The thinker behind the “Republic” and other works of philosophy also played political adviser to a series of rulers in Sicily.

Socrates, agreeing with Plato and Aristotle, considered erotic pleasure fun and necessary, but it was to be handled carefully. Pure sex is meant for the beasts, or half-beats—the satyrs again.

Socrates tells his companion that, if he was at all able to improve Alcibiades, this was not through any knowledge or art that he possessed, but only by the force of the love [eros] that the youth ...

Abstract: Plato’s Symposium contains two accounts of eros which explicitly aim to reach a telos. The first is the technocratic account of the doctor Eryximachus, who seeks an exhaustive account of ...

Socrates says that Diotima taught him “the philosophy of love.” The ancient Greek female philosopher Diotima agreed to teach him and described to him the nature of love, which is different from what ...

For Socrates, eros is the “between,” not “beautiful and perfect but something that seeks for what’s beautiful and perfect.” Humans are similarly in the middle between ignorant animals and all-knowing ...

So the following night the partygoers, including the philosopher Socrates, decided that instead of drinking they would give speeches in praise of the god of love, Eros (whence comes the word ...

Instead of boozing it up again, the gathered legends decide to discuss the burning question of Eros. It is seen as the mainspring of noble deeds; as a universal, harmonising force; and, memorably, in ...

In “Open Socrates,” the scholar Agnes Callard argues that the ancient Greek philosopher offers a blueprint for an ethical life.

Platonic love is one of the most widespread and misinterpreted concepts of Plato's philosophy. It is a concept that transcends philosophy.

The Symposium also portrays Alcibiades, a famous and controversial statesman in Athens, showing how his ardent desire for Socrates gave him a chance (one ultimately squandered) of leading a modest ...