By Kyla Trinidad ’26

Majors: International Studies and Political Science; Minor: Justice, Law, and Society

Contributor Biography: Written during my semester abroad, this essay remains one of my favorites. My newfound interest in moral philosophy has allowed me to explore the complexities of human experience. An active presence on campus, I am a research fellow for the Libby & Douglas Cater Society, a sister of Alpha Omicron Pi, and member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science Honor Society. After graduation, I hope to continue my travels abroad with a career in international affairs.

Brief Description: This essay explores the philosophical conceptualization of love and its vital role in human connection and appreciation for life itself. This essay is a premise of Socrates and Diotima, who anchor their understandings of love through its transcending nature, revealing that love goes beyond physicality. It is ultimately determined that love becomes an outlet of expression for intellect and morality, pulling the soul toward a virtuous and fulfilling life. The original question of “what is love?” transforms into a further inquisition: is love all we know?

The following was written for PHL 11-121: Ethics and the Good Life

From a Platonic approach, the conceptualization of love is predominately anchored in the primary principle of love as the pursuit of all things deemed beautiful, therefore regarding the ideas of love and beauty as inevitably intertwined in both theory and aesthetic.[1] In the Symposium and Lysis, Plato explores the idea of love through this main principle, along with a further explanation of love’s purpose, its expressions, and its role in leading a life manifested within its connotations. By engaging with the Platonic texts and other scholarly accounts of love, this analysis will provide an attempt to answer the continual and ambiguous question of what exactly love—and its significance for human connection—is. This investigation will first consider the birth of Eros and its role in the ideological construction of love, specifically for the orators of the Symposium, whose speeches are exhibited in the second point through the interpretation of the different types of love and the demonstrations of it. The analysis will conclude with an assessment of love from the fundamental position of philosophy as love, followed by the practical application of this idea and the potential for further inquiry in the matters of love in contemporary life.

Born from the union of want and resourcefulness, Eros embodies two distinct characteristics that procure the foundation of love itself. The first, Want, is the persistent desire for beautiful things, such as knowledge and understanding.[2] Driven by such desire, Eros’ inherited Resourcefulness guides the search for beautiful things through cleverness and courage (Symposium, 203a-e). Thus, both Want and Resourcefulness are rooted in the inclinations of love and allude to its most basic definition as the driving factors that inhibit the pursuit of love.[3] However, the personification of Eros does not imply that love is limited between beings. In fact, if love is the search for the beautiful, then love shall reflect all that is considered as such, with the qualities of knowledge, wisdom, and virtue being most prominent. Diotima recognized this idea in her definition of Eros as “a lover of wisdom through the whole of life” (Symposium, 205d). In her account, love is not just perceived in a relational context but found in different aspects of life. This version of Eros is the ‘rites to love’ and focuses on shifting the lens of love beyond the superficial explanation, in which love is purely based on romantic or erotic implications (Grahle, McKeever, Saunders, 2022, p.8). The immediate association of love and physicality is still of great importance, as love for the physical body is also a demonstration of love. Ultimately, love is the beacon of expression toward one’s desire for beautiful things yet remains evidently subjective as depicted through the varying illustrations of Eros in the Symposium.

Having defined the idea of love, the matter of applying it by identifying who exactly is subject to love and how it is expressed is important. In this analysis, love is divided into two classifications: love for others, and the sub-categories of romantic and platonic love, and love for life, the encapsulation of love from a broader perspective based on the ideas of Diotima. First, the concept of romantic love will be explored through the speech of Aristophanes and the ancient nature of the incomplete lover. The idea of the divided self constitutes the very formula of Eros with an innate romantic undertone. In this scenario, the Want is to be united with the like-minded other half, for Eros is “the desire and pursuit of wholeness” (Symposium, 193a). Further, the Want is to reconcile with Eros, the god, and to discover the other half of self through Resourcefulness in hopes of restoring ancient human nature and achieving happiness. The portrayal of the divided self is a prime example of romantic love as it represents the function of love through the demonstration of desire and longing for human connection.

The soul of each clearly wishes for something else it can’t put into words; it divines what it wishes, and obscurely hints at it. (Symposium, 192d)

On the contrary, platonic love is composed of intellectual fulfilment rather than romance, with the emphasis placed on the platonic love found within friendships. In Lysis, Socrates puts forth the question of whether the one who loves or the one who is loved is the friend of another. Then, the dialogue shifts from this question to that of likeness. While romantic love suggests that love is best fostered between those who are similar, platonic love, or friendship, thrives in opposition since it desires its opposite (Plato, Lysis, 215e).[4] The discussion further leads to friendship as a mutual pursuit of the good and the claim that “whoever are good are friends” (Plato, Lysis, 214d).

So if Eros is lack of beautiful things, and good things are beautiful, he would also lack good things. (Symposium, 201c)

Therefore, the good, manifested in beauty, becomes the purpose of love, both platonic and romantic, and attracts those who lack the good, because Eros is riddled with Want for the beautiful.

