Socrates And Diotima Speech

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Diotima speech as presented by Socrates talks about love, its meaning, and purpose. In the speech, Socrates narrates the story of Diotima about love. Diotima is a woman who had challenged Socrates on his understanding of love, ignorance, and comprehension. According to her, love is neither good nor bad. It lies between the good and the bad. Socrates used to assume that love was a good and a beautiful thing. However, Diotima held a different opinion. After the discussion, she makes Socrates confused and doubtful of his thoughts about love as he has a new opinion about love. He thinks that it is ugly and bad, something that Diotima refuses. They, therefore, agree that love is neither ugly nor beautiful but it is something between beautiful, ugly, …show more content…
This assumptions or analysis of the gods being beautiful and full of happiness brings them as perfect. The Greek's notion of perfection is beautiful, saint and happy. Therefore, love is not perfect like the gods, as it does not possess these things. Happiness is described as the act of being in possession of beautiful and good things. According to Diotima's description of love or Eros, he is not perfect. He is poor and lacks a lot of things which makes him imperfect. He was born of Poverty and Plenty; he is homeless and unshod (Sharpe, 2013). He also desires wisdom. Here, Diotima personifies love and explains how it is born, its purpose, flaws and what it is after. These bring about the aspect of imperfection. Eros is, therefore, not a god and not a human being as he lacks the perfection found with the gods and has a better understanding than the human beings. He also does not have the human form. Thus, Diotima says that he is a spirit and means of communication. Human beings are also not perfect as they are neither intelligent nor good. If they were perfect, they would be like the gods and full of goodness, beauty, and

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