The Coldness of Plato's Ladder: Payten Gary

A reflection on Plato's Symposium 
    

    Reading Diotima’s account of the Ladder of Love in Plato’s Symposium left me feeling a little offput. I grappled with the ideas presented in this reading and determined that Plato feels as though every beautiful thing, every shared moment, and every deep connection is just a temporary "stepping stone" toward some abstract, non-personal form of the beautiful. This feels incredibly dismissive of lived experience. It made these very real and beautiful emotions seem like a far-off abstract idea and dehumanized these emotions all together. If all of the affection I feel for others is just a frustrated urge to find something eternal, then the individuals themselves, their unique qualities, their laughter, their specific existence,are just tools. They are merely the rungs on the ladder, which totally dismisses their existence.     This implies that to find true philosophical empowerment I must do away with the warmth of human emotion for the "purity" of the abstract. This concept is quite baffling to me and goes against everything I believe to be true. The question I had about this reading is "is the ultimate "beauty" worth the loss of human connection and devotion?Is there any way to reconcile the depth of human love with the seemingly impersonal, goal-oriented philosophical ascent Plato describes? It makes me question whether the pursuit of Truth might sometimes require an emotional sacrifice I’m unwilling to make.


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