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LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS - PHAEDRUS - Coggle Diagram
LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS - PHAEDRUS
LYSIAS’ SPEECH
Designed to persuade a boy to gratify a man, who isn’t in love with him rather than one who is
LOVER
Desire will come to an end, will regret favours done
Will blame/resent you for neglect of own affairs
Will fall in love with someone else and treat ex badly
Why give sexual favours to someone deranged
Only a small pool to choose from
Will tell everyone you’ve been to bed with him
Lover and beloved in public creates drama
Will try to isolate beloved from friends
Starts by desiring body, when desire ends, friendship ends
Why grant favours to those most desperate for them
Driven by irrational passion and desire
Emotionally unstable, jealous and obsessive
Seeks control and treats the beloved as an object of affection
Limits growth of the beloved
Love fades as passion slowly diminished
Seeks rewards or returns for favours
Based on passion and desire
NON-LOVER
Does favours willingly, was never in love so will never change his mind
Can’t blame anyone but himself, have no reason but to please you
No reason to treat you badly
Remains rational
Much larger field to choose someone worthy from
Will remain discreet
Friends spending time together attract no attention
Will be suspicious if you have no friends
Will have been your friend before affair began, friendship will continue
Will be honest
Desire not necessary for a warm relationship
Non-lovers remain discreet, rational, moderate
Best not to gratify all non-lovers, otherwise why expect favours in return
Acts based on rational judgement and self control
Emotionally stable and free from jealousy or possessiveness
Values the beloved as a friend and respects them
Beneficial effect and encourage growth and development
Affection will remain stable
Acts out of goodwill and not desire
Based on mutual respect and reason
FIRST SPEECH OF SOCRATES
Love is a form of desire
Irrational desire for pleasure, excess
Drunkenness for alcohol
Gluttony for food
Eros for physical beauty
Lovers love a young man as wolves love lambs
Lover wants pleasure from the beloved, not resistance
So will try to keep him as
Isolated
Ignorant
Cowardly
Deprived of family and possessions
Physically weak and effeminate
Stupid
No pleasure for beloved as his lover is
Old and disgusting
Always pressuring him into sex
Always watching him
Always excessively praising him
Until the lover falls out of love then he
Breaks all his promises
1 more item...
Acquired opinion which aims for the best, self control
SECOND SPEECH OF SOCRATES
Mortals
Soul
Body
Immortals
Souls alone
9 Levels of reincarnation
Conscious practitioners of self control in pursuit of an ideal
Philosophers/lovers of beauty
Law, abiding kings, motivated by law
Politicians/businessmen, motivated by love of constitution
Possessed by gods, not personally responsible for their productions
Gym addicts/PTs, improvement of knowledge and body
Prophets
Poets/artists
Uneducated manual workers limited to the physical world
Artisans/farmers
Deliberate manipulative and corrupters of others’ souls
Sophists/demagogues, preach against true form
Slaves to their own physical appetites
Tyrants, lack of respect and motivated by personal power and pleasure
Cycle of reincarnation
10000 years-1000 years is equivalent to 1 human life and subsequent punishment/reward followed by choice of next life
3000 years if you pick the life of a philosopher 3 times in a row
Finally rings of souls have regrown and soul returns to heavens
Corrupted soul
Tries to mount beloved
Philosophical soul
Reveres beloved as god
Mingled pain and pleasure caused by
Pain
Sense of beloved causes dehydration, wings dry up and close
Pleasure
Presence of beloved irrigates wings with particles of beauty through eyes
Tripartite soul
Charioteer
Reason, head
White horse
Emotion, heart
Black horse
Appetite, stomach and genitals
When a lover sees their beloved there’s a violent struggle between sexual desire and reverence, ending with repression of sexual urges
Truly philosophical lovers never have sex, those devoted to prestige sometimes have sex but they are both in the path to heavenly love
Divine madness as a gift from the gods
Socrates redefines madness not as an evil or illness but as a divine gift when it comes from the gods
Four types of divine madness
Prophetic, from Apollo
Telecasting/Purificatory, from Dionysus
Poetic, from the Muses
Erotic/Love, from Eros/Aphrodite which is the highest and most important
The soul’s immortality and nature
Socrates describes the soul as a winged charioteer with 2 horses, one noble and one unruly, symbolising reason and desire
The soul is immortal and has seen the divine realm of pure forms, such as Beauty, Justice and Truth, before incarnating in a body
The soul yearns to return to realm and love helps it remember what it once beheld
Paradoxical for mortal souls as all souls are immortal but some remain trapped within physical bodies
All souls try to reach the true forms however those who fail descend into the earth into a body for the first time
Love as divine madness
Love is a kind of divine madness that leads the soul back to truth and beauty
When someone sees beauty in another person, it awakens a memory of the Form of Beauty itself, stirring the wings of the soul
Beauty is an immediate action, making it more powerful than wisdom which is gaines
This experience is painful yet uplifting, it can lead the lover and beloved to a virtuous and philosophical life
If a soul is corrupted and influenced by physical attraction the memory of beauty is not revered
The role of the beloved
The beloved, usually a younger man, can be drawn to the lover, forming a reciprocal relationship based on shared spiritual growth
True lovers help eachother fgrow wings again, ascending together to the divine
Socrates’ second speech elevates love o a sacred path to the divine, tying together philosophy, beauty and transcendence
Far from being a degrading force, love is portrayed as the most divine kind of madness, a means by which the soul can reconnect with eternal truths
When someone sees beauty, they are reminded of true beauty, only some can see this, accused of being madmen
Beauty is manifested in a physical form making it seem more impactful
Each person has their ‘own’ god matching their character so they will find a beloved who is most similar to this and praise them as if they are a god