In Plato’s Symposium the reader is offered many insights on the definition of love. Diotima’s take on love was the most interesting because of her take on love being a spirit, and the ladder of love Diotima’s first objective was establishing that love is a middle ground, not stratified to one spectrum of good or bad. “Watch your tongue,” she exclaims at Socrates, “do you really think that if a thing is not beautiful, it has to be ugly,” (Plato, Symposium, 46). A flaw often found in human thinking is the practice of thinking in binary. One often places something as good or bad, not taking time to consider the in between. She uses the example that just because something is not wise, does not mean it is ignorant. One can judge something correctly,
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Since Love was born to Poros, the god of resource, and Penia, goddess of poverty, he posses qualities of the two. He is always poor and without a home, yet he is resourceful and brave and intelligent. Because he was conceived on the day of Aphrodite’s birth, he follows her and is a lover or beauty, since Aphrodite is beautiful. Because by nature he does not possess mortality or immortality, he is constantly dying. When he dies the resourcefulness he gained from being his father’s son enables him to come back to life. He is never rich nor is he ever poor. His craving for wisdom also places him at an in between of ignorance or wisdom. Gods do not crave wisdom because they are already wise, and those who are ignorant do not love wisdom or crave it because they are content and do not know what they are missing out on. Love is also distinguished as a lover. The things one loves are beautiful and perfect, but the character of the lover himself is more complex. There are also special kinds of love. All humans love the same things, yet we distinguish some as lovers and some as not. There’s the labeling of the whole as “love” then for other kinds of love there’s other words. This can be seen in poetry- everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a form of poetry, so everyone who partakes in a craft is a poet. Yet not all craftsmen are referred to as
Since Love was born to Poros, the god of resource, and Penia, goddess of poverty, he posses qualities of the two. He is always poor and without a home, yet he is resourceful and brave and intelligent. Because he was conceived on the day of Aphrodite’s birth, he follows her and is a lover or beauty, since Aphrodite is beautiful. Because by nature he does not possess mortality or immortality, he is constantly dying. When he dies the resourcefulness he gained from being his father’s son enables him to come back to life. He is never rich nor is he ever poor. His craving for wisdom also places him at an in between of ignorance or wisdom. Gods do not crave wisdom because they are already wise, and those who are ignorant do not love wisdom or crave it because they are content and do not know what they are missing out on. Love is also distinguished as a lover. The things one loves are beautiful and perfect, but the character of the lover himself is more complex. There are also special kinds of love. All humans love the same things, yet we distinguish some as lovers and some as not. There’s the labeling of the whole as “love” then for other kinds of love there’s other words. This can be seen in poetry- everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a form of poetry, so everyone who partakes in a craft is a poet. Yet not all craftsmen are referred to as