Phaedrus Account Of Love In Agathon's The Symposium
1586 Words7 Pages
The Symposium The Symposium takes place at Agathon’s house, where a dinner party is happening. Phaedrus, Pausanias, Euriyximachus, Ariststophanes and Socrates are in attendance and later on Alcibiades shows up. On the way to Agathon’s house, Socrates strays behind, deep in thought and shows up late to dinner. The men decide that they want to speak on the topic of love. They decide to go in a circle and each man gives their account of love.
Phaedrus account of love:
Phaedrus begins. He states that gods and humans regard love as great and awesome. It is one of the most ancient gods. Love will make a coward,, a hero because a person does not want to seem weak in front of the one he loves. A lover will also die for you. Phaedrus uses the story…show more content… The two types are, common and heavenly love. Heavenly love is the daughter of Uranus, known as Urania, or Heavenly Aphrodite. Common love is younger and is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, named Pandemos, or Common Aphrodite. Pausanias states that love is neither a good nor bad thing. It if is done properly it is good and if not it is bad. He believes that common love is bad because it is directed towards bodies and not the mind. This kind of love is uncouth because it is bisexual; it is mostly concerned with the act of sex. Heavenly love is directed only toward men for boys who are developing properly and can potentially create a lifelong mate. In Pausanias account of love he states that lovers are encouraged to go to extreme lengths to win the one they want over, but cannot be caught up in their lovers charms. A person must not be too easily won over. He also believes that the main purpose of love is to produce virtue. Gaining virtue is heavenly love. If love is for any other reason than gaining virtue it is then considered common…show more content… There is a process to follow to obtain the final visions of the mystery of love. It starts with being a young boy and being attracted to beautiful bodies. The next stage is to recognize bodies are similar and to only love one is silly, one should love all bodies. Appreciating the beauty of minds and being able to love the ones who are beautiful in mind rather than beauty itself. One must become a lover of knowledge. A lover of knowledge will then reach the goal of love, which is beauty in nature. Beauty has and always will exist. It appears in itself and by itself and is independent of everything else. All beautiful things share in its character but will not affect Beauty itself.
The lover, by contemplating the Form of Beauty, comes to understand how the entities of the sensible world derive their beauty due to the participation of this Form in them. He is able to grasp the transient nature of beauty in the sensible world, as well as the eternal and unchanging nature of the Form of Beauty.