Love and Change Pluto Flashcards
(8 cards)
Summary of Symposium
Aristophanes’ speech is about the origin of love/desire. He starts by saying that people were joined together, man-man, woman-woman, man-woman. etc. So we had two faces, four legs, and four hands. But the gods doubted the people, so Zeus decided they should all be split in half to have offerings from the people. The gods then went all over, splitting everyone in half. Athena found people who were singular already and protected them, threatened to cut everyone in half again if they didn’t follow god’s rule. After that, they started to desire to be with another person, their other half, to feel whole again.
Who wrote Aristophanes Speaks?
Plato
Who is Plato?
428 -348 BCE
Student of Socrates
Established a philosophical school
Wrote fictional dialogues featuring real historical people
Platonism
Plato’s metaphysics included an elaborate set of theories about how the visible, tangible, material world is only a shadow of reality, which consists of eternal things
How are Plato’s Myths?
Plato’s dialogues include several vivid philosophical fables that are reminiscent of myths
The use of made-up myths allows Plato to convey philosophical ideas in a memorable way
The use of the traditional story form allows Plato to present radical and new ideas in a way that feels more natural to an audience familiar with the terms of myth
What is the Symposium?
The Drinking Party
It was an Athenian social institution, all-male drinking parties (with enslaved women as part of the entertainment)
Composed around 385-370, but set in the fifth century
What is the Symposium about? (plot/setting)
A group of guys, including Socrates, are hanging out the day after Agathon, a tragic poet, won the Great Dionysia. They agree not to get wasted, because they drank so much the night before.
They all deliver speeches in praise of Eros - love or desire
One speaker, the real-life historical comic poet, Aristophanes, gives a speech that is like a myth
Aristophanes’ speech
An aetiological story since it talks about how something came to be
