Plato's Symposium
Views of Eros
In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes and Diotima had many similar ideas regarding eros. What they both find and agree upon to be true is the fact that love is good. By good I mean that it benefits a person on many different levels and extends it reach above and beyond what anyone is able to comprehend. How we all desire beautiful things (Diotima substitutes good in place of beautiful to prove a point) and to posses these goods forever. We tend to be insecure beings and look for guarantees of forever and eternal. The implication of love falls through the cracks, however, as something we struggle to hold on to. The possibility of finding love is what keeps us from giving up or being discouraged over disappointments.
Although they both don't directly state it, one could argue that they both consider eros to be a selfish act. Despite their choice in words to express their points of view on the selfishness of love, they both reach the same end result. Aristophanes and Diotima imply that love satisfies a hollow opening within us all that can only be sealed by the hands of another. Aristophanes says, (p. 29) "...we used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now 'Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete." It is as if we are all walking in the dark with our arms extended. Looking for the hope of finding our other half. Yet, we are all looking in all the wrong places because it can only be found from within ourselves before it can ever be found in someone else.
Aristophanes views love as being something that can never be fulfilled. As a result of our conduct, our punishment was to walk this earth without a shadow, so to speak. An exhausting thrust that can never be quenched even though we both drink from the same stream of water that gives us life. In other words, a soul that can never be fully complete. That is why we have sexual intercourse. It gives us the feeling of being complete again. Unfortunately, even though our bodies may merge for a time, it is only temporarily. An everlasting cycle of longing for our missing self continues. Aristophanes exclaim, (p. 28) "...people finish out their lives and still cannot say what they want from one another." That is what makes us human.
Diotima, on the other hand, believes love is obtainable through immorality. Achieved in the course of giving birth, we live forever through our offspring with immortal glory and remembrance. She states (p. 55) that "...what is mortal shares immortality...So don't be surprised if everything naturally values its own offspring, because it is for the sake of immortality that everything shows this zeal, which is Love." Diotima also touches upon love as a process of taking steps. Only through physical attraction, according to Diotima, will one advance to the next level. In order to become enlightened on the beauty of what is on the inside, one must first appreciate what is on the outside. The significance of this is that once he sees women for what they truly are and value what they have to offer, then physical appearance is no longer of importance. Diotima proclaims, (p.58) "...the result that he will think that the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance." The mind is what should be sought for it is there that knowledge and ideas are formed.
