Love In Plato's Symposium

In Plato’s Symposium, love (Eros) is the subject of discussion and it does not directly illustrate Plato’s idea, but it implies his idea through a dialogue of men attending a hosted party, while in The Analects, it shows the idea of love in Confucius through the concept of Ren and the text shows Confucius’s idea through the dialogue between Confucius and his students. It is an interesting dialogue between Plato and Confucius as they are representing different cultures and political environments. The following story is about Plato walked into Confucius in a Chinese restaurant and they exchanged ideas of love during the conversation.

One day Plato walked to a Chinese restaurant and saw Confucius. Confucius was drinking tea and reading a book,

I would say we achieve Ren through Li, Ren is more like an inner attitude and Li is human action and expression of Ren. Also, I believe that people live and treat others based on the Ren and Li, the society will work effectively and respect each other.”

“The combination of Ren and Li seems powerful. I believe that Ren is a sense of benevolence and respect. I’m very happy that your later generation recorded you quotes and idea into the Analects. What’s your opinion on the types of loves mentioned in the Pausanias’s part?”

“I’m glad that they did it too, I agree your view that being mortality is not only about physical reproduction, but also mentally spreading out the wisdom. Also, I support the view of Pausanias’s part, there is no single form of love, just like Ren, there are no particular actions to show Ren, it depends on the attitude. Based on what I read, commonly love means people fall in love because of the physical aspect, their bodies instead of their minds and they are interested in the sexual act instead of intelligence (symposium, 181c). The other one is Heavenly love, people grow up and prepared, they are ready to be friends and a lifelong relationship and one of them being a mentor and leads them to achieve the wisdom and intelligence. I think wisdom is more important than physical aspect and I think chasing wisdom brings positive impact to whole society and