Title: Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide | Author(s): Pierre Destrée, Zina Giannopoulou | Publisher: Cambridge University Press | Year: 2017 | Language: English | Pages: 270 | ISBN: 110711005X, 9781107110052 | Size: 2 MB | Extension: pdf
Platos Symposium is an exceptionally multi-layered dialogue. At once a historical document, a philosophical drama that enacts abstract ideas in an often light-hearted way, and a literary masterpiece, it has exerted an influence that goes well beyond the confines of philosophy. The essays in this volume, by leading scholars, offer detailed analyses of all parts of the work, focusing on the central and much-debated theme of erōs or human desire - which can refer both to physical desire or desire for happiness. They reveal thematic continuities between the prologue and the various speeches as well as between the speeches themselves, and present a rich collection of contrasting yet complementary readings of Diotimas speech. The volume will be invaluable for classicists and philosophers alike, and for all who are interested in one of Platos most fascinating and challenging dialogues.
Table of contents
- Cambridge Critical Guides - Series page
- Plato’s Symposium - Title page
- Chapter 1 - Narrative Temporalities and Models of Desire
- Chapter 2 - Unfamiliar Voices: Harmonizing the Non-Socratic Speeches and Plato’s Psychology
- Chapter 3 - A Doctor’s Folly: Diagnosing the Speech of Eryximachus
- Chapter 4 - Aristophanic Tragedy
- Chapter 6 - Why Agathon’s Beauty Matters
- Chapter 7 - Erōs and the Pursuit of Form
- Chapter 8 - The Mortal Soul and Immortal Happiness
- Chapter 9 - A Fetish for Fixity?
- Chapter 10 - Generating in Beauty for the Sake of Immortality: Personal Love and the Goals of the Lover
- Chapter 11 - Alcibiades the Profane: Images of the Mysteries
- Chapter 12 - How Does Contemplation Make You Happy?
- Chapter 13 - Eudaimonism and Platonic erōs