The definition of love now transforms from the desire for the beautiful to the desire for the good, with beauty being a vessel for the good. In her speech, Diotima recognizes the good as the ultimate goal of love, primarily through reproduction, becoming either pregnant in soul or in body. A somatic pregnancy, the creation of lovers, produces children who become the immortal harborers of the good through procreation (Symposium, 206e).[5] Just as pregnancy of the body bestows immortality and happiness, pregnancy of the soul begets wisdom, virtue, temperance, and justice (Symposium, 188d, 209a).[6] One becomes pregnant in the soul through the production of intellectual movements and the guidance of others from discourse to knowledge. Like the motive of platonic love and the attraction to opposition, being pregnant in soul is an allurement of the beauty derived from the essence of the good.[7] In both cases, pregnancy is the connected state of beauty and the good that gives meaning to love.

In her definition of love as creation of the good, Diotima also considers the love of immortality (Symposium, 207a). In her account, love stimulates the pursuit of the good, but that may not be the only factor. For example, if the telos of pregnancy is to beget either children or intellect, and both immortalize the good through inheritance, is the intention to become pregnant for the sake of producing the good or for the immortality of the good? One argument suggests that lovers only seek the good for the immortal fame derived from their pregnancy. Somatic lovers desire the perpetual possession of the good through their children, while psychic lovers, those pregnant in soul, only seek the good for the immortal glory that follows. For instance, the works of a poet not only contribute to intellect, a facet of the good, but grant immortality to the poet (Obdrzalek, 2010).[8] Diotima would argue that these contributions are not a matter of personal gain, but that the purpose of immortality is to continue the distribution of the good, further preserving the need for love. Therefore, just as beauty is an incentive to love, the same can be said of immortality.[9]

This investigative analysis was structured to define love through ascension of the Ladder of Love itself. The first step is beauty in body, evident in romantic love; the second is beauty in all bodies and its relation to platonic love and friendship; the third is beauty in minds, the desire for the good, specifically the creation of intellect and virtue; the fourth is beauty in knowledge; and the final step is the form of the good, and the immortality of the good to remain an eternal beauty and attract the lovers of the beautiful. Love is to transform with each step of the ladder to ultimately achieve the highest form of the good: knowledge, wisdom, and other virtues that stimulate positive moral cultivation. The appreciation of the good suggests that love is parallel to philosophy, as Eros is love of the beautiful, and beauty is found in wisdom (Symposium, 204b).[10] To find beauty and love in the ordinary, one must assume the role of a philosopher, for recognition of such things is to acknowledge a certain beauty in life itself and the love embedded in it (Symposium, 210e).[11] By establishing the definition of love and its purpose, the question now shifts: is love all we know? If love compels us toward the beauty of the good, and the good encompasses the virtues of life, a question remains.[12] What is the role of love in choice and how does that affect personhood? Perhaps this is what Socrates meant in his position to assume that all he knew was love (Symposium, 177d).

References

Allen, R. E. The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 2: The Symposium. Yale University Press, 1991.

Grahle, André, Natasha McKeever, and Joe Saunders, eds. Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group, 2022.

Levy, Donald. “The Definition of Love in Plato’s Symposium.” Journal of the History of Ideas 40, no. 2 (1979): 285–91. https://doi.org/10.2307/2709153.

Neumann, Harry. “Diotima’s Concept of Love.” The American Journal of Philology 86, no. 1 (1965): 33–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/292620.

Obdrzalek, Suzanne. “Moral Transformation and the Love of Beauty in Plato’s Symposium.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48, no. 4 (2010): 415–44. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2010.0013.

Plato. Plato on Love : Lysis, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades, with Selections from Republic, Laws. Edited by C. D. C. Reeve. Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2006.

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[1] The use of the term ‘aesthetic’ is referred to in a general sense, with the term being used to describe the words love and beauty as they appeal within an aesthetic connotation.

[2] It is important to note that the role of beauty in this analysis is crucially relevant as the recognition of beauty prompts a more profound interpretation of the ascending nature of love as depicted in Diotima’s Ladder of Love.

[3] Penia, want, is also depicted as Poverty in alternate versions of the Symposium. R.E. Allen uses the term ‘want’ in his translation. In this analysis, the term is used to describe desire for a particular subject.

[4] The phrase, ‘opposites attract’ is most relevant in this argument; wet and dry or cold and hot are examples of this adage; ‘the opposite is it’s opposite’s best friend’ (Plato, Lysis, 216a).

[5] For example, the good can be seen as an heirloom being passed down through children. (Obdrzalek, 2010)

[6] This suggests that pregnancy in the soul transcends that of the body for it creates the highest form itself, the form of the good, as indicated through Plato’s Theory of Forms; ‘beauty in souls is more to be valued than that in body’ (Symposium, 210b).

[7] ‘but if you become wise, my boy, then everybody will be your friend; everybody will feel close to you, because you will be useful and good.’ (Plato, Lysis, 210d)

[8] Homer is often used to illustrate this point.

[9] Symposium, 212a

[10] Argument derived from the etymology of the word, philosophia, love of wisdom.

[11] The term ordinary refers to everyday life; a slight connection to the speech of Eryximachus in the Symposium.

[12] ’virtues of life‘ are a reference to the cardinal virtues of classical philosophy.