Book SummarySymposium, by Plato

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Symposium

Plato’s Symposium tells the story of a group of Athenian men at a party all giving speeches in praise of love. Their speeches and discussions quickly lead them to try and answer the question, “What is love?” Plato explores this question through the different characters in attendance, and in the process explains the connection between love and philosophy. The Symposium also provides insight into Plato’s views on happiness, education, and reproduction.

In our guide, we’ll explore Plato’s view of love in three parts:

1. Early speeches on love’s benefits (Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, and Aristophanes’s speeches)
2. Descriptions of the god of love (Agathon and Socrates’s speeches)
3. Diotima’s description of love (Socrates’s speech)

(Shortform note: Like all of Plato’s works, the Symposium is a dialogue: A philosophical work written as a fictional conversation between characters. The form of dialogue allows Plato to add in intentional ambiguities and implied meanings not just through what is said, but also who says it, why they say it, and how they say it. Like...

Symposium Summary Part 1: Early Speeches on Love’s Benefits

The first four speeches of the dialogue focus on how love can benefit a person. These speeches fit into two categories:

1. Love as virtue: Phaedrus, Pausanias, and Eryximachus begin by discussing what kind of love makes a person virtuous—in other words, what is the best and most moral way to love.
2. Love as completion: Then, Aristophanes speaks on how love “completes” a person’s life.

In this first part of our guide, we’ll explain the main arguments of each speech regarding the benefits of love.

Love as Virtue

Phaedrus gives the first speech connecting love and virtue, while Pausanias and Eryximachus further develop this argument afterward.

Phaedrus’s Speech

In his speech, Phaedrus argues that all love is beneficial and praiseworthy because it makes people more virtuous. Everyone wants the people they love to view them highly, so when a person is in love they’ll be more driven to do good deeds and more ashamed of their bad deeds.

Pausanias’s Speech

Pausanias disagrees with Phaedrus’s argument that all love is praiseworthy, claiming instead that some love is virtuous and some is not. Pausanias explains that **virtuous love...

Symposium Summary Part 2: Descriptions of the God of Love

Agathon’s speech again approaches love in a new way—addressing not the benefits of love, but rather love itself: Eros, the god of love.

(Shortform note: To better understand the distinction Agathon makes between love and the god of love, let’s examine the Greek word for love that the Symposium uses: eros. Eros means love in the sense of passionate desire, usually in a sexual context (the English word “erotic” derives from eros). However, Eros is also the name of the god of love and sexual attraction—a god the Romans called Cupid. At the start of his speech, Agathon argues that the others only spoke of the feeling eros, rather than the god Eros. To make this difference clear, our guide will use Eros to describe the god, and “love” to describe the feeling—even though “eros” technically applies to both.)

This second part of our guide will explain the main ideas of Agathon’s description of Eros, as well as Socrates’s rebuttal and alternative description.

Agathon’s Description of Eros

Agathon describes Eros as having many qualities—but these qualities tend...

Symposium Summary Part 3: Diotima’s Description of Love

After describing Eros, Diotima discusses the human experience of love. She concludes that the main object of love is not beauty.

In this third part of our guide, we’ll explain Diotima’s views on human love by explaining what humans love, why humans love, and how humans should love.

What We Love

To understand the human experience of love, Diotima first outlines what humans love. She suggests that, instead of beauty, the main object of human love is goodness. This is because goodness brings people happiness—a meaningful life well-lived. By definition, a good life is a happy life.

Furthermore, Diotima concludes that humans desire immortality: As explored earlier, if people have good things, they desire to continue having them. Therefore, people want to permanently have good things. The longer someone lives, the longer they can have good things, so by desiring goodness people desire immortality.

(Shortform note: To understand what Plato means by happiness, it helps to consider the original Greek word: eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is usually translated to “happiness,” though it doesn’t entirely match our modern definition. While we usually...

Shortform Exercise: Connect Love and Philosophy

Reflect on how love and philosophy connect in your own life.

Have you ever felt a passionate desire to learn something? Explain your answer.