Love in Platos Symposium - 1227 Words

Two Types of Love in Platos Symposium I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someones body rather their mind. In Platos Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly†¦show more content†¦always lying in the dirt without a bed... brave, impetuous, and intense. (p. 486, 203d) This statement should not be taken in the wrong direction and thought of as the common love, but as a new form of love that is something in between the heavenly love and common love. As most of her statements, Diotima believes that many of the beliefs on love that had previously been stated were in truth somewhere in the middle. Another point that Socrates brings up through Diotima is that all of us are pregnant, both in body and soul, and, as soon as we come to a certain age, we naturally desire to give birth. (p.489, 206d) In the case of heavenly love, when a woman is pregnant the body is wanting to give birth to another beautiful human being. When a man is pregnant he desires to give birth to a beautiful self-identity and/or an idea. In the case of common love people are pregnant with the desire to rid their bodies of lust and therefore search for another being to complete their sexual act thus enabling them to give birth to satisfaction. 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