Good stuff, makes me think.

this is just about how everyone wants to fuck socrates

Since I have the privilege of teaching a class again this fall, I thought to my self, "Self, what better time to teach one of the best kept secrets of narrative art in the western world?" The Symposium becomes vibrant when it is treated not as a work of philosophy or--even worse--political philosophy, but as a story, twice told, twice partly forgotten, in which the speeches weave in and out of one another as only good table-talk does. Framed by the comical beginning (with Aristodemus believing that the wisdom of Socrates can be gained through mimicry) and the darkly humorous end (with Alcibiades raging about the one love he has never had, and foreshadowing the farce of Syracuse in the process), the love of philosophy is made a means to an end. The chief irony of this reading, of course, is that Plato himself becomes that poetic figure that he would have banished from his own Utopia--a pagan Moses standing on the height of Pisgah, never to enter the world of wisdom of which he dreamed.

Is it true that what’s probable is more important than what’s true?

The Platonic dialogue "Symposium" starts out sounding like a manifesto for NAMBLA then becomes a foofaraw in which the literal and the metaphorical are purposely conflated for rhetorical advantage before finally getting to a half-dozen pages of fairly interesting philosophizing and then degrading into a stroke fest extolling the virtues of Socrates.

It's philosophy...need I write more

RTC?

Platón, y dos bellos "diálogos" sobre el amor y la belleza. Plásticamente preciosos, hay que profundizar en su lectura...

Plato's basic literature to read.

Pretty good

this was my first introduction to the Greeks and i was hooked. the symposium is actually quoted a lot in all kinds of literature. i love Aristophanes commentary on the nature of love.

El banquete presenta de formas muy interesantes el tema de cómo se concibe el Amor. Por ejemplo, habla de que en su forma más elevada ("Afrodita Urania"), se halla por encima de los afectos carnales y que concibe una descendencia inmortal: la creación intelectual. (entre otras ideas)

Pero realmente me sorprendió "Fedro/ la belleza" con los temas de retorica y dialéctica. Cómo se pueden presentar dos posiciones totalmente opuestas de forma igualmente atractiva si se domina el arte de manejar el discurso. Esto siempre y cuando se hable en conceptos que dependan de cierta subjetividad. Que peligroso. E intrigante.

Y qué suerte que la ingeniería no dependa de esto. (Pero sí otras cuestiones de importancia) :D

En fin, para mi este texto valdría la pena darlo en colegios... da para pensar.