Discussion

Analysis
The original order of the dialogue was
Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus,
Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates (Diotima),
and then Alcibiades
 I. Socrates
Socrates' point of view on love could be analyzed in two
ways,

1. His stance on love while employing dialectic speech

with Agathon
2. His view of love that he had learned from Diotima.
 Socrates with Agathon
“Gods are organized through love of beautiful things, this means love is love of
beauty. If good things are beautiful, love must also have good things or even be
good.”
He has incorporated his famous dialectic method here.
But according to him, the best way to give a eulogy would be to speak only the truth
about it.
Socrates claims that all the speech before him was, without any doubt, expressed
beautifully but they only expressed the qualities and praises of love.

But none of them expressed what love truly is.

 Love is about spirituality.

 It is the power that connects us with god and with the world of form.
 It is far greater than a mere physical or earthly attraction.

This is also the reason why truth is not only beauty but also goodness.
 Socrates and Diotima
Diotima was his mentor and taught him about love.
According to her, love was not the Greek goddess nor was it a mortal. It was not beautiful or
ugly. Its actual qualities and properties were ambitious and restless. It is like an unsatisfied
lover.

The steps of ascending from physical beauty to love of beauty in the highest form, which
is spiritual love.

The first stage is the love of a specific physical body. It will make the lover appreciate the
beauty, and this obsession after some time will start to feel ridiculous.
After that, the lover will shift toward the mental beauty, the beauty of reasoning and thinking.
This is not from this world as it is the purest form and it is not attached to any physical entity,
person, or idea that could corrupt it.
Socrates and Diotima
Diotima's view on love takes us from the love of the world of things to the love
of the world of form.

The purest form not attached to anything can only the god. The god is the purest
form of knowledge in Plato’s philosophy.

It is also often suggested that Diotima was not a real person, she was just a
rhetorical device used by Socrates to explain his view of love. Even Socrates
naming the rhetoric device as “Diotima”, as a woman, was only a way to illustrate
how Socrates didn’t believe in the lower status of women.
Another reason for the presence of Diotima could be that Socrates had already
stated that he knew nothing; hence, it wouldn't make sense for him you know all
this suddenly.
 II. Agathon
Agathon contradicts Phaedrus' view, in his belief that love
is the youngest God, who is deemed as the most beautiful
and young.
His whole speech praises the virtue and beauty of love as a
goddess.

1. Love is beautiful
2. Love is virtuous
Love is beautiful
The god of love is the owner of all the beauty
It is present in the hearts and souls of lovers;
therefore, it is soft and fragile. Because of its
tenderness, it is not present in all hearts.
Love can be flexible as well; this is the
reason why it can be present in various
beautiful things. It is also fair because it is
present in the most fair and pure places. Here
he uses the example of flowerbeds.
Love is virtuous
All the aforementioned qualities make love good.
And its goodness leads to virtue.
Thus in this way, it possesses all four cardinal
virtues, justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom.
He is the great king and pleasure is nothing but its
servant.
He considered love courageous, as Ares was made
into the god of war for his love of Aphrodite.
Finally, it is wise and full of knowledge, as it seeks
the beauty of the soul instead of the beauty of the
physical world.
 “Where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he
dwells… the youngest as well as the tenderest, and also he is of flexible

form .”

“… The only of them who love inspires has the light of frame. He
who loves touches does not walk in darkness. The arts of medicine and
archery and divination… were discovered under the guidance of
love…”