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The Psychology of Everyday Life:Love, Marriage, and the Baby Carriage

Love

What arguments were given about the nature of love at Plato’s symposiums?

In ancient Greece, a symposium was something like an extended drinking party, which often involved speeches and philosophical discussions. Plato’s symposium described such a dinner party in which the famed philosopher Socrates joined several of his friends to discuss the nature of love. Participants discussed love from various angles, including medical, humorous, erotic, and spiritual points of view. The comic poet Aristophanes declared that people were once twice as large as they are now but were cut in half by the Gods who saw such beings as a threat. Ever since this time, we have wandered the earth searching for our other half. Socrates stated that the love of wisdom and truth was the highest form of love, transcending erotic and romantic love.



Socrates felt that love of wisdom and truth was more important that romantic love (iStock).

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