Symposium

From era to era love has remained a constant and influential force. For decades philosophers all over the world have pondered what love is, force or being, and how it affects people. Among these were Plato and his associates. Throughout Platos Symposium each of his companions gave a speech either glorifying or defining love, each building or destroying what the previous speaker portrayed. Each of the speeches from these philosophers have formed many of our ideals of love to this day. One of the…

Senior Symposium Summary The first presentation was on Art, Dance, and Music. The research questions aimed to discover the ways that arts can be used for therapy. Creative therapies use new perspectives to treat patients. Each form of art therapy has a different strength. Art therapy is emotional, and it helps people express feelings. It can be used as a form of relaxation or meditation, and as a means of symbolic communication. Many people benefit from art therapy, and materials can be…

the word “symposium” is described as a convivial party in which guests partake in the interchanging of ideas. Thus, in Plato’s aptly named Symposium, a group of partygoers participates in a roundabout style of praise to Eros, the god of love. The structure of the text is simple and yet complex at the same time, allowing the reader to see love from many perspectives from different types of people. And yet, amongst the deep philosophical nature of the piece, the purpose of the symposium never…

When delivering his encomium to Love in Symposium, Plato’s Agathon genders this deity male and paints a very specific portrait of him. Comparing Love to the other gods, Agathon describes Love as “the youngest”1 and “the most beautiful and the best.”2 In addition to these virtues, Agathon also argues that Love is “bravest of them all,”3 because “he who has hold is more powerful than he who is held,”4 and Love has a hold on Ares, who is made subservient to Love through his feelings for Aphrodite.…

Finding the Good Life in Symposium There are a wide range of translations of what the great life genuinely is. Individualists trust that the great life is satisfying oneself, while utilitarians trust that the great life is representing the benefit of whatever is left of society. Rationalists, as well, have their own understanding. Plato suggests the logician's great life when he utilizes the expression "my most noteworthy delight." The inalienable subjectivity of "my" tells the peruser that…

In June 2016, a man shot 49 people at a gay nightclub. The terror attack had such a horrific outcome that at the time it was the worst attack on the United States since 9/11, both attacks rooted in hatred. In the literary works, Symposium by Plato and Metamorphoses by Ovid, the narrators contemplate whether love acts as the disease or remedy for society and the individual. These themes still have an importance in today's society, as acts of hatred still permeate through the fabric of humanity…

The Service Learning Symposium was held on November 10th from 4:00-6:00 in the CLC Ballroom. I was dreading going because the last event I went to in the CLC had a huge wait due to signing in. Surprisingly, there was no line and signing in took about a second. This is probably due to the fact that they had the sign in sheets split up at 2 separate tables on both sides of the doorway. Around the CLC Ballroom a bunch of tri-folds were set up. The event included all of the University class’s…

The Attainability of Love Plato’s Symposium offers a wide variety of viewpoints surrounding love: what it is, who it effects, and what it means to be achieved. The general understanding is that there are multiple forms of love, and whichever is engaged in will help dictate the status of the one engaging. The speeches of Aristophanes and Diotima present differing definitions of the purpose of love with varying levels of complexity. Each outlines a different path one must take in order to…

1. In Plato’s The Symposium, Diotima asserts that the Form of Beauty contains four main particular intrinsic features. The first attribute Diotima asserts for Beauty Itself is immortality and changelessness. She claims that Beauty Itself “does not come into being or perish, nor does it grow or waste away” (211a). Beauty Itself has no beginning nor end, nor does it ever change. Immortality and changelessness are attributes not found in beautiful things. For example, human beings and…

The purpose of the Symposium is to determine what exactly Love is, and Socrates explains his own views through the teachings of Diotima. While Diotima takes the position that to be in Love means you must be in active pursuit of something, I disagree. Instead of acting as just a verb, Love can also serve as a noun. The first problem arises when trying to figure how to label Love. Is he a god or a mortal? Diotima describes Love as a mixture of the two. He is not a god, but he is not a pure mortal…