| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 28 2011 : 06:53:47 AM
|
This is the place for thoughts about what's so great about love -- love in the sense of eros. Got any?
|
|
|
Evan Taylor
Fledgling
6 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2011 : 10:43:10 AM
|
That's almost exactly right as a summary of the high points of my exposition of what Diotima has to say about this in that long paragraph on pp. 108-109 in Great Dialogues of Plato. There are just two really essential things that I think you might have missed. First, happiness does seem to be, on Diotima's view, the highest good for a human being ("there is no need to ask...why he who wishes to be happy [wishes] that" [Rouse 108]). There are other things that are good, too, but it appears that they may all be good because of their relation to happiness. Second, while it does seem generally true that good things are beautiful (cf. Rouse 104), It's possible that Diotima thinks that this isn't the entire story. Remember that she says in the very next paragraph that "love is not for the beautiful...[because] [i]t is for begetting and birth in the beautiful" (Rouse 110).
This is perhaps really useful as a preliminary, but of course neither of us has yet risen to the occasion by even trying to sing the praises of love. |
 |
|
|
Mohamud Mohamed
Fledgling
7 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2011 : 7:29:45 PM
|
| Here's the thing, Mohamud: I think you're right about what, in English, we call "love," but despite appearances to the contrary, Plato's Symposium isn't about love. I know that the word "love" appears in it again and again and again -- in Rouse's translation. It doesn't appear, of course, in the original Greek at all. Everywhere you see the word "love" in the Symposium, the word in the Greek text is "eros," so in fact eros is what the Symposium is about. Since I want us to be talking about what the Symposium is about -- and not about what it might appear to be about at first blush -- I want us to be talking about eros and not love. And that means that when I titled this thread "In Praise of Love," I titled it in a way that ran the risk of being misleading. Perhaps it would have been better for me to title it: "In Praise of 'Eros'" or "In Praise of What the Speakers in the Symposium Resolved to Praise." Why didn't I title it one of those things? Because I thought that with everything we've been talking about for the last five weeks in class, we could go for the simpler, more elegant "In Praise of Love" and understand what was wanted. It now looks as if I was wrong about that. Sorry you were misled. |
|
|
|
Evan Taylor
Fledgling
6 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2011 : 7:43:24 PM
|
In response to Mohamud:
I believe that eros is a part of love as a whole. I think it is a section. From Tom's lectures I gather that eros is basically sexual love, and there are other forms of love other than sexual love -- for example the love of your own child or of a family member, which I think was referred to in Greek as philia. Eros is therefore a section of love.
In response to Tom:
I would still have to think that for begetting and birth, someone would still have to have a partner that he or she desires and finds beautiful...right? |
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2011 : 8:12:25 PM
|
The things you've said in your responses to Mohamud and me in your most recent post are certainly plausible, Evan. But whether they're things Diotima would say is another question.
First, she wouldn't say that eros is "basically sexual love" if that means (in the case of a human being) the desire to couple physically with another human being unless, of course, "basically" means something like "in its lowest form." Remember that she identifies it "in its general sense" with "all the desire for good things and for happiness" (Rouse 109). Remember that she says that while other kinds of desire (such as the pursuit of money or a taste for sports or philosophy (ibid.)) aren't usually called "eros," each of them qualifies as a kind of eros too: each of them is yet another form of the desire "for good things and for happiness."
And second, if by "a partner" you mean a human partner, I'm not at all sure that she'd say that it's always essential to have such a partner for begetting and birth. Think about what she says in her description of "the higher revelations" (Rouse 113ff.). There, she seems to want to say that once one has completed at least a part of the ascent of the ladder of love, one finds oneself drawn to beauties other than beautiful bodies and beautiful souls. One finds oneself wanting to engender "offspring" in beautiful discourses, beautiful pursuits and practices, and beautiful learnings. And in the end, one finds oneself wanting to contemplate and "abide with" -- be with -- "beauty undefiled, pure, unmixed, not adulterated with human flesh and colors and much other moral rubbish" (Rouse 115). |
|
|
|
William Kondrotis
Newcomer
1 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2011 : 12:47:12 PM
|
Let's see.... Love in the sense of eros is very strange indeed and rather confusing. Instead of praising eros, I want to ask a question: why do we praise eros? Is it because eros or love is good in itself, or do we praise it because everyone says it's a good and beautiful thing and we desire it so much? What if eros, love, is not a source of happiness? What if love just destroys people and makes them desire it more and more and get hurt more and more? Pursing whatever it is they desire is what humans do, and once you get a desire, you just end up wanting more even though what you desire is not the route to happiness. What if it is not going to make you happy, truly happy?
