In Plato’s Symposium, Diotima, known to have bestowed her knowledge of love on Socrates, explains the levels of beauty one passes in order to achieve virtue. This transition as explained by her begins with what she refers to as pregnancy and birth (206C). Desire, love, and beauty are results of the immortal process of reproduction that is inherent in all humans. The desire for, and the love of beauty, launch the discovery of beauty itself as metaphorically referenced by Diotima’s ladder.
The phrase inner beauty is not just a figure of speech, it is however, a humble expression for the poetic delineation of the soul’s landscape. According to Diotima, beauty has an ascending succession from the physical to the cerebral. Desire makes way for love which leads to the manifestation of beauty. First, there is the beauty of one physical body, then the beauty of various bodies, followed by beauty that transcends appearance and physical form, and finally, there is beauty itself.
In the opening of her speech, Diotima states that we are all pregnant in body and soul and at a certain age we desire …show more content…
Although the concept applies to self, it also applies to the outer beauty and to the world. Additionally, she undoubtedly identifies the key aspects of the inner landscape through her commentary about desire and love. She first recognizes desire in its unformed and universal state, and articulates its relation to love. One might try to argue that the desire for and the love of something is a result of visual stimulation but, if that was the case, a blind man would desire for nothing. Furthermore, the love of wisdom and knowledge, which is formless, and though expressed physically at times, prevails mostly on an ethereal level between the mind and
The phrase inner beauty is not just a figure of speech, it is however, a humble expression for the poetic delineation of the soul’s landscape. According to Diotima, beauty has an ascending succession from the physical to the cerebral. Desire makes way for love which leads to the manifestation of beauty. First, there is the beauty of one physical body, then the beauty of various bodies, followed by beauty that transcends appearance and physical form, and finally, there is beauty itself.
In the opening of her speech, Diotima states that we are all pregnant in body and soul and at a certain age we desire …show more content…
Although the concept applies to self, it also applies to the outer beauty and to the world. Additionally, she undoubtedly identifies the key aspects of the inner landscape through her commentary about desire and love. She first recognizes desire in its unformed and universal state, and articulates its relation to love. One might try to argue that the desire for and the love of something is a result of visual stimulation but, if that was the case, a blind man would desire for nothing. Furthermore, the love of wisdom and knowledge, which is formless, and though expressed physically at times, prevails mostly on an ethereal level between the mind and