DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

Plato’s Symposium is a philosophical dialogue centered on a banquet attended by several prominent Athenian figures, where each participant gives a speech in praise of Eros (love). The text explores various conceptions of love, its nature, and its role in human life, ultimately leading to Socrates’ exposition of the philosophical and transcendent nature of love. The work is a foundational text in Western philosophy, touching on ethics, metaphysics, and aesthetics.

Let’s explore…

Setting and characters

The Symposium is framed as a recollection by Apollodorus, who narrates a conversation he had with a friend about the banquet that took place years earlier at the house of Agathon, a tragedian who had recently won a dramatic competition. The main speakers at the symposium are:

• Phaedrus – a rhetorician and admirer of Socrates
• Pausanias – a legal expert
• Eryximachus – a physician
• Aristophanes – the famous comic playwright
• Agathon – a young tragic poet
• Socrates – the philosopher and Plato’s teacher
• Alcibiades – a charismatic but flawed statesman and military leader

Each guest delivers a speech praising Eros, offering unique perspectives based on their experiences and expertise.

The speeches on love

Phaedrus: Love as the oldest and greatest of the Gods

Phaedrus opens the discussion by asserting that Eros is the oldest of the gods and the source of great virtue. He claims that love is essential for inspiring courage and noble deeds, arguing that a society built on love would be inherently strong because lovers are willing to sacrifice everything for each other. He cites mythological examples where love drives heroic acts, suggesting that a soldier fighting for their beloved would be far braver than one fighting for mere duty.

Pausanias: The distinction between common and heavenly love

Pausanias introduces a dualistic view of love. He distinguishes between two forms of Eros:

1. Common love (Pandemian Eros) – Associated with physical desire and temporary pleasure, often between men and women. This type of love is superficial and lacks depth.
2. Heavenly love (Uranian Eros) – A higher form of love, particularly between an older and younger man, based on intellectual and moral development. This love fosters wisdom and virtue, elevating the soul beyond mere physical gratification.

Pausanias argues that only Heavenly Love should be celebrated, as it encourages lifelong growth and companionship.

Eryximachus: Love as cosmic harmony

Eryximachus, a physician, takes a scientific and medical approach to love. He expands the discussion beyond human relationships, suggesting that love exists in all aspects of life, including nature and medicine. According to him, love manifests in the harmony of opposites—such as hot and cold, wet and dry—essential for health and balance. He links love to music and the cosmos, proposing that proper love leads to well-being, while its excess or deficiency causes disorder.

Aristophanes: The myth of the split beings

Aristophanes presents a humorous yet profound myth to explain love’s origin. He describes how humans were once spherical beings with four arms, four legs, and two faces. These beings were so powerful that they threatened the gods, prompting Zeus to split them in half. Since then, each person has longed for their other half, seeking wholeness through love.

His speech suggests that love is the desire to reunite with our lost half, whether male or female, emphasizing love’s role in completing our existence. This myth is one of the earliest recorded articulations of the idea of soulmates.

Agathon: Love as youthful, beautiful, and virtuous

Agathon, as a poet, offers an eloquent and idealized view of love. He describes love as the youngest and most beautiful of the gods, emphasizing its gentle, pure, and virtuous nature. According to Agathon, love fosters creativity, joy, and goodness in all things. His speech is poetic but somewhat superficial, focusing more on praise than analysis.

Socrates: Love as the pursuit of the divine and the form of beauty

Socrates disrupts the pattern by questioning Agathon, exposing the contradictions in his argument. Socrates then recounts a lesson he once received from the priestess Diotima, offering a deeper and more structured philosophy of love.

Diotima’s ladder of love

Diotima presents a developmental model of love, often called the Ladder of Love, where love evolves from physical attraction to philosophical enlightenment:

1. Physical love – Initially, love begins with an attraction to a beautiful body.
2. Love of all beautiful bodies – The lover realizes that beauty is common across many people, transcending attachment to just one.
3. Love of the soul – The lover shifts from physical beauty to the beauty of character and intellect.
4. Love of ideas and laws – Love expands beyond individuals to admiration of virtuous ideas and societal principles.
5. Love of knowledge – The lover begins to seek wisdom, valuing knowledge as the highest form of beauty.
6. Love of the form of beauty – The ultimate goal is an appreciation of Beauty itself, an eternal and unchanging ideal that transcends the physical world.

Socrates concludes that true love is a desire for immortality, achieved either through physical procreation or intellectual and artistic creation.

Alcibiades’ drunken interruption: Love for Socrates

After Socrates finishes his discourse, Alcibiades arrives drunk and disrupts the symposium. Instead of discussing love philosophically, he gives a personal account of his infatuation with Socrates.

Alcibiades describes Socrates as physically unattractive but possessing extraordinary inner beauty. He praises Socrates’ intellect, resilience, and moral superiority, recounting how Socrates resisted his advances. His speech highlights Socrates’ embodiment of true love as described by Diotima—one that transcends physical attraction and aspires toward wisdom and virtue.

Themes and philosophical significance

1. Love as a path to knowledge

The Symposium presents love as more than physical attraction; it is a force that drives individuals toward self-improvement and the pursuit of wisdom.

2. The nature of beauty

Plato suggests that love is ultimately a longing for beauty in its highest form. The Ladder of Love indicates that true beauty exists beyond the physical world, residing in abstract ideals.

3. Love and immortality

Love is tied to the human desire for immortality, whether through reproduction or intellectual legacy. This concept connects to Plato’s theory of Forms, where the pursuit of knowledge grants a form of eternal truth.

4. The role of Socrates

Socrates functions as the ideal lover in the dialogue—one who moves beyond superficial desires to seek ultimate truth. His resistance to Alcibiades’ advances symbolizes his mastery over physical urges in favor of higher intellectual pursuits.

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Plato’s Symposium remains one of the most influential philosophical explorations of love. Through multiple perspectives, it examines love’s role in personal and intellectual growth, ultimately arguing that love is a means of reaching the divine. The dialogue’s blend of mythology, rhetoric, and Socratic questioning creates a rich and layered discussion, making it a foundational text in the philosophy of love and beauty.