Category Archives: Narrative and Poetry
A serious controversy: Is Plato a feminist?
Is Plato a feminist? That’s a very controversial question. But the answer is not very clear Some people suggest that Plato was a feminist but some people suggest that he was not. So let us first see what is feminist. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory defines a feminist a someone who has “both a doctrine of equal rights for women and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women beyond simple social equality.” (Humm 74) And according to The Free Dictionary A feminist is someone who advocates equal rights for woman. The ideology of feminism was used in during the mid of 19th century. Many intellectual suggested that Plato was a feminist because in Symposium, in Phaedrus’s speech he gave a woman a higher position than man. He said if a lover is an woman then that woman can sacrifice everything even her life for her lover. He also acknowledges that biological differences do not interfere with the function of humans. He also opened up the possibility if women being equal to man. Though many intellectual support this idea of Plato but I do not .
I support that Plato is not a feminist. Because the reading of Plato’s Feminism: A Discussion of Women in Ancient Philosophy it was mentioned that a woman can have the characteristics of being a guardians and rulers but first they must be trained so that they are capable and acceptable of being a guardian an a ruler. If he supported feminism that why did he want to train them so they also have the same quality as man? Why a woman cannot become a ruler or a guardian with out being trained? He also mentioned that in order to make females equal to males, females must be desexed. Even if he said that the inability of women to control portrays their weakness in souls. He also alters the nature of a woman to be a perfect guardian. So why only woman have to alter their nature to be a perfect guardian? Why not men. So as after reading the above examples I am convinced that Plato was not a feminist.
Works Cites :
“feminist” THE FREE DICTIONARY.com 10 Feb 2013 <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/feminist>
Humm, Maggie. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990.
Feminism and Plato: Can he really be part of it?
“FEMINISM” if we break the word into two parts it will be: “FEMIN” and “ISM” which means that it was originated from women and for women. In the beginning it was to establish their rights equal rights, but this happened not so long ago. Therefore it is fairly a new concept, but if we put ourselves in the shoes of the women in ancient Athens we might say that this term “feminism” was needed more than we do in today’s world. In ancient Athens, in the era when great philosophers like Plato and Aristotle used to live, women were given much lower status than man. They were considered only for their bodily need which is reproduction. It was hard for anyone to come out of the stereotype of women at that time and establish a new status for them by giving them some credit. However, Plato did break these limitations in his writing especially his Symposium, but most of the time he seemed to considered the credible women to be manlier.
Plato brought Diotima in his Symposium through Socrates. Here Diotima was present in the symposium herself. This incident at one hand seems like that Plato is giving woman a higher status and on the other hand he used a man to voice her which is like giving man more credit. We can see Socrates praising Diotima and her capabilities, but Plato presented her with more manly characteristics. Moreover, Diotima talks about men being able to breed wisdom and women breeding children. Here she seems to be handing over the only capability of women that was admired at that time to men. Although she did so, ultimately breeding is capability that only women has, so was she telling the men to adopt female qualities to be more wise and creative? Was Plato trying to give women credit over men? Or was he trying to say that breeding is not only women’s capability and men can also do that and much better by breeding wisdom?
Plato throughout Symposium presented women as a weaker part of the nature. He used the term “women” to mainly symbolize cowardliness and weakness. Plato did mention that woman can be intellectual if she has a ma’s soul. So, here he seems like giving men all the credit for having wisdom. So, He lacks the qualities of a feminist. But can we really judge him on the present concept of feminism?
Symposium: A Praise of Love
The Symposium is a frame narrative speech by the famous philosopher Plato. The speech includes dialogue of many different characters who praises love in their own way. The first speaker Phaedrus love as god. He defines love as an ancient god and says love has no place in poetry or legend. In his praising of love he tells about his though about the position of women during the ancient Greek.
According to Phaedrus that a true lover will die for the they love and a lover will do that even if she is a woman. Only a woman has the courage to leave her dearly parents who gave her birth and raised her, and die for her husband. When a woman does so much off sacrifice the people around them becomes surprised by her sacrifice. This work is marked as a noble deed even by the God himself, and he becomes delighted and rewards them with prize of noble heroes and sends her soul back to her body.
