Topic > The Idea of ​​Bodily Desire - 1611

The Idea of ​​Bodily DesireSocrates, in Plato's work "Symposium", introduces the scale of love through his conversation with the divine figure, Diotima. The more you gain knowledge about love, the higher you rise and the less you focus on physical beauty. After Socrates explains these concepts, Alcibiades intervenes. He is confused because he himself is in love with philosophy, but he is also lost in bodily desire. According to the ideology of Socrates expressed in Plato's work "Symposium", the musician of Mehta's "A River Sutra" is at the bottom of the Diotima scale because she is completely infatuated and obsessed with the love of physical beauty, and not with Socrates' ideal. , which is love of wisdom. Likewise, one might say that Alcibiades also gets lost in bodily desire at the bottom of the ladder. In the Discourse of Diotima, Socrates explains that Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but rather a desire for wisdom and beauty; “love is wanting to possess the good forever” (Plato 52). It introduces love as a broader term; it is what makes a person happy, and therefore one desires only good things. According to Diotima, Love is a spirit that mediates between man and the gods and is therefore not a god. He argues that an ascetic life with passion for wisdom and beauty is true Love. In saying this, Plato rejects the act of sexual love. This argument is in harmony with a philosopher's search for truth. The ultimate goal is to live a pure life so that the afterlife goes as smoothly as possible. The body gets in the way and tries to disturb this process. Therefore, he concludes, the philosopher's pursuit of wisdom is the most valuable of all activities. Socrates says that understanding love is a process. The process is called the "love ladder". It starts as a young boy who is attracted to a beautiful body in particular and together they take part in beautiful rituals. The next step is to understand that all bodies are similar and that it is foolish to love only one specific body. This will make the guy love all beautiful bodies. After a while he will understand that true beauty comes from the mind, not the body. Then he will come to appreciate and love those who are beautiful in mind, whether they are beautiful in body or not.