Platonic Eros：Textual Analysis of Plato's Symposium

• Main Authors: CHIEN, YU-YI, 簡宇藝
• Other Authors: WU, ZHI-XUE
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67107146375314063378

碩士 === 華梵大學 === 哲學系碩士班 === 105 === Plato's philosophy lasts forever because of his deep understanding of the essence of human's “Eros”. His separation between soul's "eternal beauty" and body's "instant beauty", and his demonstration of God of Sun, Apollo's logical spirit while attempting to restrain from the lust toward Dionysian, these all have great and deep influences on western philosophy history and human's civilization history. Is the term of " Platonic Eros " only limited to the spiritual Eros? Should human forgo the physical Eros? Is human's perishable "instant beauty" not worth to be cherished? Also, is "Eros" between the same gender reasonable in the society nowadays? In "Symposium", an exquisite multipart variation was born from participants' eulogy to show human's philosophy on Eros which turned into a clear discussion focusing on Plato's thoughts on Eros. This thesis will carefully examine Plato's theory on Eros in Symposium. First, the author will explain the thesis, research method, and conduct a literature review while introducing Symposium to readers. Second, in the sequence of participating speakers: Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates (Diotima) and Alcibiades, the author will demonstrate Eros as a human essence, its characteristics, perceptions, objectives, and its relationships with human's body and soul. Finally, presenting the idea of Eros as the driving force for a soul to return and ascend to a better state, and although the Eros for body and for souls are different but are both necessities; the author will conclude with the reflection on modern day's Eros to address gender and sex issues.