“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to

make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.”
- Plato, The Symposium

Plato’s Symposium is a series of speeches on Love given at a party in ancient Greece. They deal with
questions of: what Love is; interpersonal relationships through love; what types of love are worthy of
praise; the purpose of love; and others. It is the first major philosophical text on love in Western
literature. It can be classified as a tragicomedy, using elements of both genres.
The Introductory Dialogue introduces the complex layers to the narration, as the reader is far removed
from the original teller of the story, Aristodemus, and the times Apollodorus has retold the account. The
story itself is told from Aristodemus’ point of view, who ran into Socrates on his way
to Agathon’s symposion. He invites Aristodemus, and they have food and drink at Agathon’s, along
with Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Aristophanes, among others. Having celebrated the
night before, some of the attendees are still hungover, and they propose focusing on conversation
instead of drinking. Eryximachus proposes giving encomiums to Love, to which all agree.
Phaedrus begins giving a speech focused on the virtue of bravery in love. He tells the origin of love as
the youngest god, son of Chaos and Earth. His stories of Achilles’ and Alcestis’ acts of self-sacrifice for
the lover and beloved exemplify the bravery of love. Pausanias follows this speech, with a rather self-
righteous tone. He splits Love into Common and Heavenly Love, attributing the latter solely to
homosexual, male relationships. He praises Heavenly Love and discusses the role of law, justice, and
customs in leading beloveds to make a virtuous choice regarding taking lovers. Aristophanes had the
hiccups during Pausanias speech, suggesting that he was possibly mocking Pausanias; because of
the hiccups, he skips a turn. The third speech is given by a doctor, Eryximachus, who extends the idea
of love beyond interpersonal relationships, claiming love is found in the coexistence of opposites, the
harmony of nature. Almost everything can have love and it is of vital importance in his field of medicine.

Having been cured of his hiccups, Aristophanes gives the most original speech on love. He tells an
origin story, where Zeus cut humans in half. Humans used to have a different shape, somewhat like
two human beings stuck together and there were three sexes: male, female, and androgynous (male
and female). Due to their disinterest in revering the gods, they were split, and now humans search for
their other half, on a pursuit of wholeness. He warns that we may be split again, if not pious and revering
of the gods.

Agathon, the host of the gathering, gives the fifth speech. His is one of the most comedic, even though
he is a tragedian. He praises love with beautiful prose, but offers little new content. He reiterates all the
virtues each of the past speakers focused on separately when defining the moral character of love:
Courage, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom (which replaces Piety). He describes Love as possessing
beauty and good things. His speech is a parody of the style of oratory of Gorgias, his teacher.

Following Agathon’s speech, Socrates, with Agathon's permission and cooperation, deconstructs his
speech. They agree that Love pursues beauty and good things and that one does not desire what one
has. Therefore, Love does not possess these qualities. This description of Love is further explained
when Socrates tells them a dialogue he had with Diotima on Love long ago. He and Diotima establish
that Love is between beauty and ugliness, between mortal and immortal (a spirit), and between wisdom
and ignorance.
Socrates retells Diotima’s speech, the longest and most serious one of the night, where she describes
the “Ladder of Love,” one of the most famous ideas of the novel. Love is son of Poros (Resource) and
Penia (Poverty), desiring beauty, which are good things, which lead to happiness. Love, however,
means more than just the love between two people. The end goal of Love is not simply to find one’s
other half. Rather, the purpose of love is to give birth in beauty. All people are pregnant, whether in
body or in soul. Reproduction is the mortal’s way of reaching immortality and will only happen in the
presence of beauty. Love is inextricably linked to the desire for immortality. Giving birth from the soul
is a purer form of love and stronger form of immortality, such as that of poets and politicians, and only
males can be pregnant of the soul.

She then describes the rites of love, also referred to as the “Ladder of Love.” First, a person loves one
body, and then he finds beauty in all bodies. After this, he must appreciate the beauty of souls over that
of bodies. This leads to the love of activities and laws, or customs, leading to the love of certain types
of knowledge. It ends in the pursuit of knowledge, or the love of wisdom, which is philosophy. Upon
reaching this, the lover will see Beauty in its pure Form, and give birth not to an image of virtue, but
true virtue.

The atmosphere in the room changed following Socrates’ speech, but was immediately ruptured by the
loud, drunk entrance of Alcibiades. He asked to participate, but changed the subject upon Eryximachus’
suggestion to praising Socrates instead of Love. Through his description of Socrates and his
relationship as the beloved of Socrates, he likens him to Eros, illustrating the arguments made in
Diotima’s speech.
Alcibiades’ speech was met with laughter, even though it made important points through the exemplar
of Socrates. The guests begin to excuse themselves, at which point Aristodemus falls asleep. He wakes
up shortly before dawn, when Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates were still conversing. Socrates
was trying to convince them that a writer must master both comedy and tragedy. As he was about to
end his argument, Aristophanes fell asleep, shortly before Agathon. Socrates then left, followed by
Aristophanes.
What does this mean for us? Physical attraction is a step on the ladder to a love and appreciation of all
that is beautiful in the universe. When people say "Platonic love", they usually mean "I like you, but
keep your hands to yourself." This isn't really what Plato was getting at. He thought that love was
something that could inspire us to appreciate all that is divine and beautiful in the universe, and to try
to produce beauty in the world. At the top of the ladder, sex doesn't play much of a role, but it's often
what gets us on the ladder in the first place.

So my personal reaction after reading symposium is that I had going through my head on what exactly
Diotima was saying. I believed I had a general idea on what she meant on the love of the body and
perhaps the ideal of immortality that came from biological function. Also the natural process of looking
for more than just the physical and the interest in someones soul, or their character. Then, perhaps in
finding who you really are or in the search of an ideal you're able to expand your horizons and through
gaining knowledge and experience, you open your mind to new avenues and ways of thinking that were
never considered before. Through that process, you are able to find the true personification of beauty
because you will realize that it is all around you. From what I've gathered from Plato's ideas, the human
condition is that we are a lacking, we are searching to acquire completion of ourselves and strive for a
permanence we can never have. We try to transcend upwards towards wisdom, but sometimes end up
downwards towards complete ignorance.

To be honest this is so confusing to understand, I am still looking forward to understand what really
love is.
JAMES RAGASA

BSN-4