Within the Symposion, perhaps the most famous of the traditional Greek philosophical texts on love, Plato provides us a definition of what love is:
“Love is the will for the everlasting possession of the great.”
This seems unusual on first sight. Possession? What is an efficient? And why ought to or not it’s everlasting?
We’re striving for perfection, says Plato. We’re interested in it. We love to take a look at a fantastic face, an ideal physique. But when we observe our instincts for some time, we’ll discover that it’s not one explicit physique we’re interested in. We’re attracted to each lovely physique, and thus to the magnificence itself that’s frequent in them. And we discover that there are different kinds of magnificence: when the fantastic thing about the physique fades with age, the fantastic thing about the thoughts turns into extra outstanding. Issues like humour, or intelligence. And so our understanding of magnificence grows wider, to incorporate these items. After which we discover that we’re additionally interested in different issues which are lovely: a sundown, a haunting melody, the spiral form of a seashell, even perhaps a mathematical formulation, or the intelligent means a philosophical argument works. That’s additionally love, says Plato. This stuff we additionally wish to possess.
However nothing is endlessly. We all know that we’ll die. Sunsets finish, melodies fade into silence, seashells break. However our want to be united with magnificence remains to be there, so long as we stay. So how can we fulfill that? By uniting with these items that aren’t ephemeral, issues which are everlasting, issues that received’t die: the summary great thing about a formulation describing a seashell. The rating of a melody. An argument in a philosophical e-book. And after we interact erotically with these items, we produce everlasting offspring: one other melody, a brand new formulation, a greater argument. This stuff is not going to go away, they’ll keep round people, to be liked and admired, endlessly.
Plato the person has been useless for 2 and a half thousand years. Socrates, who was liked by many for his wit and his knowledge, has been useless equally lengthy. However what stays are Plato’s phrases on the web page, recording these different phrases Socrates stated, preserving that wit and that knowledge throughout the aeons for us to admire, to get pleasure from, and to like.
For Plato, that is the final word, the very best type of love, the one love that’s actually everlasting.
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