If love is the source of true happiness, is that what makes it so beautiful and makes us desire it so much? Is happiness always good? Can't it ever go bad or turn into something bad? I can ask the same thing about eros: is it always good?
"Love is not for the beautiful, as you think" (Rouse 110). I don't quite understand this. My understanding is that you can be a beast -- a cruel, ugly person or animal -- and still feel love and desire love. So is the idea just that you do not have to be beautiful to have love?
[Edited to enhance readability -TT] |
|
|
|
Jason Apke
Newcomer
1 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2011 : 2:34:39 PM
|
This is in praise of eros:
(First off, let me say that I am not posting what I have to say about this here because I'm shy; I'm doing it because I got sick the day we were planning to do this!)
For the sake of this "appraisal" I'll be defining eros as the passion or desire for something: the desire for whatever it is that someone wants. The Greeks had gods for both fire and water, two things essential for human existence. Who is to say then that eros is not just as essential?
Without eros, or desire, would human beings even have made it past the first generation? This makes one wonder if eros then hasn't always existed in human beings: how could it be either a gift from the gods or anything we evolved to have? As Diotima explained, when one acts upon eros, generally it takes the form of the desire to make children (perhaps in the sense of human children, but then again, perhaps not). One's goal, she says, is to achieve immortality, and perhaps that is what eros really seeks. Without eros, would humans ever strive to create? Would they have any reason to? Perhaps then eros is not just the gift of the desire for happiness; perhaps it's the gift of continued existence.
Let's look at eros in another way, strictly referring to the beautiful. As is often said, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. But then where does the beholder get his or her sense of beauty? Is it because we desire things that we see them as beautiful? Can anything seem beautiful to anyone who has no desire for it? Perhaps then in this sense, eros is the answer to our question of what turns people on.
In short, without eros we would have no drive for existence and no knowledge of the beautiful. Our very existence today is something we owe to eros. Without it, as we said in class, we would be completely apathetic beings.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
|
|
|
Betsy Kienitz
Moderator
12 Posts |
Posted - Apr 01 2011 : 3:33:27 PM
|
Group 2:
In our first small group session on Friday, we had contributions from two of our members. Both gave rise to lively group discussion, but all I'll try to summarize here are the main ideas of those who sparked the conversations.
Eileen Kroll started with a commentary on Aristophanes' story of Eros, the longing for finding and joining with one's "other half." She expressed the view that we, as individuals, are not merely halves of wholes, and that what we're seeking in seeking our "other halves" is a sense of fulfillment. In other words, eros compels us to search for someone (not necessarily any specific person) with whom we can make more out of life than we can make out of it on our own. She didn't think that children had to be the ultimate goal of unions inspired by eros, as eros can lead to unions (hetero- or homosexual) that produce other good things. Whatever type of coupling eros inspires in people, the characteristic common to all cases of it is that there is a desire to go beyond oneself. A society's cultural contexts (the moral or religious contexts that determine what it condones or restricts) have an influence on the kinds of couplings that are seen as desirable in that society and on how, in that society, people go about trying to find fulfillment through their erotic relationships.
Devin Crane praised the "in between-ness" of Eros, the fact that it is neither wholly beautiful and/or good nor ugly and/or bad. To acknowledge only one side is to ignore the other, and both the lighter aspects and the darker aspects of eros must be appreciated if we are to embrace it. The joys of companionship are met with the sorrows of the loss of that companionship -- as in divorce or in death. While the first stages of eros can be excitingly beautiful and make a person feel so good, they can also be horribly frustrating if the desire is not mutual. Even if eros is shared between people, time can wear away the newness and deaden the desire. So, to praise only the beautiful side of eros is to fail to do it justice. In the end, embracing all parts of eros (the joy, the pain, and every sensation in between) is the most beautiful (the best) way to accept it.
