Not in total oblivion,Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay And not in utter nudity, But we come from God, who is our house. - William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Early Childhood Memories, 62-65 Although Plato died almost 2,500 years ago, the English language still retains its definition of love in the common use. Keeping a relationship “platonic” means eliminating its romantic aspect, limiting partners to intellectual stimulation alone. Modern minds may think that this love is not as fertile as heterosexual romantic love and even consider this asexual affection to be something other than love, since it does not produce children. Plato would respond that intellectual association leads to the creation of timeless ideas and is therefore a greater love than the physical love that creates children. Plato explores and defends his vision of love in the Symposium, particularly in the dialogue between Socrates and Diotima (Colloquy, 204th 209th). Plato first defines love by examining the lover, then uses this definition to construct an abstract function and purpose of love that places intellectual men above childbearing women. Diotima teaches Socrates that the lover of good things wants to possess them in order to be happy (204e). This definition of lover applies to everyone, because Diotima's hypothesis, supported by Socrates, is that "everyone wants good things to belong to him forever." (205a) It is necessary to refine this broad definition which would include as lovers those who try to achieve the good by any means. The field of love, in Plato as in everyday language, is restricted "to those whose enthusiasm is aimed at a specific type and who are described by the terminology which belongs to the whole class, that of loving, to love and lovers.” (205d) She then goes on to subvert Aristophanes' definition of love as the search for the other half on the grounds that this is only true if the reunion is good, using the example that amputation is acceptable if a member is considered ill. In place of Aristophanes' argument that love seeks to find itself, Diotima sets out a definition of love whose object is "the good" (205e). Naturally, if the object of love is “the good,” those who love want to have “the good” forever (206a). The progression from the initial definition of the lover as a concrete individual who wants the good forever to the definition of love as an "abstract desire to have the good forever" (206a) sets up a progression similar from a concrete function of love to a concrete function of love. abstract function which is at the heart of Platonic love. If the object of love is to have the good forever, the function of love is to “give birth to beauty both in the body and in the spirit.” (206b) Diotima begins her explanation of how “all human beings are pregnant in body and mind” (206c) by discussing the concrete, physical pregnancy of the body. Heterosexual relationships and the child a woman gives birth to are a beautiful end to love because they perpetuate the man. This perpetuation is essential because if love wants to possess the good forever, then love needs the immortality that reproduction creates (206a). Reproduction creates immortality because, just as the body of man is constantly renewed and is still called man, so the man who grows old and leaves a new man in his place is also renewed (207d -208b). THEpassage to the abstract” “pregnancy of the mind” relies on extending this analogy to the mind and knowledge, saying that it ages and needs to be replaced just like the body (207e 208a). This implies the existence of conceptual children as well as physical children, and Diotima gives an example of the former by noting man's love of honor, his desire for his name to echo through the ages. 'is the immortality they are in love with.' (208c-e) Just as the pregnancy of a man's body is liberated by fertilizing the body of a fertile woman (208e), so the pregnancy of a man's mind is liberated by teaching the mind of a another intelligent man (209b). The possibility of a woman having a mind capable of wisdom is not even considered by Plato in this argument. The ultimate function of love is given to be the work of the pregnant spirit as it attempts to produce "that which suits a spirit." bear and give birth,” (209a), namely wisdom and other virtues. Chief among the kinds of wisdom, according to Diotima, is moderation and justice “related to the organization of cities and households.” (209a). is most important because it creates virtue in others (209d 209e). The result of this discussion is the creation of a spectrum of functions of love, beginning with sexual reproduction as its lowest expression and ending with the teaching of justice and moderation. noblest expression. The logical extension of this emphasis on intellectual reproduction is the glorification of the homoerotic teaching relationship over the heterosexual family relationship and therefore the superiority of the intellectual man over the woman of childbearing age. Diotima says that men who attempt to gain the immortality they love by fathering children are only seeking “what they consider to be happily ever after.” (208e) The true path to eternal remembrance and happiness is to give birth to a conceptual child of virtue. The two fathers of this beautiful child "have a much closer partnership with each other and a stronger bond of friendship than that of the parents, because the children of their partnership are more beautiful and more immortal." (209c, emphasis mine) Although the lover is initially inspired by the physical and mental beauty of his beloved, the homoerotic relationship described by Diotima does not emphasize the lover's sexual gratification , but rather on the perpetuation of the virtue and virtue of the lover. wisdom in teaching the beloved. Indeed, a step towards ascension to the ultimate form of love is to consider “the beauty of the body as something petty”. (210c) Poets like Homer and Hesiod, legislators like Lycurgus and Solon, men like these have left children of thought to live after them, and are greatly envied, honored and even venerated for this by other men ( 209d 209e). The physical children, of uncertain virtue, whom a man allows to perpetuate his name can hardly compete with the great mental children, whose virtue a man has fashioned for himself. In making such a comparison, it is no wonder that Diotima declares: "Everyone would rather have [thought children] than human children." » (209c 209d) Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The proposition that the ideas a man leaves to the world are as much his legacy as his children is not shocking. However, Plato's definition of the processes of wisdom transmission in terms of pregnancy and birth results in a reaffirmation of fundamental gender roles. Not only can a man implant the seed of his pregnant body into a woman, but he can also implant!