What we now call Platonic love is only a variant of the concept expressed by Plato.
Last update: 04 September, 2020
Who has never heard or used the expression "platonic love" to refer to a person for whom one feels a romantic urge, but who is considered unattainable? A feeling of unrequited and idealized love that one fantasizes about. But in fact, what does this kind of love have to do with Plato? Was it Plato who talked about this famous Platonic love we are talking about today?
the answer is no. Plato never spoke of a concept of love that referred to an unattainable person. What we now call Platonic love is only a variant of the concept expressed by Plato. Although the evolution of the term is in some ways understandable, it is important to be able to make a distinction between modern Platonic love and the Platonic love of which Plato spoke.
The concept of love in Plato's Symposium
The Greek philosopher, in Symposium, one of his most appreciated dialogues for its philosophical and literary content, deals with the theme of love, as always through the words of Socrates.
This work speaks of the celebration of a banquet during which each of those present gives a speech on love. Speeches ranging from the most superficial to the most profound concluding discourse of Socrates, the one that represents the thought of Plato.
Phaedrus, who is the first to speak, points out that Eros, the Greek god of love, is the oldest of the gods and represents the inspiring force for carrying out great deeds, stating that it is love that gives us the courage to be better people.
Pausanias, deeper, speaks of the various types of love: bodily love and celestial love. The first is more physical and superficial, while the second is more related to moral perfection.
Aristophanes tells of a mythological conception of man. In the beginning there were three types of beings: men, women and androgynous. The latter would conspire against the gods and, as punishment, Zeus would have divided them in two. From that moment, human beings go in search of their own half and hence the myth of the soul mate, someone through homosexuality and someone else through heterosexuality, depending on their initial state, to find the half of which they are. private states.
Finally, Socrates speaks of love as the force that leads to the contemplation of the purest and most ideal beauty.
Love according to Plato
As mentioned above, the character of Socrates in Plato's works represents his own thought. This is why we know that Socrates' contribution in the Symposium is none other than Plato's conception of love.
Plato, as with all his philosophy, makes a distinction between the world of ideas and the earthly world. In the world of ideas it is possible to find pure knowledge, while in the earthly world there is only imperfect knowledge, which tries to imitate the perfect world of ideas.
According to Plato, the same is true for love. Platonic love has nothing to do with purely physical love, rather it concerns the search for beauty. Love for what is beautiful is understood as the supreme concept of love, which can only be found in the world of ideas. Knowing beauty in all its splendor is the goal of love. Beauty as a pure and abstract concept is the meaning that Plato gives to love. A love made of contemplation and admiration.
Platonic love
Plato spoke of the love of knowledge as the most perfect and pure. Platonic love does not correspond to the idealization of a person, but to the attainment of knowledge, a totally spiritual type of beauty.
It is not difficult to imagine that over the years the concept of Platonic love could lead to this concept of "ideal" and "unattainable". For Plato, the way to go to reach beauty, and to be able to speak of love in all its splendor, is an arduous journey through knowledge.
This path starts from the love for physical beauty in terms of aesthetic ideals, passing through the beauty of the soul, up to the love of knowledge, to obtain the knowledge of beauty in itself. In fact, Plato says:
“Eternal beauty, which is neither born nor dies, neither increases nor diminishes, which is not beautiful in one way and ugly in the other, neither now yes and now no; neither beautiful or ugly according to certain reports; neither beautiful here and ugly there, nor as if she were beautiful for some, but ugly for others. In addition, this beauty will not reveal itself to him with a face or with hands, or with anything else that belongs to the body, nor as a concept or science, nor as residing in something other than itself, for example in a living person, or on earth, or in heaven, or elsewhere, but as it is for itself and with itself, eternally univocal. The contemplation of beauty itself.
-Plato
A curiosity to conclude: the expression "platonic love" was used for the first time in the XNUMXth century, when Marsilio Ficino referred to the love of intelligence and the beauty of a person's character.
Later, the expression became commonplace thanks to the publication of the work Platonic Lovers by the English poet and playwright William Davenant, who shared Plato's conception of love.