[Very lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
|
|
|
Will Emmons
Moderator
47 Posts |
Posted - Apr 03 2011 : 2:08:15 PM
|
Group 5
On Friday, April 1, Monika Newton and Spenser Loos each delivered a speech in praise of eros. Following these speeches, a discussion ensued that lasted until the end of the hour. A total of six students participated in the discussion.
The speeches may be summarized as follows (feel free to share any comments concerning the accuracy of this record):
Monika Newton:
Eros is divine. As a god, Eros wants each and every one of us to be good, as he himself is good. Without Eros we would not know either true happiness or true sadness. Without Eros we would not know either satisfaction or longing. Without Eros we would not know either hope or despair. Eros is perhaps the most important of the gods. We owe it all to Eros, without whom we could never be; we could never really live. It is because of Eros that we can know the heights of the mountains and the depths of the seas, for Eros leads us to "the hunt," the pursuit, the search, the quest. Eros is responsible for everything, and as such he is quite simply fantastic!
Spenser Loos:
Recall the speech of Phaidros. Eros is among the most ancient of the gods. Phaidros reminds us what the ancient poets say about eros. Hesiod and Acusilaus tell us that Chaos came first and that from Chaos came Gaia and Eros. Parmenides tells us that eros was the first born among the gods. Eros is a teacher. What does eros teach? Eros teaches us respect and strength. Being caught in the grips of eros is a battle.
Let us not soon forget the inhabitants of Sparta. They appreciated the military and matters of war. They prized training, competition, and strength in resistance. Mothers told their children "Return home either with your shield or on it!" They honored bravery. "Do not flee from combat, returning to us without your shield as a coward and a fool does. Fight alongside your brothers on the field of battle and return home to us either victorious or else no longer among the living for having spent yourself in battle." Eros is a love that permits one to let the beloved go, even if it means letting the beloved risk his own life. An army composed of such lovers would be unmatchable, for eros is the teacher of respect and strength. |
|
|
|
Michael Canono
Newcomer
2 Posts |
Posted - Apr 03 2011 : 3:26:49 PM
|
Group 4
On Friday there were a total of 7 students in our group. We all participated in some way or other and even had the opportunity to hear our professor's thoughts on eros or desire. The discussion was started off by Melissa who wanted to summarize Aristophanes' speech. She started by saying: first there were three sexes male, female, and both together. There were the male and female sexes with names to match, and another sex sharing both male and female, but now nothing is left of that but the title used as a term of reproach ("hermaphrodite"). The shape of man was quite round, back and ribs passing about it in a circle and four arms and legs and two faces on a round neck and four ears and two privy members. They walked upright and when they wanted to run they rolled over and over. There were three sexes because the male was at first born of sun and the female of the earth and the common sex had something of the moon, which combines both male and female. They did things that angered Zeus. Zeus didn't want to kill them but he decided that they could no longer go on this way. He decided to make them weaker by slicing them down through the middle. This, he thought, would make them weaker and more useful because there would be more of them. "If they choose to continue to do wild things," Zeus said, "I will cut them down the middle again and they can hop about on one leg." The belly button is where the sewing and mending of the body was tied up. And when one wants the other half of one's body one hugs and embraces. Their private parts were moved to the front so during embrace they can continue the union of life.
In our discussion of Melissa's rehearsal of this story, I said that Aristophanes' speech seemed to me like a transition to a different set of speeches. I went on to say that there are two different kinds of speeches in the Symposium. The first speeches were more about the acts and consequences that result from Eros. I gave the example of the science and laws of Eros. Then once it is Agathon's and Socrates' turn they speak of Eros' nature or essence.
Enter Tom Trelogan. Feeling intimidated because there was no aide to help move our discussions along, the group convinced Tom to praise Eros. (If I do not recite his praise exactly as he presented it, I'm sorry. It was hard keeping up with him!) He started off by asking us if we have seen the flags that have been installed around campus. He then asked us about the saying on one of the flags: "Bringing Education to Life." Does this mean, he asked, that this school can breathe life into education, or does it mean that it can show us how our education is relevant to life? Either way, he said, it presupposes something rather distressing, for it either presupposes that education is dead on arrival or else to begin with not at all relevant to life? Then he turned his attention to desire and suggested that perhaps we can say of it that it brings life to life. If we did not have desire our lives would be the opposite of lively: we would be entirely inert. Desire makes us willing to suffer all sorts of things so that we can have what we desire. As a result, we try to overcome obstacles that we otherwise wouldn't try to overcome -- obstacles that stand in the way of our getting what we desire. We become open to the allure of the attractive. Tom asked, why do people do what they do? His response was that it's the allure of the attractive that moves people to do what they do. Desire -- openness to the allure of the attractive -- makes life lively, Tom said, and in this sense it brings life to life. Desire is the heart and core of life!
