to be impressed. We are generally
more concerned with gaining the respect of those who have an actual relation to us
(Father, friend, acquaintance, etc.) than to the average stranger. Therefore this idea
of sacrifice in the name of honor seems an invalid argument today.
Soon Phaedrus concludes his oration and Pausanias steps up to deliver another set of
guidelines for love. Pausanias concerns himself with a topic much like Plato's guidelines
in the Ideal Republic where he stated that honorable and virtuous acts were only those
that were applied to noble and just causes. Pausanias believes that honorable and noble
love should only apply to that of the good and that the opposite would apply to love that
concerned itself with evil. He believes that love should be done in an honorable fashion
even if it may be viewed as honorable or flatterous and that a person of noble love would
not be compensated in any way other that virtue or knowledge from their beloved. To this
he adds that evil love is that of the body and no the soul. Evil love is one that
concerns the love of money, wealth or power. Following these guidelines, Pausanias makes
the conclusion that a dishonorable act would be to lie about one's status and intentions
to obtain love and if he is rejected for what he truly is than he is disgraced for lying
about it, yet if he is lying about his knowledge or virtue in attempt to gain more virtue
or knowledge than he is noble for the effort. This double standard seems to also concern
itself with a value of honor and virtue thus substantiating earlier notions of the value
of honor and virtue to the philosophers of this time.
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
we learn that through these beliefs man and women were once created as one being. The
two were joined back to back with two faces, four arms and four feet. We are told that
the beings grew to be very powerful and became a threat to the gods. Because of this,
the beings were split in two, or Aristophanes says, "like a sorb-apple ...or as you might
divide an egg with a hair," and because of this they became irate in search of their
other half. To prevent further gaining of power the gods gave them the ability to
procreate and thus create more confusion and uncertainty as to who their original mate
was. The pursuit of the other half is what Aristophanes designated 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
on being that is split in two and that their other half is their one true love. This
idea may be a basis to explain the need for humans to find one person that best suits
them and their needs thus the commonalties could be interpreted as such a concept.
Aristophanes continues and states an idea that in itself is a troubling double standard
that is proof that even philosophers were blinded by sexual prejudices. Aristophanes
states that after the separation of the beings that were like women that don't care for
men and have a female attachment were lascivious and adulterous where the men that
followed other men were not shameful in fact, "they do not act thus for any want of
shame, but because they are manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that
which is like them." This remark I consider a double standard because as stated before
the beings were once a singular entity which was identical both front and back.
Aristophanes has said that they were divided like an apple or an egg which even the
mathematical oriented philosophers would agree are symmetrical. So why then are the
rights of the women less than that of the rights of the man if they were begotten from
the same being? This idea is unsettling due to the fact that in most of the articles
that have been written on human and social cooperation, the idea of female inferiority
never seemed to be a problem. If the philosophers truly thought that beings were
identical in creation then why are the rights of one half greater than those of the
other?
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 women 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 and 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.
Yet in the reasoning that comes about from this idea I found a few faults in what Plato
depicts Socrates to have said. After Socrates came to his conclusion the deliberation
continued by saying, " 'And what does he gain who possesses the good?' 'Happiness,' I
replied 'there is no difficulty in answering that.' 'Yes,' she said, 'the happy are made
happy by the acquisition of good things.'" It is this statement that I find problem
with. In other readings we have heard that one cannot become truly happy through other
people or from the acquisition of material possession. If Socrates and Plato followed
this philosophy then why does this idea of love hold true.
The woman also goes on to insist that the idea of procreation is just another attempt at
mortals to come close to being immortal. By carrying on their name or traits they are in
essence carrying on themselves. Once again this idea of immortality, I feel is outdated
and does not apply to modern society.
I believe that these ideas about the characteristics of love and the ideas that coincide
are outdated and are not very relevant to today's society. In our modern monotheistic
society the idea of love as a god is certainly invalid. Also the ideas of actions done
out of virtue and respect rather than love also seems to be a dated concept. Whether our
motives for actions such as self sacrifice or procreation have gotten more respectable or
less remains to be seen, yet it is evident that they have changed since Plato's era.
Thus if the characteristics and motives of love have changed then the concept of love
must have evolved as well. This evolution of love may be a characteristic of the concept
itself. Love may be an ever changing concept that adapts itself to the society in which
it exists. Our concepts of love and what is noble is undoubtedly different than those of
the eastern cultures and as we have seen from the previous example, love definitely
changes with time. Therefore the concept of love may have no exact meaning except for
that which the society in which it exists perceives and excepts it to be.
|