Homosexuality

The various speeches given throughout “Plato’s Symposium” had a commonality with which they were discussing: the god of Love. In the portion of the piece of writing that we received, we read the views of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Aristophanes. It was from each of these philosophers that the readers would gather a greater knowledge of love. The Speech of Phaedrus called Love a great god and one of the most ancient gods. Love is what gave us the greatest goods we received in life. The Speech of Pausanias was a compare and contrast between the common Aphrodite and the Heavenly Love. It was from these two loves that the love of a man for a younger boy comes from and that “condemnation of Love reveals lust for power in the rulers and cowardice in the ruled, while indiscriminate approval testifies to general dullness and stupidity” (Plato, 182D). It is from the disgracefulness of actions that drive us to the things done. Pausanias believed it was only a matter of time and money before things were considered to be shameful.

The Speech of Eryximachus was based upon his knowledge in the science of medicine. According to him, “Love does not occur only in the human soul; it is not simply the attraction we feel toward beauty:  it is a significantly broader phenomenon. It certainly occurs within the animal kingdom, and even in the world of plants. In fact, it occurs everywhere in the universe. Love is a deity of the greatest importance: he directs everything that occurs, not only in the human domain, but also in that of the gods” (Plato, 186A). It is through this medicinal-based view that Love is marked in two ways: noble love and ugly, disgraceful love. Both of these types of Love stem from bodily elements that are most opposed to each other, like hot to cold. The Speech of Aristophanes was to “learn what Human Nature was in the beginning” (Plato, 189E) and in his speech explained exactly that. He claimed that there were originally three kinds of humans: male, female, and androgynous. The male came from the sun, the female from earth, and the androgynous from the moon. The moon represents both male and female origins. After a council meeting with Zeus and other angry gods, a plan to eliminate the misbehavior amongst humans was formed. Zeus’ original plan he executed was the cut the human beings in half creating two humans out of one. This would cause each half to long for its belonging half and thus having relationships. However, too many humans were dying from this plan and so he executed a second, better plan: move their genitals to the front of them. By doing this, both halves embraced each other in such a way that there was satisfaction. This would be the act of making one’s love public for another.

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the human nature” (Plato, 191D). When two are struck by love, a sense of belonging happens, sharing one life. It is our pursuit for being whole and complete, at all costs. “It’s obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle” (Plato, 192D). The love that we as humans feel is the pity that Zeus had taken on us by splitting us in half and then moving our genitals to our front. It was from this plan that love was made public and that there is justice to be found in that. If Zeus had not done what he had done, would we be who we are today?