Short Summary Of Socrates Speech Essay

Socrates’ speech within the Symposium falls short of being a truly convincing account of Erôs, mainly due to the fact that it does not deliver an explanation of what Erôs is but only where it comes from and its purpose in a spiritual sense, but is can still be considered successful in its own right. Socrates speech is less convincing due partly to the fact that it is not of his own creation, instead being a retelling of a conversation he had with Diotima. Socrates thus comes across as largely uninterested in sex and sexual desire, and instead puts forward an account of Erôs which revolves around Love as a collaborative striving for Goodness, similar to Eryximachus’ appeal to unity and wellness. Socrates speech comes from what he learned from Diotima of Mantinea, who was a priestess who believed that Love is a progressive force which moves one from considering merely the physical to the contemplation of pure and abstract beauty.Diotima explained that Erôs is neither God nor mortal, but a spiritual force which exists between

Briefly, Aristophanes gives a very romantic account of Erôs as the force that Lovers feel as they search for their original over hath, after the Gods spilt humans from 4 limited to 2. Diotima argues that the Lover instead is searching for the Good, and this cannot be done in the searching for the other half as they may not be Good. “People are even willing to cut off their own arms and legs if they think they are diseased I dont think an individual takes joy in what belongs to him personally unless by ‘belonging to me’ he means ‘good’ and by ‘belonging to another he means ‘bad’” (Plato, 1997, p. 488, §205). Meaning that one only ever desires what is Good, and what never what is bad, and so to say that one is looking for their other half means that this other half must be Good but this is not the