Symposium Questions and Answers
Symposium
Aristophanes speech is a myth in need of interpretation? What is he trying to say about human beings and the...
In his speech, Aristophanes tells the story of how Zeus split people long ago. He says that humans used to have four of each limb, instead of two, and that there were three genders. The gods felt...
Symposium
According to Diotima in Symposium, what mediates between the mortal and immortal? How does Diotima describe love in...
According to Diotima, spirits mediate between the mortal and the immortal. The gods, who are immortal, never speak directly to mortal humans. Humans pray through spirits, and gods send their...
Symposium
In the Symposium, how is love (Eros) related to the allegory of the cave?
In Plato's Symposium, eros occupies the lowest rung on the so-called ladder of love. It is the love for something one doesn't have—a love that manifests itself in a desire for another person's...
Symposium
In the Symposium, how is eros presented as similar to or different from philia?
Without a doubt, there’s a big difference between eros and philia as defined in Plato’s symposium. Both words could be translated as “love,” but they describe different aspects of love. The ancient...
Symposium
In Symposium, what is Socrates’s view of human nature in terms of love? Diotima says, “Now, this desire for...
Socrates agrees with Diotima that it’s human nature to express love through childbirth and art. In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates and Diotima debate love. The two discuss the acquisition of beautiful...
Symposium
In Diotima's speech on love, what's the relationship among love, beauty, and happiness? What's the significance of...
Diotima's speech on the ladder of love posits a way of progressing from love of physical beauty, which does not bring happiness, to love of the Form of Beauty, which does. The ladder begins with...
Symposium
In Symposium, does Diotima claim it is nobler to give birth through the body or through the soul? Why? How does human...
In Plato's Symposium, Socrates recounts the lessons he learned about love and beauty from Diotima of Mantinea. Diotima claimed that it was nobler to give birth through the soul than through the...
Symposium
Explain at least three ways in which Plato demonstrates that he has drawn upon the ideas of Homer, the Pre-Socratics,...
History records that Plato first met Socrates around 490 BC and from this meeting he began to develop his overall philosophy, which continued to evolve throughout his lifetime. Many of his beliefs...
Symposium
How does Alcibiades's experience of his love for Socrates prove that Sorcates's speech about how love works...
Before discussing how Alcibiades experiences love in a way that counters Socrates’s idea of love, perhaps it’d be best to clarify what Socrates thinks of love. In Symposium, Socrates’s concept of...
Symposium
Choose any two of the speeches about love and discuss how the dynamic between the lover and the loved is acted out....
Plato's Symposium is a dialogue that uses a comic setting of a dinner party to introduce a serious discussion of the question of love. It first should be noted that the prototypical model of love...
Symposium
Who has the best speech on love in Symposium? Why?
The answer to this question is primarily going to be shaped by your own evaluation of the various speeches in Symposium. Indeed, even before beginning to answer this question, you must first ask:...
Symposium
What is the specific object that is desired by erotic longing?
In English we have only one word for love, but the ancient Greeks had several, all of which are critically discussed in Plato's Symposium. One kind of love for the Greeks was eros, which is erotic...
Symposium
A symposium is a depicted dialogue between a number of male participants on the theme of Eros or love. In the...
The "Introduction" to Plato's Symposium discusses the ideologies Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and Socrates regarding their personal understandings and beliefs about...
Symposium
Who does Alcibiades discuss?
In Plato's Symposium, a dialogue staged as a hybrid bacchanal/speaking contest, the speakers focus on the god of love, Eros, and the power of beauty as the object of human desire. Among the...