After his speech Tom left our group, but his speech sparked a creative discussion that would last until the end of the hour. Lauren Posey was the first to respond to his speech She started by summarizing what he had said and then added her own beliefs. Desire enables us to put up with the crap that comes along with something in case that something is something that we love or desire. The only time our desires are over and done with is when we are dead or cease to exist, but our desires are always changing because our life circumstances are always changing. She gave the following example: "everyone is at college studying their heart's desire -- the thing they really love -- 'cause that is what they want to do for the rest of their life. Without that desire we would not want to come to school or see any point in it or see it as serving a useful purpose in our life. But since we are at school studying our heart's desire, what we're doing has a purpose and we are able to put up with the crap that comes with life because of our love for the subject." She ended by saying that she agreed with Tom.
Michelle Guzman said: "I agree with Tom that desire is what motivates us in our daily lives in our pursuit of happiness. Everyone has different desires -- the desire to train and suffer physical exertion to play sports and win or the desire to get an education or even the desire to cultivate an attraction towards someone or something. Desire keeps us alive and possibly to cease to desire would be to die. In any case, once you are dead, desire is gone."
Kyle Taplin spoke next. He started off by saying, "Going off of Tom's "Bringing Education to Life" speech, I think it depends on how people take that slogan. I think it is a great slogan, and I know that if I were in the process of trying to decide what school to go to, I would like going to a school that has education as a high point. But as a student who already goes here, that slogan makes me wonder if UNC didn't think of education as important until now. Or maybe they really don't care and are just trying to look good. Desire is very important to life. Without desire, life would be boring. No one would want to do anything. Someone said that without desire in the world there would be something else. But I would question what that would be. Desire needs to be part of life in order for people to strive to do things in life. Tom really gave our group something to talk about. We all pretty much agreed with what he was saying and then we had ideas of our own.?
Our discussion ended with Mohamed saying what he felt about Eros. "If by "eros" we mean love, then as Agathon said in the Symposium, eros (love) is tender. For he walks not on the earth nor the top of heads, which are not so very soft, but both walks and abides in the softest things there are, for his abode is settled in the tempers and souls of gods and men and again, not in all souls without exception. No, whenever he meets a soul with a hard temper he departs, but where it's soft he abides. Eros is soft and kind and lives in the best of souls, for where the soul is less than perfection, Eros does not abide in it In beauty Eros is the most beautiful, in kindness, Eros is the kindest, of feelings, and in deciding where to live, Eros makes its abode not in all the souls of gods and men but only in those with the softest of tempers -- the kindest, the best of souls. And when we are in the grip of eros, there is no greater feeling, for the grip is akin to holiness and serenity.
After this our time was up and we got through everyone in the group who is not going to be posting online. If any of my group members are reading this and want to add anything I left out please do so. But this is what was discussed in group four.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT] |
Edited by - Michael Canono on Apr 03 2011 3:28:37 PM |
|
|
|
Matthew Klements
Newcomer
2 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Apr 04 2011 : 08:23:40 AM
|
| Matthew, on the surface, at least, this looks more like an attempt to say what love is than an attempt to sing its praises. Remember that that's the task at hand: to sing love's praises. The same might be said for some of the other contributions to our symposium on love that have been reported or made so far, beginning, Billy, with yours. You quite explicitly decline to praise love. But the agreement we all decided to sign on to for the sake of this exercise was either to do just that or else to summarize and comment on someone else's encomium -- either one of the first five or six speeches in Plato's Symposium (the uncertainty as to number being a function of the fact that it's hard to say for sure whether Sokrates himself really praises love) or one of the encomiums attempted so far by one or another of the members of our class. |
|
|
|
Nathan Thurlow
Newcomer
4 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2011 : 2:10:45 PM
|
I do not disagree one bit that Eros was an important god, being the "Cupid" of the gods. But what about all the other gods who contributed to the making of this universe? Sure Eros came first of the gods, but he still needed help from Chaos to combine and make the universe, which soon was followed by other gods. I see this as a ball, a ball in which Eros makes up the majority, but if a ball is not completed, it will not roll smoothly; thus, Chaos and the other gods complete this ball and must not be left out. Love is very important and something we are all familiar with in one way or another, but for most, love overshadows all our other emotions: anger, sadness, etc. All of these emotions combined is what makes us who we are, ultimately completing our own ball. I do think Eros was a very important god, but maybe he only overshadows the other gods.
