ERŌS AND PHILIA

No philosopher has had more to say about love than Plato. From the literary point of view his interest in the subject – or shall we say his passion – was favored by the fact that erōs was independently established as a central theme in the tradition of Socratic literature. But in strictly philosophical terms the importance of this subject in Plato's thought is greater than is commonly realized. I shall argue that Plato's theory of erōs provides an essential link between his moral psychology and his metaphysical doctrine of Forms. So it is for good reason that Plato selects the discussion of erōs in the Symposium as the occasion for announcing to the world the new conception of reality represented by the Forms. From the point of view of ingressive exposition, we can see the Symposium as providing a transitional moment between the inconclusive treatment of virtue, knowledge, and education in the aporetic dialogues, and the great constructive theories of the Phaedo and Republic.

To avoid misunderstanding, we must qualify the sense in which Plato develops a theory of love. First of all, the Greeks have two terms corresponding to “love” in English or amour in French: erōs and philia, which are quite different in meaning from one another. Plato's theory is almost exclusively concerned with erōs. Furthermore, Plato's account of erōs is developed less for its own sake than for further philosophical purposes, which are moral and metaphysical. We are principally concerned here with this broader function of the theory. But first we need to take account of the contrast between erōs and philia.