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Title: Symposium by Paul Woodruff, Alexander Nehamas ISBN: 0-87220-076-0 Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Pub. Date: May, 1989 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Plato's famous and influential examination of love
Comment: It is rather difficult to review Plato's Symposium from a modern viewpoint. The attempts by Agathon's guests, including Socrates, to define love are largely based on the love of boys rather than women. While that is a difficult concept for me to ponder, I recognize that such a social custom prevailed to some degree in ancient Athens and will attempt to offer an unbiased view of the text. Basically, partygoers celebrating Agathon's first victory in a drama contest decide to do something besides drink themselves into a stupor because they are still paying for such activity the night before. Socrates joins the group on this second night, and it is decided that each man in turn will offer his praises to love. Each of six men offer their interesting, diverse thoughts on the matter, ranging from the conventional to the Socratic ideal. Phaedrus says that the greatest good a boy can have is a gentle lover and that the greatest good a lover can have is a boy to love. He stresses self-sacrifice and virtue as the kind of love the gods love most. Pausanias describes two kinds of love: vulgar love is best explained as love for a woman in the interest of sexual satisfaction; noble love is that concerned with bettering the soul of the object of love (necessarily a young boy). The doctor Eryximachus explains love in terms of harmony, and he goes so far as to credit the vague notion of love with accomplishing all kinds of things in a diverse set of subjects. Aristophanes begins by relating a myth about man's origins. When man was created, individuals were actually attached back to back; the gods later split each human entity in half, and love consists of each person's search for his "missing half" who can be of either sex; even when two mates find one another, their love is imperfect because they cannot become literally attached as they were originally. Agathon says that Love is the youngest of the gods, that he offers the means by which all disputes between the gods and between men are settled, and emphasizes the beauty of love (represented quite well by himself, he seems to say).
Socrates, as can be expected, shifts the discussion of love to a higher plane. Claiming to know the art of love if nothing else, Socrates tells how he gained his knowledge from a fictional character called Diotima. He says that love represents the desire to give "birth in beauty," that love is neither a god or a mortal but is instead the messenger between god and man. To love is to want to acquire and possess the good forever and thus attain immortality. Socrates goes on to give a very important speech about one of Plato's perfect Forms--namely, the Form of Beauty. The advanced lover will learn to seek Beauty in its abstract form and will take no more notice of physical beauty; the perfect lover is a philosopher who can create virtue in its true form rather than produce mere images of virtue. This short summary in no way does justice to Socrates' speech, but it gives the general idea. After Socrates speaks, a drunken Alcibiades (Socrates' own beloved) crashes the party and commences to give a speech about Socrates, the effect of which is to identify Socrates as a lover who deceives others into loving him. As both lover and beloved, Socrates is seemingly held up by Plato as the true embodiment of love. To truly love is to be a philosopher.
I myself don't hold this text in as high regard as many intellectuals, but there can be no doubt of this dialogue's influence on Western thought over the centuries. The book succeeds in the presentation of advanced philosophical ideas and as literature. The discussion of the Form of Beauty is particularly useful in terms of understanding Platonic thought. It would seem that this dinner party and the speeches we read are very likely fictitious and represent Plato's thoughts much more closely than Socrates' own views, but it is impossible to tell to what extent this is true. The Symposium is inarguably one of Plato's most influential, most important texts and is required reading for anyone seriously interested in philosophy as it has existed and continues to exist in Western society.
Rating: 4
Summary: A version which lets the masterpiece speak for itself
Comment: I bought this textbook for my Classical Philosophy class (which was taught by William Placher - check his books out, they're awesome), and the Symposium really got me thinking about what love really is. What's cool about the work is that while each of the speeches make some great points, in the end they never really decide on a final answer, so it's still your call.
I liked the Symposium so much, that I decided to buy it as a gift for my friend. It was then that I realized how superior the Woodruff version is - other versions I found in bookstores featured commentary that was sometimes more than twice as long as the actual work! In this version, on the other hand, the introduction is short but informative - therefore you're not paying extra to hear some other guy give his two cents on Plato's work, when Plato's words themselves are really all you're interested in.
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Title: The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford World's Classics) by Aristotle, David Ross, W. D. Ross, J. L. Ackrill, J. O. Urmson ISBN: 019283407X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Phaedrus by Plato, Alexander Nehamas, Paul Woodruff ISBN: 0872202208 Publisher: Hackett Pub Co Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Robert Fagles, W. B. Stanford ISBN: 0140443339 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1984 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Classics) by Thucydides, Rex Warner, M. I. Finley ISBN: 0140440399 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1954 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Aeschylus I: Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides) by Aeschylus, David Grene, Richmond Alexander Lattimore ISBN: 0226307786 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: December, 1983 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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