Also, we talked about what is "normal." I do not think we can define this word. Everyone is different in one way or another and so everyone's definition of "normal" is bound to be different too. This reminds me of how everyone's definition of "love" is different as well.
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]
|
|
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Apr 06 2011 : 4:30:27 PM
|
| Nathan, what you posted earlier today certainly doesn't qualify as a speech in praise of Eros, so you I assume you must have intended it either as (1) a summary of and comment on one of the speeches in the Symposium, or else (2) a summary of and comment on either Monika's speech or Spenser's speech, and I don't see how it qualifies as one of those things either. Could you help us out here as to what it was you were intending to do? |
|
|
|
Nathan Thurlow
Newcomer
4 Posts |
|
|
Keith Carlisle
Newcomer
3 Posts |
|
|
Melissa Robertson
Fledgling
6 Posts |
|
|
Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2011 : 8:34:23 PM
|
| Good reply, Nathan! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you about it. It makes it very much clearer what you meant to do -- in your first paragraph at least -- though I'm a little unsure why you say: "thus making us whole" instead of saying something more like: "thus qualifying as much as Eros does as things 'without [which] we could never be." Khaos might be among the Greek gods without whom we couldn't possibly exist, I suppose, but it's even clearer, I think, that we couldn't exist without Gaia and Helios -- the earth and the sun. Just out of curiosity: why did you focus specifically on Khaos in your original post? Also, why do you focus on what it takes to make us whole? Monika didn't claim that we wouldn't be whole without Eros; she simply said that without him, we could never be. |
|
|
|
Josiah Smalley
Fledgling
11 Posts |
Posted - Apr 08 2011 : 1:27:57 PM
|
Group 3
[The format I have used is a brief summary of who said what. We started with a summary from Janese and then broke out into a discussion with more summary embedded within. If anyone in the group spots a typo/error or would like to add something into the middle, please let me know and I will amend the minutes as needed.]
Friday, April 1, 2011
[Janese] -- Eryximakos' take on eros--scientific; looking at all creatures. "Taking out the bad and putting in the good." Knowing specifically what eros is instead of just feeling it. Focus on the search for the good rather than the beautiful (example: plant reproduction).
[Katy] -- The Greeks related everything and every desire to eros. [This came up after a brief discussion about wrestling.]
[Kevin Harris] -- Eros is desire for everything, not just sexual desire. The sense of the word "horniness" has changed from the time of ancient Greece.
[Katy] -- Desire and satisfaction shouldn't be "bundled together"
[Cory] -- One is the start, one is the end product.
[Jordyn] -- Everyone has their own "object of desire," for some it's track, for some it's basketball or working out, and for some it's music.
[John M.] -- No one is ever completely satisfied; once you have reached a point, you always want to go one step further.
[Janese] -- Can you desire something that won't get you satisfaction?
[Tom gives the following example:]
You need to give a signal to a friend about some form of danger and have arranged for the signal to be you eating a bug (you do not desire to eat the bug at all, but it is the agreed upon signal). When the time comes to eat the bug, you have a sudden desire to eat the bug to provide the signal for your friend to save them. But which desire wins? The desire to save your friend, or the desire to not eat the bug?
[collective thoughts] -- a couple (married or dating] has eros between them, but as time progresses, the eros can give way to agape; no matter how bad it may get for them, they still want to be together.
[Cory] -- "The fire still burns despite the water pouring over it."
[Katy] -- Love is more complicated than just desire. Relationships have changed since the time of the ancient Greeks.
[Jordyn & Jackie] -- If you lose the desire for something, you don't necessarily have to "reignite the flame" with the same thing; you can redirect the desire toward something else. (Examples: If a boyfriend cheats, you don't have to go back to him. If you lose the desire for a specific sport, you can redirect it to a new one.)
[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]
|
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
In Praise of Love
