Essay on Answer To Possible Questions

Submitted By dedelta
Words: 1161
Pages: 5

Diotima’s ladder of love => Love one beautiful body, Love all beautiful body, You love a beautiful Soul, You love good laws + activities,
You love knowledge, You love beauty itself (eidos of beauty)
Explain what is happening as one move up the steps of the ladder of love
One begins as a young boy by being attracted to one beautiful body in particular but then will eventually advance to the next step, which he will learn that there are many beautiful bodies, not just one. Next he will come to appreciate the beauty of minds, and will be able to love those who are beautiful in the soul whether or not they are beautiful in body. By recognizing the beauty in good laws and activities, he will come to see that all kinds of beauty are similar and come to love beauty in general rather than beauty of bodies in particular. Looking at the different forms of knowledge, he will become a lover of knowledge, loving all sorts of discourses and ideas until he finally settles on one special type of knowledge.
What it would be like at the very top
At the very top, is the last stage to the ladder of love, this is the point where you love beauty itself. At this stage we clearly understand and embrace the form of beauty and not just one person’s beauty or many beautiful bodies, etc. we understand the whole picture, that there are more beautiful bodies than just one and that their soul is most important, but the soul is below the laws and activities because this is like the environment where the beautiful souls live in and learn to become beautiful. Diotima also references that a young Socrates would not understand because he would be at the beginning stage of the ladder of love, but as he progresses through live he becomes wiser and more knowledgeable learning that there is more than just one beautiful body, etc. and that at the end of the ladder you learn about the form of beauty.
Evaluate this vision of love
The ascent is one of increasing generalization where one's love of beauty comes to embrace more and more things. Ultimately, however, one's love of beauty will embrace only one thing, the Form of Beauty, but one will recognize in this Form all that is beautiful.

Diotima claims that love seeks to give birth in beauty
Diotima claims love seeks to give birth in beauty, meaning that all people are pregnant in body and mind and naturally want to give birth when they reach a certain age. Sex is one means of giving birth, and it is through reproduction that we achieve immortality. This process is divine and therefore beautiful. Beauty is the goddess that presides over birth, allowing pregnant creatures to become pregnant and give birth when they are in contact with something beautiful. This means, the object of love is not beauty, but reproduction in birth and beauty. Since love is the desire to have the good forever, we must desire immortality as well as the good, and in reproduction we come closest to immortality. All mortal things desire reproduction, and we can see this even in birds and animals: they seek partners desperately, and will protect their young with their lives.
Explain how Diotima’s vision of what love is seeking differs from Aristophanes’
Aristophanes vision of what love is seeking, is more about finding your soul mate, because dialect is about once being connected but then being split in 2 by zeus because they wanted to be like gods but zeus split them inorder as a punishment but maintain worshipers. Aristophanes views sex as a temporary means of being one, whereas Diotima’s vision of love is that it seeks to reproduce, because by reproducing we are creating life which is beauty and ultimately we are passing down our heritage/dna to the next generation which is in a sense being immortal.
Evaluate Diotima’s argument and the vision of love involved

Three types of friendship according to Aristotle
Friendship based on utility, pleasure, goodness
Define each species of friendship, give an example
1. Utility, where both people