Love In Plato's Symposium

Two Types of Love in Plato's Symposium

I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someone's body rather their mind. In Plato's Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly love brought up by Pausanias and the important role that Diotima plays in the symposium.

Pausanias brings up an excellent way to think about Love. He explains that love can be broken down into two types, that of Common and Heavenly love. The common love is that when a man and a woman join merely to satisfy their sexual desires. On the other hand the heavenly love is the type that occurs when two people are attracted to each other with a strong force that goes past the physical appearance but comes from deep within as if from the soul. Although Plato presents examples of the two loves with having the common love as if only happening between a man and a woman and the heavenly love happening between a man and a man, there is not enough proof in the text to say that this if what the whole of Athens really believed.

Lust or the common love was looked upon in the symposium as vulgar and immoral. This was the type of love was filthy with sin "since all they care about is completing the sexual act."(p.466, 181 b) This is because it comes from a strong sexual attraction that is produced from only desiring the physical body rather the soul. This common love was thought to come from the younger Aphrodite born from Zeus and one of his many mistresses. This type of love could have been transferred into the born child Aphrodite and become a symbol of lust since Zeus did not create this child with his wife. It makes sense that out of such an affair full of lust and desire of the body that a child such as Aphrodite would be born and form a symbol of the strong lust that her parents had for each other.

As there was an Aphrodite born out of lust it was also believed that another Aphrodite existed that was the goddess of love as well, although it was a different type of love. This other Aphrodite was born before Zeus and was most likely the goddess that Phaedrus spoke of in his speech: There is no other god older than the god of Love. The older Aphrodite was conceived out of the pure love that was called the heavenly love. This is the same god that Phaedrus believes should have more praise and honor above all other gods.

Since this god is so great and loved by all, the speakers of the symposium agreed with Phaedrus when he said, AI cannot say what greater good there is for a young boy than a gentle lover, or for a lover than a boy to love. (p.463, 178c) According to Phaedrus, when a man loves another man it is pure beauty, a virtuous life lesson for the young man. By the young boy having an older man as a lover they each gained something from one another. The young boy gains guidance and maturity while in return the lover gains the very much treasured heavenly love: When the lover is able to help the young man become wiser and better, and the young man is eager to be taught and improved by this lover... it is honorable for a young man to accept a lover. (p.469, 184e) These young men were not only introduced to new facts of life through their lovers, but were said to be The only kind of boys that grow up to be real men in politics(p.475, 192b)

Instead of thinking that love is pure