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, begins with what she refers to as pregnancy and birth (206C). Desire, love, and beauty, results of the immortal process of reproduction that is inherent in all humans. The desire for, and the love of, launch the discovery of beauty itself.
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 inclination of beauty. First, there …show more content…
She states that desire which is actual for all human beings (205A), is the need to acquire happiness and to possess good for ourselves (204D). She goes on by stating that we naturally seek out good because people tend to do away with even parts of themselves that is unhealthy (205E). This desire for ownership, both virtuous and shallow, is universal but, it’s pursued differently. She concludes that love is simply the desire to possess that which is beautiful and good forever (206A).
Diotima insightfully explains desire and love in it their unaffected state. Desire is key to understanding the spring from which the waters flow. It flows from the soul and seeks good, which translates to happiness. We seek healthy over diseased because healthy is the natural state, therefore good is indistinguishable. The desire for ownership over good and healthy applies not only to the physical but also to mental pursuits. Though we love many things in life; food, politics, money, knowledge, we seek them all for the sole purpose of attaining …show more content…
After acceptance of self, we are then able to see the beauty in others. When we have mastered physical acceptance of self and others, we then experience the beauty that is formless. This shared beauty of institutions, laws, and knowledge through learning, expands our soul on a larger level and serves as an impetus to wisdom. Lastly, we come to know beauty itself. That which cannot be touched but only experienced as it is so, not because something made it so, but because it simply just is.
I believe Diotima confirms the concept of inner beauty with the metaphor of the stairs which demonstrates one’s ascension from the lustful love of physical bodies to the morality filled beauty that is necessary for growth and expansion. Although the concept relates to self, it also relates to the outer beauty and to the world.
Additionally, I feel 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 inclination of beauty. First, there …show more content…
She states that desire which is actual for all human beings (205A), is the need to acquire happiness and to possess good for ourselves (204D). She goes on by stating that we naturally seek out good because people tend to do away with even parts of themselves that is unhealthy (205E). This desire for ownership, both virtuous and shallow, is universal but, it’s pursued differently. She concludes that love is simply the desire to possess that which is beautiful and good forever (206A).
Diotima insightfully explains desire and love in it their unaffected state. Desire is key to understanding the spring from which the waters flow. It flows from the soul and seeks good, which translates to happiness. We seek healthy over diseased because healthy is the natural state, therefore good is indistinguishable. The desire for ownership over good and healthy applies not only to the physical but also to mental pursuits. Though we love many things in life; food, politics, money, knowledge, we seek them all for the sole purpose of attaining …show more content…
After acceptance of self, we are then able to see the beauty in others. When we have mastered physical acceptance of self and others, we then experience the beauty that is formless. This shared beauty of institutions, laws, and knowledge through learning, expands our soul on a larger level and serves as an impetus to wisdom. Lastly, we come to know beauty itself. That which cannot be touched but only experienced as it is so, not because something made it so, but because it simply just is.
I believe Diotima confirms the concept of inner beauty with the metaphor of the stairs which demonstrates one’s ascension from the lustful love of physical bodies to the morality filled beauty that is necessary for growth and expansion. Although the concept relates to self, it also relates to the outer beauty and to the world.
Additionally, I feel 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