When was symposium plato written

While we may begin to ascend the ladder towards our grasp of absolute beauty, things will happen that will bring us crashing back down to reality. As I said, Socrates was a freak, which is why he was able to rebuff Alcibaides' advances. View all 10 comments. A wonderful book A symposium, I have come to learn, is actually a gathering of guests with the intent on dining and drinking together. This book takes place during that symposium where a few members of higher society gather together and each take turns giving speeches on the subject of love.

I am reading the Oxford World's Classics edition of this book and like the introduction to this book proposes I suggest that you sit and read this book in its entirety in one sitting. It's not very long. It A wonderful book It's about 70 pages. But in reading it in one sitting you are really able to grasp the speeches and their differences and similarities.

You know that story that you have probably heard in a movie or have heard somebody recant to you where humans actually started off as one single sex and how we were split down the middle and now are forever seeking our other half to become whole again? Well that story actually originated from this book. And what makes the story so profound and impactful is that it is told with utter sincerity from the comedian of the group. It is a very beautiful story. The other speeches that we get in this book are extremely insightful and indeed make you look at and even question things regarding love and it's different aspects.

You are able to see through these five speeches the immense power that love has over us all and the miraculous wonders that it can achieve.

I like what Socrates says toward the end of the symposium, "It's why today, and everyday, I do all I can to praise Love's power and courage.

Nov 26, picoas picoas rated it it was ok Shelves: If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Original Review, The problem for me is that philosophy is surely about ideas which are themselves constructed out of language. Dinosaurs, or evidence for them in the fossil record, are not linguistic constructs - but philosophical ideas would seem to be. Sep 20, Sam Quixote rated it really liked it. I'm not a philosophy or ancient history student, I picked up Plato's "Symposium" to challenge myself and see if I could understand it.

The "Symposium" is a gathering of Greek thinkers who sit around and give speeches about love. Phaedrus talks about the greatness of love and how those who have it achieve great things. Eryximachus talks about how love is the source of all happiness. Aristophanes talks about how once upon a time there was no man or woman but a single human who had both sexes' characteristics.

These creatures tried to scale the heavens and so Zeus cut them in half and ever since then man and woman have sought to create that single creature again. Socrates talks about his teacher Diotima and how she taught him that love was the only way human beings could be immortal. Not new ones though but ones that have influenced western culture and thought for centuries.

Aristophanes' and Diotima's especially are ideas I've come across before but didn't know they originated in this text. It's also very pro-pederasty which I thought was amusing and can see why some people might have thought Plato was a closet homosexual. Those Greeks certainly were liberated though. It's an accesible and interesting little book though this Penguin Great Ideas edition features no notes, contextual history, introduction, glossary, reading list, etc which the Penguin Classics edition does so if you're studying this text I'd get that edition rather than this one.

Oct 11, Paul Haspel rated it it was amazing Shelves: ancient-greece , philosophy. A symposium, in ancient Greece, was a social ritual that was inherently a part of any banquet. After the feasting was over, participants in the banquet would gather together for social drinking and conversation that might also be accompanied by music or dancing. Plato adopts the ritual of the symposium for one of his most famous philosophical dialogues, and in The Symposium he shows Socrates and various interlocutors seeking to understand the nature of Love itself.

The guests of Agathon include Phaedrus, a young Athenian aristocrat; Pausanias, a lawyer; Eryximachus, a doctor; Aristophanes, the great playwright who wrote comedies like Lysistrata ; and, of course, Socrates.

Here the stress falls on the unchanging, uniform, and universal character of the Form. To reach an understanding of this Form is to understand what beauty really is , as an objective reality, by contrast with our normally partial and localized grasp of beauty. It also enables the lover to go as far as any human being can in achieving the overall aim of desire in general. But that is not what Plato is really interested in. Rather, Plato feels that through the higher search that is philosophy, one can attain true virtue and a kind of immortality through the quest toward understanding of the Forms — something that goes far beyond any one interpersonal relationship.

Phaedrus has his own Socratic dialogue, and in the Phaedrus , as here, Phaedrus comes across as a likeable, idealistic young man of goodwill, but also as someone who is in need of some guidance.

