Next was Pausanias, a lawyer, who argues that not all love is necessarily good nor bad and it …show more content…
But according to my story, a lover does not seek the half or the whole, unless, my friend, it turns out to be good as well. I say this because people are even willing to cut off their own arms and legs if they think they are diseased…. That’s because what everyone loves is really nothing other the good. (51-52)
What Diotime refutes is Aristophanes’ account of love. Aristophanes stated that lovers seek each other because they want to feel whole again, but Diotima thinks that lovers only love what is good and people would be willing to amputate their limbs if they truly believed it to be diseased or bad. This argument of hers seems to be mostly true. Most people would rather amputate their arms to prolong their life if they found out that they had a disease that would