Could Socrates fall in love

Philosophy

Could Socrates fall in love?

The term 'love' has gone through many different connotations in its history. Today, love largely has associations for physical sexual love, but, at one time, 'love' was more spiritual. The founding religions associated 'love' with 'love of God' and love of good deeds. There was a difference between eros and agape was considered the true love.

This is the sort of distinction that Socrates makes in the Symposium. Phaedrus, one of the participants, maintains that Love is one of the oldest of the gods, and the one that does the most to promote virtue in people. Pausanias, another spectator, distinguishes between Common Love (physical gratification) and Heavenly Love (sexual enjoyment between man and boy accompanied by wisdom). Socrates, however, quotes a wise woman named Diotima who had told him that Love is not a god at all but rather a spirit that makes one desire a specific object. Love is creative and signifies desire for wisdom and beauty. It leads into creation of a new life and into sharing and reproduction of ideas. To Socrates, therefore, Ideal love, and one that is forever satisfying is that which is found in Knowledge. Knowledge is consistent with ideal Beauty. The greatest knowledge of all, therefore, is intimate acquaintance with the Form of Beauty. Achieving this is synonymous to being in Love (Alexander 2007).

To understand Socrates better, we have to consider his idea of Form and Matter (his epistemology) as well as realize that by discussion 'love', Socrates' is implying human satisfaction and contentment. Every form has its inherent perfection and the same exists with Love, too. You have the physical corporeal manifestation of Love that is embodied in Beauty. But this Love, too (or satisfaction) has its highest ideal in the metaphysical realm of Knowledge that can grant a man a far more satisfying and blissful existence.

In short, Socrates' hierarchy of Love is the following: Love is a beautiful body that is the beauty of all bodies that is the beauty of all souls. Following from which, Love is also the laws, activities, and customs leading onto the beauty of knowledge, ideas, and theories resulting in Beauty itself. Beauty, therefore, is synonymous with Knowledge and Right Action (Hecht, 25).

Socrates discusses Love, too, in another essay (Hecht, 95) where he talks about the pleasure that gods receive by observing the right actions of man. Here, too, Socrates employs the term 'love' in reference to being pleased by something that is morally right. The gods appreciate someone who is a just person and obtain a sort of pleasure from this.