Aristophanes' and Socrates' concepts of Love in Plato's Symposium - 11/12/2025

In Plato's Symposium, two arguments given for why Eros is deserving of Praise include that of Aristophanes and of Socrates. Through the metaphor of man as a formerly superhuman creature split in two by Zeus, Aristophanes constructs erotic love or desire as a yearning for reunition with ones' other half. He states "so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of man, and he is always looking for his other half." This description of love as being for what we once had but now lack, as well as the "indenture" of man, indicates that Aristophanes views erotic desire as not only for what one lacks but for the other half of oneself, which by necessity we must have access to in order to become whole again. Socrates, first through a dialectic and then through a story of his conversation with Diatima, concurs with Aristophanes that desire is for what one lacks but suggests that love in of itself is only deserving of praise and attention insofar as it contributes to accessing the Platonic Form of the Good, which love itself is mutually exclusive with due to being the desire for the good. Diatima is quoted as stating, "Then love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?' 'That is most true," indicating here that desire is the desire for the good and therefore constitutes the lack of the Good. This is in line with Plato's theory of Forms, in that Diatima prescribes first passionately loving a beautiful body, then less passionately all bodies, then the concept of beauty, then the Form of Beauty. In each stage, the role of desire is diminished. 

I dislike this latter perspective as I think that a form of beauty would have little weight without the absence of beauty; in other words, I believe that desire or passion is what is truly engaging about love, and for that matter about beauty. I definitely agree more with Aristophanes' conception of love as the desire for reunition with one's other half than with Socrates' conception of it as a stepping stone towards the Form of beauty or the Good. This relates to journey and meaning making in the sense that I believe long-distance pilgrimage constitutes a disciplined form of concentrating on desire and passion. To be present in the moment of a long hike means admiring the beauty but also admiring the anticipation of beauty.

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