Why we Should Love the Non Lover
Loving happens as natural as the rising of the sun. At some point in our lives, we all profess to love someone or something. For as long as the word and notion of love has existed, there have been innumerable attempts to explain just what love is and whom we should or should not love. Even the Bible, commands its believers to love their neighbors, family, friends, and enemies as they love themselves. The Phaedrus, one of Plato's greatest dialogues delves into the love in terms of who would be best for us to love and why. Phaedrus makes mention of a speech by Lysias, whom he strongly admires, that states that one should strive to love a non-lover, someone who does not and will not love you in return, but why? In this paper, I will discuss Lysias' idea of loving and who we should love and then I will present Socrates' refutation of this argument and why we should love the non-lover.
Love is a complicated subject, which cannot be explained in just one sentence, which justifies why Lysias' speech was so verbose. Phaedrus and Socrates go off to the forest to discuss the speech, away from the city and politics, which allow relaxation when conversing about the topic at hand. In general, Lysias firmly believes that one should love someone who does not love them in return. But, he didn't stop there, he gave several reasons why this is the best way to love someone. The first reason that one should love a non-lover is because the lover is driven by passion, and the non-lover associates with the beloved out of free will (231a). So that, the lover is inclined to do things with and for the beloved because of his feelings of affection, and due to those feelings only. Without passion, the lover w...
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...from anyone else. The non-lover will keep anything and everything that goes on between the two of them because he is not driven by fiery passion. In this manner, the beloved does not have to worry about rumors about him being spread around, for the less said, the less people will know. In this way, the non-lover avoids altercation with the beloved and avoids arguments.
In dealing with arguments, the fights of lovers are the most intense (232b). When loving a lover, the lover, driven by passion and full of emotion, becomes confrontational about unnecessary things in a frequent manner. In that loving the lover, the beloved feels attached to the lover and feels that he maybe obligated to answer certain questions and live up to certain criteria and when he fails to do this, the lover is then upset and begins to question the beloved at which point a quarrel begins.
In this paper, I am going to use concepts from the social exchange theory and relational dialectics theory to describe my relationship with my boyfriend. First, I will discuss the cost and rewards of the relationship. Second, I will then discuss the dialectics of autonomy and connection followed by, openness and protection.
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Within Symposium, Plato portrayed Love not as an idealization, but rather on the judgment that was made from Love’s control of the human body (lecture). One speech in particular, the one told by Aristophanes, presents an interest and mythical view on the concept of love. The love he describes is a dedication to the idea of soulmate love (lecture). Spherical people were being that were completely round, “they had four hands each, as many legs as hands, and two faces, exactly alike, on a rounded neck. Between the two faces, which were on opposite sides, was one head with four ears (Plato 25).” As these beings has more limbs and eyes than any god, they were considered too powerful which led to the god Zeus, splitting them in half. Once split, the beings began to die as they starved and became idle as they could not live without their other half (Plato 26-27). Aristophanes concluded that as their separation from one another was the cause to their deaths it was no less than a demonstration for the desire humans have to love one another, as stated on page 27, “This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other … heal the wound of human nature.” The perspective Aristophanes presents is about a fusion between one object - or individual, and the object of desire; love is about momentary intimacy both physical and emotional. Aristophanes presents the desire of the momentary intimacy that the human body craves in his speech by saying “ The purpose was this so that … they could stop embracing, return to their jobs, and look after their other needs in life (Plato 27).” This particular quote is important because it represents Aristophanes’ overall view that, human beings desire one another, they need one another; however, one they obtain their object of desire they are free to continue on with the rest of life’s
Nearly everyone experiences the feeling of love. Whether it’s for another person or for food, almost everyone feels love during their lifetime. In the play Antigone, the writer, Sophocles, illustrates a very important fact regarding love: love is our most important and most dangerous motivation for doing anything, and without moderation, love can be deadly.
Even traditionally strong relationships, such as marriage, are prone to many instances of interpersonal conflicts. Home buying; what is important to each in a home? Career choices; does one career affect the other, if so, which one is more important to each? Holiday plans can involve conflict. Oftentimes during the holidays I would like to visit with my family...
For the ancient Greek doctor and philosopher, Eryximachus, Love’s potential for health and destruction were rooted in its divine origins. Good love “stems from the Muse Celestia” and “Common Love,” from “Polymnia” (Symposium 22). He saw these two loves as at the center of human/divine communication: “all the ways in which gods and men communicate with one another—are solely concerned with the perpetuation or the cure of love” (Symposium 23). Love provided the link, then, between the mortal and immortal beings. It was a common project that both humans and gods could work on. Eryximachus further articulated, “It is (Love) who makes it possible for us to interact on good terms with one another and with our divine masters” (Symposium 23-4). It is the element of life that transcends the human realm, giving the people a taste of the divine in their own lives.
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with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and
The ideas of physical love, or the lusting for body rather than mind, are discussed within the speakers and related to their own physical loves as compared to their intellectual loves. Though they all have their own contrasting views as to the nature of love and it origins, it is Socrates who "tells the truth about Love," (33.199b. Despite these differences on the nature and origins, all of the orators are in general concordance on the ideas of the physical side of love. Pausanias promotes the idea of "two Loves, since there are two types of Aphrodite," (12.181d). The type of love he associates with physical lust is Common Love, "the kind of love that inferior people feel. People like this are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds," (13.181b). He argues that these Common lovers are attracted to partners with very little intelligence because they seek only sexual satisfaction as opposed to intellectual satisfaction. Eryximachus continues on this duality of Love, but extend it in the form or good and bad love. Similar to Pausanias' Common Love, Eryximaachus agrees that "when this type of love is applied, it must be with caution, to ensure that th...
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