Platonic love

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Platonic love

Platonic love (Latin: amor platonicus) is a deep and spiritual connection between two individuals: within such a relationship there does not exist any form of sexual connection or sexual elements.

At the same time, this interpretation is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Platonic ideal

Platonic idealism

Platonic idealism usually refers to Plato's theory of forms or doctrine of ideas, the exact philosophical meaning of which is perhaps one of the most disputed questions in higher academic philosophy....
of love

Love

Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment . The word wikt:en:love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction....
which originally was that of a chaste but deep love transcending mortal life. In its original Platonic form, this love was a sublimated pederastic

Pederasty in ancient Greece

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Platonic love'

Start a new discussion about 'Platonic love'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Platonic idealism

Love

Pederasty in ancient Greece

Greek pederasty, as idealised by the Ancient Greece from Archaic period in Greece onward, was a relationship and bond between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family....
eroticism. The force of desire was meant to be harnessed for pedagogical purposes, bringing the man and the boy closer to wisdom and the Platonic Form

Theory of Forms

Plato's Theory of Forms asserts that Forms , and not the material world of change Plato's allegory of the cave, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality....
of Beauty. It is described in-depth in Plato's Phaedrus

Phaedrus (Plato)

The Phaedrus , written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues....
and Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
. In the Phaedrus, it is said to be a form of divine madness that is a gift from the gods, and that its proper expression is rewarded by the gods in the afterlife; in the Symposium, the method by which love takes one to the form of beauty and wisdom is detailed.

Amor Platonicus

The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine

Florence

Florence is the Capital city of the Italy Regions of Italy of Tuscany and of the provinces of Italy Province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 364,779 ....
scholar Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanism philosophy of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin....
as a synonym for amor socraticus. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
, which has as its topic the subject of love or Eros

Eros (love)

Eros is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Modern Greek word "erotas" means " love". The term erotic is derived from eros....
generally. Of particular importance are the ideas attributed to the prophetess Diotima

Diotima of Mantinea

Diotima of Mantinea is a female philosopher who plays an important role in Plato's Plato's Symposium. Her ideas are the origin of the concept of Platonic love....
, which present love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Diotima, and for Plato generally, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of Divinity. In short, with genuine Platonic love, the beautiful or lovely other person inspires the mind and the soul and directs one's attention to spiritual matters. One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty, to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity. The spiritual ideas of Platonic love — as well as the fundamental spiritual emphasis of all of Plato's writings — have been de-emphasised over the last two centuries.

Plato emphasized chastity in the case of homoerotic attraction, but suggested that recognition of beauty in a person of the same sex may still serve the aim of inspiration. Indeed, in some ways homoerotic attraction may have served Plato's illustrative purposes better than heterosexual love, since in the latter case issues of procreation complicate the picture.

The English term dates back as far as Sir William Davenant

William Davenant

Sir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an England poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Literature in English#Caroline and Cromwellian literature and Literature in English#Restoration literature eras, and who was a...
's Platonic Lovers (1636). It is derived from the concept in Plato's Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. For a brief period, Platonic love was a fashionable subject at the English royal court, especially in the circle around Queen Henrietta Maria

Henrietta Maria of France

Henrietta Maria , was Princess of France and Queen Consort of England, Scotland and Ireland through her marriage to Charles I of England. She was the mother of two kings, Charles II of England and James II of England, and was grandmother to Mary II of Great Britain, William III of England, and Anne of Great Britain....
, the wife of King Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was List of English monarchs, List of monarchs of Scotland and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his capital punishment on 30 January 1649....
. Platonic love was the theme of some of the courtly masque

Masque

The masque was a form of festive Noble court entertainment which flourished in sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio....
s performed in the Caroline era

Caroline era

The Caroline era refers to an era in England and Scotland history during the Stuart period that coincides with the reign of Charles I of England ....
, although the fashion soon waned under pressures of social and political change.

Paradox

The very eponym

Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
of this love, Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
, as well as the forementioned Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, lived in a period where homosexuality was central to the "Greek history and warfare, politics, art, literature and learning, in short to the Greek miracle". The concept of Platonic love arose in Plato's middle period writings such as Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
and Phaedrus, within the context of the debate that pitted mundane, sexually-expressed homosexuality against the philosophic — or chaste — homoeroticism. Specifically, in Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
, Alcibiades

Alcibiades

Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides , was a prominent History of Athens statesman, oratory, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War....
attempts to seduce Socrates

Socrates

Socrates was a Classical Greece Philosophy. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students....
, but Socrates rebuffs this pursuit and responds that if he does have this power to make Alcibiades a better man inside of him, why would he exchange his true beauty (i.e. the intellectual realm) for the image of beauty (i.e. the physical beauty) that Alcibiades would provide. However, Plato's opinions in the late period of his life are reflected in the last dialogue, Laws
Laws (dialogue)

The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The question asked at the beginning is not "What is law?" as one would expect. That is the question of the Minos ....
, where he condemns homosexuality as "unnatural".

According to Linda Rapp, Ficino, by Platonic love, meant "…a relationship that included both the physical and the spiritual." Thus, Ficino's view is that love is "the desire for beauty, which is the image of the divine."

Because of the common modern definition, Platonic love can be seen as paradoxical in light of these philosophers' life experiences and teachings. Plato and his peers did not teach that a man's relationship with a youth should lack an erotic dimension, but rather that the longing for the beauty of the boy is a foundation of the friendship and love between those two. However, having acknowledged that the man's erotic desire for the youth magnetizes and energizes the relationship, they countered that it is wiser for this eros not to be sexually expressed, but instead be redirected into the intellectual and emotional spheres.

To resolve this confusion, French scholars found it helpful to distinguish between amour platonique (the concept of non-sexual love) and amour platonicien (love according to Plato). When the term "Platonic love" is used today, it generally does not refer to Plato's views of love. The understanding that Platonic love could be interpreted as masculine eros is alleged by some socio-historical critics to be linked with the social construction

Social constructionism

Social constructionism and social constructivism are Sociological theory of knowledge that consider how social phenomena develop in social contexts....
of a homosexual identity .

External links

- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a Open access online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. The SEP was initially developed with U.S....
article

Platonic love

Amor Platonicus

Paradox

See also

External links