In the Phaedrus , Phaedrus is enamoured of rhetoric for its own sake, intoxicated by the sheer power of persuasive language; he needs Socrates to remind him that rhetoric is a tool that can be used for good or evil. In the process, he brings up the example of Alcestis, the princess of Pherae who willingly gave up her own life in order to save her husband from being taken by Death into the underworld — a story movingly told by the playwright Euripides in his play Alcestis.

And with that, the baton passes to Pausanias. Pausanias, a lawyer, sets forth his arguments rather legalistically, and betrays more than a bit of social-class snobbery into the bargain. People like this are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds. He is not constant, because he loves something that is not constant: as soon as the bloom of the body fades, which is what attracted him….

But it is the Love whose nature is expressed in good actions, marked by self-control and justice, at the human and divine level that has the greatest power and is the source of all our happiness. Really, Aristophanes?

As mentioned above, the picture of Aristophanes that emerges from The Symposium is comical and quite silly. If Aristophanes is presenting this explanation comically, then he seems trivial in responding to a serious question; if he is being sincere — at a time when the pace of scientific discovery in Athens was calling into question many of the traditional mythology-based interpretations of natural phenomena and human behaviour drawn from the Olympian religion — then his ideas would have seemed silly, even to many Athenians who still followed the old faith.

Love, it is ultimately suggested, is not a presence — the oldest and wisest and strongest god, the youngest and most energetic god — but rather a lack. Love is a search — like philosophy itself. It is at this point that Alcibiades crashes the party; and any student of classical Athens knows that Alcibiades is an ambiguous and troubling figure. From all accounts, he was an extraordinarily handsome and charming — and unscrupulous — individual.

Alcibiades even describes an attempt to seduce Socrates! Spoiler alert: Nothing happens. Alcibiades may not be in the dialogue strictly as comic relief.

The Symposium , written probably around B. One year after the time in which this dialogue takes place, Alcibiades was among the leaders of the Athenian expedition against the Spartan colony of Syracuse on the island of Sicily — a military disaster that put Athens firmly on the road to ultimate defeat.

Fearing that his political enemies would take revenge upon him for this defeat, Alcibiades turned traitor, and went over to the Spartan enemy. As always, Plato wants to remind the reader that philosophy is ultimately a very practical enterprise: the person who cannot think clearly, define terms precisely, reason from premises, is exactly the kind of person who is likely to behave unethically.

Dec 19, Jonfaith rated it liked it Shelves: theory. And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said. It detailed stumbling around in the cruel light of day, sipping on backwash beer from the night before and attempting to reconstruct what at best remains a blur. The event depicted here is a hungover quest for certainty. The old hands in Athens have been tippling.

Socrates is invited to the day after buffet. The Symposium attempts to explore the Praise for Love which occupies such a crucial yet chaotic corner of our earthly ways. There is ceremonial hemming-and-hawing about the sublime and then Socrates steps into the fray.

All is vanity, Love is a bastard child of Poverty: the attempts at the Ininite and Eternal only reflect poorly on our scrawny and fleeting tenure. Sep 11, Miguel rated it it was ok Shelves: philosophy. The aforementioned story begins at the symposium organized by the tragic poet Agatho to celebrate his victory in the Leneas feasts of BC.

Erixymachus asks that each of the guests improvise praise to Eros because, according to Phaedrus' comments, this god being one of the most important, he is rarely praised as he deserves. I didn't agree with anyth The aforementioned story begins at the symposium organized by the tragic poet Agatho to celebrate his victory in the Leneas feasts of BC. I didn't agree with anything Diotima said.

She doesn't make any sense. She redefines "Love" as just sexual desire, to then make relativistic claims that have nothing to do with the topic. The moment she opens her mouth you can tell she doesn't know what she is talking about.

She asks: "Do you think that everything that is not beautiful, is necessarily ugly? Well, yes, that is pure common sense and logic. But then she starts talking about science, knowledge, and ignorance. She goes off-topic to claim that not everything that is not good, is therefore evil. So you see this deluded woman started talking about Aesthetics, then Epistemology, and then Ethics in just one page.

In contrast, Biblical love is completely different. But the greatest of these is love" NIV. Love is superior because it reflects in us the will of God, and without that love no other gift or virtue has value. Biblical love is a permanent decision, not a "feeling" or "sexual desire".

