Taking it back Old School

I must be one of the only ones posting a final blog report, so I’m hoping that any of you still checking up on this blog are interested in the idea of Love and Happiness. I picked this because I’ve recently started dating someone that I’ve known for years and there is that potential for that L word! I was thinking about what I could do in terms of this topic, whether I should just Google “love/happiness/philosophy” or pick a book. I decided on The Symposium. All of these men come together and have a “drinking party” and decide to go around the room and praise the god of Love, Eros. I have always been fascinated with the old school versions of philosophy, and I really love this dialogue, mainly for the story told by Aristophanes (which will be told a little later on! Stay tuned!). 

In these mini blog posts, I will be summarizing the speeches done by each man at the party, so hopefully if you haven’t read it for yourself yet, you’ll want to! Let’s get started!

First off, Phaedrus:

                This young man speaks of love as the oldest and the mightiest of all gods. He states that Love, through a lover, can help us in many ways. We benefit from a lover in that we gain pride from doing well, and we learn shame if we act wrongly. One of Phaedrus’s most notable quotes is”

                And I saw that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable ac, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonor is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved that at being seen by his father or by his companions or anyone else.

A part of me agrees with this very much, because unlike loving parents, a love from a partner is not necessarily “unconditional” the way you think a parent’s might be. Its sad to know you have disappointed the one you love. In essence, Phaedrus tells us that Love is what teaches us how to be good people. Another quote that I love from Phaedrus is that Love is the “chiefest author and giver of virtue in life and of happiness after death”. In my own life, I interpret that in such a way that applies to my faith, because it is of my love for Christ and his love for me that my happiness stems from.

A very different take on Love is that of Pausanias. He states that there is more than one God of love, an old one and a young one. Because there is two Aphrodites, then that means there is two different kinds of love, common and heavenly. Common love is that of fulfilling physical desires and no interest in the mind. Heavenly love, which is focused mainly on male-male relationships, are  focused not just on physical desires but also the idea that the lover can give wisdom and knowledge while the young male is mentored and takes in the knowledge and wisdom from the lover. It is based on intelligence and virtue instead.

In my next post, I will cover Eryximachus and my favorite, Aristophanes!