Eros, Human Nature and Philosophy in Plato’s Symposium
Keywords:
Eros, Philosophy, Anthropology, ApologyAbstract
In this paper we intend to show how in the Symposium Plato elaborates, by a sophisticated reflection on the nature of eros, an unusual anthropological conception that recognizes desire as a primal and constitutive force in the human soul (psyché). From this we try to discern how this dialogue, which presents philosophy as the most elevated manifestation of the visceral eroticism that constitutes our psyche, can be viewed as a rhetorical and apologetic text that seeks to present a vigorous defense of the philosophical life and of the man who was its most famous and brilliant exponent: Socrates.References
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