This is why this kind of Love is above all knowledge 1 Cor. And for completely different reasons. John Barth loves this work because he loves literature with telescoping frames of stories One Thousand and One Nights is by far his favorite work - he admits to having the biggest lit crush possible on Scheherazade, his Muse.

In this short piece, we have the general framework story of Apollodorus and Friend on a journey; Friend implores Apollodorus to tell him a story about the great Socrates that he recently overheard. Apollodorus confesses that his story is second hand from his other friend Aristodemus, and so Apollodorus unfurls the tale as told to him by Aristodemus. With me so far? On this night Agathon and guests agree to not get hammered and just drink respectably and talk about Love.

This is Barth Bliss - we are now three levels deep in storytelling. Everything gets wrapped up nicely by the sudden invasion of the dinner by the shitfaced Alcibiades, who takes a few pages to explain in his drunken state just how much he loves Socrates.

The evening ends with more wine, some guests leaving, others passing out, and ultimately Socrates puts the remaining friends to sleep and leaves. The story ends suddenly, like Plato had just remembered a more important engagement and needed to wrap things up quickly. As the piece can be read in a single sitting I can recommend it as time well spent.

Jul 04, James Henderson rated it it was amazing Shelves: favorites , top-twenty , philosophy , ancient-greece , read-and-reread , classics , u-of-chicago , study-group.

The nature of eros is discussed in this famous dialogue by Plato. Symposium literally means "drinking party" in ancient Greek and this was one well-attended party with the likes of Alcibiades, Aristophanes, Agathon, Pausanias, Eryximachus and Socrates. A variety of views are put forward by the participants during the witty dialog that befits a drinking party.

Some believe that eros is a somewhat shadowy thing, neither beautiful nor ugly, good nor bad. The most famous view is Aristophanes myth of The nature of eros is discussed in this famous dialogue by Plato. The most famous view is Aristophanes myth of a time when humans were split into two halves with each seeking their other half to become whole, thus explaining the power of eros.

The beauty of the prose, the intricacy of the structure and, above all, the fascinating theories that are propounded combine to make this one of the most profound and enjoyable of all of Plato's dialogues. I highly recommend this to all serious readers. Not a big fan of romance or even love stories Basically reads as a scripted party with plenty of booze. Mar 26, T rated it really liked it. Definitely going to be rereading this a number of times. The translation? The translator? There were many times where I felt like pulling my hair out but there were also some very beautiful moments of reading something written over years ago in its original language.

I enjoyed all of the speeches except for Aristophanes. His speech was the only time that I ever felt like just dropping it. It has been about 30 years since I attempted to read Plato, but this experience was a positive one for me.

The Banquet is a relatively funny series of drunken dialogues on Love with Socrates present in his most sarcastic form. I enjoyed the interplay of the various speakers and the various concepts they batted around. One must, however, understand that the "love" that they are talking about is that between older and younger men and that the Greek society of the time was misogynistic in extremes It has been about 30 years since I attempted to read Plato, but this experience was a positive one for me.

One must, however, understand that the "love" that they are talking about is that between older and younger men and that the Greek society of the time was misogynistic in extremes that make Handmaid's Tale look like a feminist paradise. It is interesting to note that this same 'entre nous' atmosphere of educated men is not that different from that of the Renaissance Michelangelo, Pontormo, da Vinci.

In any case, I think that I may go back and read Phedre again as well. Jun 29, Darwin8u rated it really liked it Shelves: Sex and Socrates? Plato's work is a many layered exploration on the nature, purpose and design of love. You can find my review on my blog by clicking here. What is Love? That is a question that we continuously try and answer in our life and it is a challenge bestowed upon humans to come to a common consensus in regards to what it is. But what makes it so special? Why is it so often sought, so often given when we least expect it?

It might You can find my review on my blog by clicking here. What if our great founders of Western philosophy had a go at explaining it all to us? What would that give? What is The Symposium about? Narrated by Apollodorus to an unknown individual, this piece exposes various points of view of several key historical characters, from Alcibiades to Socrates, on numerous themes as they philosophize and offer unparalleled wisdom, sometimes based on Greek mythology itself, to enlighten each other.

