Platonic literature is known in the form of dialogue. Dialogue is the method by which synthesis can occur in its purest form. Plato's contemporaries were fundamentally afraid of writing, a new technique at the time, because, compared to dialogue, prose did not offer the possibility of immediate clarification of ideas. Platonic dialectic not only involved the step-by-step creation of ideas that inevitably resulted after a statement; the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis were all created by someone who had a bias in presenting those ideas. In prose, this bias cannot be questioned, and everything must be accepted as fact because the author must be considered the expert; in the dialogue, the backgrounds of those involved can be taken into consideration and the reader is allowed to question the truth and validity of the participants' statements. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayThe Symposium is an excellent example of a Platonic dialogue. The prologue to The Seven Discourses on Love and Beauty immediately identifies the reader as being alarmingly distant from the narrative of the story. While Apollodorus tells his companion that he is an expert on the events of the Intellectual Feast, he admits that the Feast took place several years before the actions of the prologue occurred. Moreover, he himself was not present at the feast, but Aristodemus told him what had happened, whose account of the feast was later verified by Socrates. Because the narrator is so unreliable (how much can one really trust his memories of a second-hand account of this party?) the reader is inevitably placed in a perpetual struggle toward the truth. This is the nature of Platonic dialectic. In Symposium, participants challenge themselves to seek true forms of love and beauty. Plato integrates the prologue into this series of speeches to make his readers an external participant. In this way, Symposium is a very interactive literary work; As the participants themselves attempt to make sense of their discussion, we must make sense of their thoughts. Part of the reason for the struggle to find the truth is the organization of the Symposium speeches. The scene is a party at which conversations take place under the influence of alcohol, so the potential for rhetorical and logical error is already heightened depending on the speaker's level of intoxication. The guests decide that instead of drinking, they would be better off spending their time meditating on all aspects of love. Socrates is repeatedly revered as the most important character in this dialogue and the person whose speech the reader should most anticipate. This naturally implies a hierarchy in the delivery of speeches. Phaedrus' speech is not without merit, but it is certainly inferior to those who follow it. We are inclined to believe that this will be the case for all subsequent speeches, but a flaw appears in our argument when Aristophanes' speech is delivered before Agathon's, the content of which is decidedly less impressive. But this circularity is the very essence of what a conference is, a true all-male Athenian salon. It seems unrealistic to expect all speeches to carry equal weight in terms of content, but that is the assumption that must be made; each speech is an essential part of the entire symposium. The consequence of this is that each speech must be dissected in order to eliminate errors andto retain the fragments that will lead to the truth. Although Plato himself does not attend the party, his presence is duly noted. There are indeed several levels of narration, but ultimately it is Plato who tells the story for us. He deliberately inserts a system of checks and balances into speeches to serve as a filter for determining which conclusions the reader should process and which should be rejected. For example, Pausanias identifies a source of error in Phaedrus's speech: I think there is a problem with the subject that has been put before us, Phaedrus, inasmuch as we have been told to speak in unqualified praise Love. It would be nice if Love were uniform, but in reality it is not, and since it is not, it would be better to start by defining what kind of Love we should praise. (Colloquy, 180c) Pausanias describes two distinctions of Love: the Common and the Heavenly. Common love is the love of ordinary people; it is the most fundamental and human love there is. It encompasses love for all types of people, including women and the uneducated. It is a love based on lust and the need to reproduce. It is the love of people clouded by the desire for sensual, hedonistic objects and feelings. Heavenly love, on the other hand, is divine love. It is the equivalent of philosophy, that is to say, the love of wisdom. Consequently, it is the love that two men must experience. Thus, in his speech, Pausanias explains that to love correctly is to love divinely, because “a lover is bad if he is of the common type, one who loves the body rather than the spirit. This makes it fickle, because there is no constancy in the mind. object of his desires; as soon as the physical fulfillment that attracted him fades, he “flies away and goes away”” (The Banquet, 183e). Plato wrote the Symposium as a serial-comic drama, meaning that although the speeches are deliberations on truth, love, and beauty, an element of levity will emerge periodically. Plato informs the reader of the potential for error in Eryximachus' speech by giving Aristophanes hiccups that remain incurable throughout the speech; How can a speech be taken seriously with such a silly soundtrack? Only when Eryximachus has finished speaking does Aristophanes' hiccups disappear and he can take his turn. Perhaps the distraction caused by the hiccups implies how pointless it is to listen to Eryximachus' entire speech. The error in Eryximachus' speech was that he broadened the definition of love so much, by calling love "omnipotent," that it ceased to have meaning. (Colloquy, 188e) This inspires Aristophanes to bring love down to a human, or common, level, and he does so successfully by telling the story of the third sex. “Love,” he says, “is only the name we give to the desire and pursuit of wholeness,” the wholeness that humans lost when the gods feared the third gender as too perfect. (Colloquy, 192a) The circularity of discourses is evident in such content interactions. Aristophanes' speech was a reaction to the previous one, and Agathon reacted to the previous speeches by expressing disappointment in the emphasis on humans and the lack of praise for the god Love himself. Agathon's main argument is that "love is itself unrivaled in attractiveness and goodness, and secondly, it is responsible for similar qualities in others" (Symposium, 197a). In essence, Agathon makes Love too perfect. His speech seems justified enough, and the other guests applaud his efforts but expect a rebuttal from Socrates. This serves as a further guide in history: if thinkers themselves always question., 1994.