The Symposium is a group of speeches about eros, or love. Out of this central concern with love comes a theory of paideia, or education.

The Symposium views education as arising out of an impulse of love. There are six levels of love outlined on the ladder of love in the essay. These are, first, love for the physical body of another human; second, love for the beauty in all bodies, even though this beauty is expressed differently in different people; and third, love for the higher level of people's minds and souls. At this point, an individual can see through the superficial aspects of physical beauty to love something deeper in a person.

At the fourth level, a person develops a love for laws, for social order, and for one's culture. This is followed by love of knowledge, and finally, at the sixth and highest rung on the ladder, love for love's sake, a love of the eternal Forms of the universe. At this point, individuals have reached the highest educational level, the philosophical one. They have found education not through acquiring mundane knowledge or another person telling them what to think, but through a love of arete, which is the love of excellence or virtue for its own sake. This is then refined through conversation with others who share this love, and the individuals who participate become truly educated.