While included extracts on the allegory of the cave was a refreshing reminder of the role of perception and the comfort of a known reality to man, it is the tale of the banquet that remains the most fun and central discourse throughout this philosophical text. The contextual environment in which takes place this exchange allows for some very inspiring and wholly admiring thoughts on the nature of love.

His argumentation structure, highly influenced by notable syllogisms, also reminds us why he remains one of the greatest philosophers known to man. The characterization that bleeds through this banquet is also outstanding. The way he simply leads them into always agreeing with him is divine and really contributes to making his persona so untouchable. As previously mentioned, the format of a banquet really allowed this discourse between these fellows to be much more accessible and amicable.

The Symposium is an insightful intellectual offering on the subject of love, desire, beauty, knowledge, and good, through affable banter between notable men in Ancient Greece.

Nov 26, Angel Vanstark rated it it was ok. I am outraged after reading this. First, the approach that was taken multiple layers of theory of mind opposed the main topic, love. How the fuck do you expect to talk about love if you don't even have the balls to honor it enough at a close degree. Why the hell am I, as the reader, supposed to believe what comes from the grapevine; Plato and his crew were sketchy mother fuckers. The second and third issue I had with this piece of literature are more pertinent to culture and how the academic w I am outraged after reading this.

The second and third issue I had with this piece of literature are more pertinent to culture and how the academic world ran with this. Love was conversed about while everyone was DRUNK; other than lowered inhibitions, drunk people don't really come up with the most coherent ideas. Yes, some of the definitions and concepts presented are very applicable into a larger context, but academics forget that this was a prototype conversation about love. How can so many people blindly follow this shit religiously?

Are you really that emotionally unaware? Yes, the conversations were somewhat elegant, but why the fuck do you take it for fact and allow this to influence so much of our cultural systems now?

I don't understand why people have taken this as one of the last needed steps towards making sense of love.

It's ludicrous! People should begin to realize that this is a very small starting point. There should be an expansion in the terms of affection to aid humanity in being able to describe the level of their emotional attachment.

By accepting the Symposium as a done deal, you have limited your emotional understanding of the very complex realms of your self. In English there are very few words to describe the level of affection one has towards another like, admire, yearn, lust, and love ; it's no wonder people in our following generations have so much fucking trouble understanding why breakups hurt so fucking god damn always.

People do not understand the depth or the magnitude of their emotions, and it is evident in the limited language that we have to be able to admit it. I have even found myself using stupid made up shit like, "I like like you.

If you expand the language, you will more likely be able to help people understand their emotions, and therefore help them manage their emotions. Furthermore, isn't it convenient that, like in the use of the bible, people pick and chose the parts of the symposium that they want to talk about. Significantly, we see Plato rejecting the romanticization of sexual love, valuing above all an asexual and all-consuming passion for wisdom and beauty.

Ultimately, he concludes, the philosopher's search for wisdom is the most valuable of all pursuits. In the Symposium, Plato values philosophy, as exemplified by Socrates, over a number of other arts which are given as points of comparison: medicine, as exemplified by Eryximachus, comedy as exemplified by Aristophanes, and tragedy as exemplified by Agathon.

The series of speeches in praise of Love are not simply meant as beating around the bush that leads up to the main event. They mirror Diotima's discussion of the mysteries, where she suggests that one can approach the truth only through a slow and careful ascent. Similarly, we can see each speech, with a few exceptions, as coming closer and closer to the truth. This suggestion is reinforced by the fact that Socrates alludes to all the foregoing speeches in his own speech, as if to suggest that his words could not be spoken until everyone else had said their piece.

This staggered approach to truth is also reflected in the framing of the narrative, whereby we are only able to gain access to this story through a series of narrative filters.

In these middle and late dialogues, of which the Symposium is one, the figure of Socrates serves more as a mouthpiece for Plato's own views. For instance, there is brief mention in the Symposium of the Theory of Forms, which is entirely Plato's invention.

The complex framing devices set up by Plato at the beginning of the dialogue are meant in part to suggest the fictionality of the account. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Summary Overall Summary Context Overall Analysis and Themes a - e a - b c - c c - b c - e e - e a - c d - c d - e a - c c - c c - d.

