In search of love: Plato's ladder

One of Plato’s most famous dialogues is the “Symposium”. Symposiums were drinking parties in Ancient Greece reserved for the most influential intellectuals of the time. The one described by Plato was organized in honor of Eros, the god of love. As usual, the majority of the characters from the dialogue were real people from the upper class of Athens. The focus of this essay will be on two particular speeches; one expressed by the comic Aristophanes and the other by Plato’s teacher Socrates. 

 

Aristophanes’ speech is one of Plato’s most famous literary accounts and it discusses the origins of love. By his recital, love, and attraction between people, emerged from a punishment given to humans by the god Zeus. Namely, people were initially made with 4 legs and 4 hands; they were like two of today’s people connected into one being. There were 3 sexes; two men together, two women together, and a man and a woman together. Because of that, humans were much stronger and more capable than they are now, but they became too arrogant and started to challenge the gods. As a punishment, Zeus decided to separate them. Consequently, to this day everyone is bound to look for their “other half” during their lifetime. Apart from being one of the most marvelous pieces of writing of a literary genius, this story is a very interesting metaphor for finding one’s soulmate. It is the case that people often feel like there is some force in them which drives them to search for love that is independent of their conscious wishes. Love is one of those phenomena which are difficult to put into words and discuss rationally; it is rather that it can be touched upon only through metaphors, art, poetry, etc. In a way, it must be felt rather than pondered upon. Its importance, however, is unquestionable; there wouldn’t be a multi-billion business (music, romantic movies, Valentine’s Day craze, etc.) built on it if that weren’t the case. Aristophanes’ story remains a brilliant example of how literature can pay its respects to the concept of love.

 

“And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.” (Plato, Symposium)

 

Socrates’ story with which he gives his answer is somewhat unparalleled as well. Apparently, he is actually paraphrasing what he was once told by Diotima, a prophet of sorts. In a way, Socrates takes Aristophanes’ account and develops it further; he notices that we are, in fact, not looking for our “other halves”, as Aristophanes postulated, but for that which is good in them. In other words, we tend to be primarily attracted towards the good and through it to the person in which the good is manifested. As he explained, “I say, my friend, is that love is not directed towards a half, or a whole either, unless that half or whole is actually something good, since people are quite prepared to have their own hands or feet amputated if they believe that these parts of themselves are diseased” (Plato, Symposium). Such a concept, which was later in the text developed even further, is similar to what Freud articulates with his idea of Eros (as opposed to Thanatos). The name Eros which he used for describing the will to live, or the tendency of people towards development, was actually taken from Plato. However, for the sake of brevity, the focus will remain only on Plato in this essay. Plato’s eros is something like a mixture between the human and the divine; on the one hand, it can’t be divine as the gods cannot love fully because they are perfect beings who cannot experience desire, for lack is the precondition of desire and gods (by the definition of them) mustn’t lack anything. On the other hand, it cannot be entirely human for true love must strive towards transcendence and love of universal (beauty) rather than (the beauty of) individual physical bodies. One of the most famous Platonic theories is the theory of forms which states that universals (forms/ideas) are in fact that which is eternal and which is “more real” than the physical world filled with particulars. Accordingly, Socrates asserts that a person is transcending the mortal/finite world by searching for true wisdom (in Plato’s thought, “philosophizing”); seeing that philosophy deals with universals rather than particulars, and seeing that universals are eternal, when one is forming knowledge on universals, he is in the realm of eternity. When one is philosophizing, he is uplifted above his particular existence and into eternity. A beautiful acknowledgment of philosophy by one of its fathers. Socrates is exclaiming the following point; love tends towards the form/idea of goodness by searching for the good in others. That search and potential acquirement of knowledge is the highest goal and it happens through the famous ladder of love – from the love of a particular physically beautiful body to the love of all beautiful bodies, from the love of all beautiful bodies to the love of the beauty of the soul, from the love of the beauty of the soul to the love of the beauty of institutions (a peculiar step, but a necessary one as good institutions are thought to precondition goodness), from the love of the institutions to the love of knowledge (aforementioned philosophizing), from the love of knowledge to the universal love of the form/idea of Beauty. This final step, the love of love itself, is another example of Plato’s insistence on his previously mentioned world of forms; the first step (the love of a physical body) happens because the particular body is connected to the form of the Beautiful. It is this form that gives the essence to all particular beautiful material things; i.e., they are considered beautiful because they are a manifestation of the universal form of Beauty. 

 

In summary, people are, in this way or another, in the search for love. However, as the Serbian poet Dorde Balasevic articulated; 

 

“There are certain depths in us 

that cannot be translated,

those things in us

that cannot be put into words.”

 

We must, therefore, continue that search through art, philosophy, and personal betterment and it just may be that in such a way we can truly find our way to the top of the famous Plato’s ladder.

Plato. (n.d.) Symposium. Retrieved from https://www.bard.edu/library/arendt/pdfs/Plato_PlatosSymposium.pdf