Plato’s Symposium

Plato’s Influence “Plato plus Christianity equals ninety percent of the world we know and live in.” Jacob Needleman

The Influence of Socrates It was left to Plato to work out the details and make a philosophical system out of what was implied by Socrates’ teaching.

A Contemplative Path One finds the Ideas the way a mystic finds God, that is, through a process of study, then surrender and opening to that which is greater. There is probably no better example of this than Plato’s The Symposium.

Plato and Sexuality It is unclear if Plato’s later condemnation of homosexuality is specifically about sex between men or about sex at all, because what is clear is that love “has a range which extends from the crudest physical passion to a marriage of noble minds with no physical manifestation at all.”

Gradations of Love As the speeches continue there is a sense developing that physical desire participates in a larger reality of love that is the source of all desire and “that prepares the reader for the ascent from physical to intellectual love and from the sensible to the ideal world which will be described by Socrates.”

The Object of Love “The ultimate object of love is the vision of absolute beauty which man’s soul once enjoyed before it was incarnate.”

What is Love? “The point is established that love is the consciousness of a need for a good not yet acquired or possessed.”

Love As A Channel Love is a channel connecting the lower with the higher, a force that represents a middle stage between lack of awareness of ultimate reality and the full contemplation, and thus participation, in the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

The Human Condition Our problem is ignorance and the solution is wisdom.

Stages of Ascent “The stages in this ascent are from love of particular examples of physical beauty to physical beauty in general; thence to beauty of soul even if unaccompanied by beauty of body, and so to moral beauty in general; and finally to the beauty of knowledge, and through various branches of knowledge to that vision of the Form of Beauty itself which gives complete and unifying knowledge of truth concerning the whole universe.”

A State of Blessing “Then and not until then, when he has approached reality and entered into union with it and begotten intelligence and truth, does he enjoy knowledge and true life and nourishment, and cease from the pangs of travail.”

Platonic Love “Eros is for Plato a principle pervading all worthy human activities, and Platonic love is a common search for truth and beauty by two persons inspired by mutual affection.”

Philosophy Is A Journey Philosophy is a journey consisting of a strenuous effort to move past our attachments to the physical and the material, and find our way to the world of the Ideas, the world of light and contemplative vision.

The Purpose of Education Education, therefore, should not simply be for practical use in life as with the Sophists, but instead should be about bringing out the wisdom of the soul that could both seek and then recognize the truth when it was discovered.

Plato’s Epistemology The Ideas could best be known through a direct experience of them, which happened through an intuitive leap, which at the same time was an act of remembering, for the soul was immortal and had this knowledge before it fell into forgetfulness with human incarnation as a physical being.

Beauty as a Source of Truth One could come into contact with the Ideas through the physical and empirical sensation and apprehension of beauty. That is, following beauty (which can actually be seen with the eyes physically) to its essential core, one becomes aware of the archetype of Beauty and therein enters the world of the Ideas.