Summary Context. In each work, Socrates as the quintessential philosopher is in two ways center stage, first, as a lover of wisdom sophia and discussion logos , and, second, as himself an inverter or disturber of erotic norms. In what follows, section 1 deals with the Lysis and Symposium. Sections 2—4 primarily with the Symposium alone.

Section 5 deals with the Phaedrus. Section 6 with the closing section of the Symposium and with parts of the Ion , Protagoras , and Laws. Sections are not self-contained, however, and are intended to be read sequentially. Taken literally, it is an incredible claim.

Socrates knows about the art of love in that—but just insofar as—he knows how to ask questions, how to converse elenctically. Just how far that is, we discover in the Lysis , where Socrates makes a similar claim. Hippothales, like Socrates, loves beautiful boys and philosophical discussions b6—a3. But he does not know the art of love and so does not know how to talk to Lysis—the boy with whom he is in love. What Hippothales does is sing eulogies to Lysis, and that , Socrates argues, no skilled lover would ever do.

What follows is an elenctic examination of Lysis. It sounds simply chastening put like that. But in the overall context of the Lysis , where love is a desire and desire is an emptiness, it is much more. It is a step in the creation of the canonical lover—the philosopher:.

Those who are already wise no longer love wisdom philosophein , whether they are gods or men. Neither do those who are so ignorant that they are bad, for no bad and stupid person loves wisdom. There remains only those who have this bad thing, ignorance, but have not yet been made ignorant and stupid by it.

Sophist b3—8. The elenchus is important to love, then, because it creates a hunger for wisdom—a hunger which it cannot itself assuage. He is made aware of his desire by Socrates but the desire itself remains unsatisfied. Socrates may be the master of foreplay, of arousing desire, and may to that extent be a master of the art of love, but when it comes to satisfying desire, he is a failure.

Loving boys correctly, after all, is—in part at least—just a matter of knowing how to talk to them, of how to persuade them to love you back. And this potential, as we know, was realized with tragic consequences—in BC Socrates was found guilty of corrupting the young men of Athens and condemned to death. The effect on Plato is palpable in his works, turning very many of them into defenses—not always uncritical—of Socrates, and of what he represented for the young men he encountered.

His account in the Symposium of one such relationship—that with the brilliant and beautiful Alcibiades—is an illuminating case in point. The stories of all the other symposiasts, too, are stories of their particular loves masquerading as stories of love itself, stories about what they find beautiful masquerading as stories about what is beautiful.

For Phaedrus and Pausanius, the canonical image of true love—the quintessential love story—features the right sort of older male lover and the right sort of beloved boy. For Eryximachus the image of true love is painted in the languages of his own beloved medicine and of all the other crafts and sciences.

For Aristophanes it is painted in the language of comedy. For Agathon, in the loftier tones of tragedy. In ways that these men are unaware of, then, but that Plato knows, their love stories are themselves manifestations of their loves and of the inversions or perversions expressed in them. As such, however, they are essential parts of that truth. For the power of love to engender delusive images of the beautiful is as much a part of the truth about it as its power to lead to the beautiful itself.

Later, we shall learn why. Love stories, however inadequate as theories of love, are nonetheless stories, logoi , items that admit of analysis. But because they are manifestations of our loves, not mere cool bits of theorizing, we—our deepest feelings—are invested in them.

They are therefore tailor-made, in one way at least, to satisfy the Socratic sincerity condition, the demand that you say what you believe Crito 49cd2, Protagoras c4-d1.

The love that expressed itself in his love story meets then another love: his rational desire for consistency and intelligibility; his desire to be able to tell and live a coherent story; his desire—to put it the other way around—not to be endlessly frustrated and conflicted, because he is repetitively trying to live out an incoherent love story.

Even such awareness of conflict as is manifested here, however, is no guarantee of a satisfactory resolution. For the new love—the one that seems to offer coherence, satisfaction, and release from shame—may turn out to be just the old frustrating one in disguise.

Instead, he takes the easy, familiar path of offering the physical attractions he already has—the ones that have earned him the approval of the crowd. When these fail him, it is to the crowd in the form of the Bacchic revelers we meet at the end of the Symposium he will regressively return, having never really succeeded in turning away.

That he has never turned away is made yet more vivid in one of the most intriguing passages in the Symposium.