Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy (Jun 2009)
Plato: White and Non-white Love
Abstract
Plato’s dialogues, the Symposium, and Phaedrus, provide a reasonableexplanation of love. G. Vlastos and M. Nussbaum do not share such anopinion. The former contends that Plato’s view of love is about lovingonly a person’s beauty, but not the entire person; thus, it falls short of anappropriate explanation of love. The latter holds that a theory of love should be complete, and that Plato’s one is incomplete on the grounds that it does not account for personal love. These criticisms will be re-evaluated in light of the duality of love (the white and non-white horses—in Phaedrus) as well as participants’ views in the Symposium; a re-assessment will weaken the mentioned objections. This paper contends that from the Symposium and Phaedrus, one can have a fruitful understanding of being in love, being out of love, falling inlove, loving for its own sake and being erotically in love. In order to account for these related issues of love it is important to consider Plato’s works in terms of his “official” and “unofficial” views. The former is construed as the doctrine of the lover or loving for its own sake: this is associates with Diotima’s views which are repeated by Socrates. With reference to the latter, it is possible to explain what personal love or being in love, being out of love, falling in love, and being erotically in love involve. Erotic love will be interpreted as an extension of our philosophical conception of love, related to views of love that are mentioned in the Symposium other than Socrates’ report of Diotima’s conceptions. This paper is divided into two parts: the first one will show views of love in the Symposium. That is, being in love, being out of love, falling in love and loving for its own sake will be discussed. In addition, the forementioned criticisms will be re-evaluated. In the second section, we will show that Aristophanes’ speech expresses erotic love, and then Kant’s objections will be explained and discussed.
