Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium: Plato on Homosexuality

plato benjamin jowett eugene o/connor

"And when the other is beside him, he shares his respite from anguish; when he is absent, he likewise shares his longing and being longed for, since he possesses that counterlove which is the image of love, though he supposes it to be friendship rather than love, and calls it by that name" (from the Phaedrus).The nature of love and friendship and their varying manifestations have stimulated philosophical interest for centuries. How should we understand such concepts the beloved, physical beauty, the beauty that transcends the physical, and the power of love between men as the ancient Greeks understood it? In these three dialogues, the Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium, Socrates, the gadfly of Athens, searches for the truth about love and friendship. In doing so, he reveals how his Athenian contemporaries regarded homosexual love as an educative, aesthetic, and social force.

Genres nonfictionhistoryclassicsphilosophyqueer

157 pages, paper

First published January 1,1968

This edition

Format: 157 pages, paper
Published: December 1, 1991 by Prometheus
ISBN: 9780879756321
ASIN: 0879756322
Language: English

About the author

plato

Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."