Protected: ‘LOVE’ DEFINED BY PAUSANIAS: ENTIRELY TRUE?
Harmony between the opposites
Among the speakers in the Plato’s party, Eryximachus is the one who has natural inclination about medical art. Although his speech is not easy to understand; his idea can tough the readers by something very close to our life.
In Eryximachus’ speech, I like the way he analyses about harmony. In very first time that I read this article, I could not understand how can two opposing things can be harmonious. However, when I saw some images like music, medicine, season,…; I connected it with my life and realized that it was not hard to understand. It is possible that there is harmony between two things opposing each other. This is the rule of the life. We should let something opposite stay together because it can receive the strength from each other and make itself be perfect.
The specific example about this harmony in Eryximachus’ speech is music. He claimed that, “Music, like medicine, creates agreement by producing concord and love between these various opposites.” If someone listens to a song, he/she can know that a song is made by different notes. Those notes have different height: there is very high note and very low note. In addition, melody “is produced only when fast and slow”. However, when he/she hears the connection between them, a melody made by voice or instrument, he/she will feel very relax and enjoy it because there is harmony in music.
There are also some close examples are mentioned like “wet” and “dry”; “hot” and “cold”; and so on. Those things are totally opposing but we still live in a world with the mixture of many things opposing like that. Therefore, we have to admit that harmony exists between the opposites or there is love between them. I mention the word “love” because I believe that if there is no love, nothing can exist together forever. May be that’s why Eryximachus claimed that love is harmony.
Alcibiades love for Socrates- is it worth?
“A moment later they heard Alcibiades shouting in the courtyard, very drunk and very loud” (Plato, 217) such sudden was the entry of Alcibiades. After being accepted to the party he started flirting with Agathon and Socrates. Though he first wanted to drink, but later he agreed to give acclaim to Socrates instead of defining love like others. To him, Socrates is the epitome of lover with wisdom and courage. He compared Socrates to a “statue of Silenus” and “Marsyas”. According to Alcibiades, Socrates was able to convince people with mere words and with his philosophies. These philosophies have “struck” and “bitten” Alcibiades’ heart and he cannot stop wanting to be Socrates lover. He wanted Socrates to accept his love in exchange of his beauty. He was deeply impressed by Socrates philosophies and bravery in the battlefield. In order to gain Socrates love, Alcibiades invited Socrates to gymnasium and when he got the chance, he wanted to start a discussion about themselves, but Socrates did not talk anything about that and he had a conversation with him as he normally do. Finally in order to be alone with Socrates he invited him to dinner and convinced him to stay overnight. When Alcibiades confessed his love to Socrates, he refused his love because; to Socrates love is beyond physical attraction. Socrates refused to give lifelong earned wisdom in just exchange physical beauty.
Socrates narrated Diotima and according to Diotima there is “a ladder of love”, through which a lover has to cross the infinite sea of love moving step by step. After reading symposium I think Alcibiades is in first step of the ladder, where love is just exchange anything with Socrates and Socrates is in the last step of the ladder which is indeed wisdom itself. It seems like Alcibiades want to cross the sea of love in just one go and that was by exchanging knowledge with anything he had. Although Alcibiades had many virtues and good appearance he chose Socrates’ wisdom over his not so good appearance. Socrates thought that Alcibiades’ love is in the last step of the ladder. Socrates knows what true love is and according to him Alcibiades cannot be a true lover. However, my question is, if Alcibiades was brought to praise Socrates, then how it relates to the other speech on definition of love. For me, I think, Plato brought Alcibiades and his love to show a divine face of love.
Women Status In Symposium
Plato’s writing “Symposium” is plotted in ancient Athens, when women were not treated a par with men. They seem weaker to men not only physically but also in their ideas and thoughts. The condition of women was not much better than slaves. Philosophies of that time were also based on the under-lying men women differences in their status. All speaker at the symposium clearly mentioned in their speeches that the status of women is very low as compared to the men as women lacks wisdom, courage and body strength.
Phaedrus says in his speech “no one will die for you but a lover, and a lover will do this ever if she’s a women” (179 b). By these lines, he probably point out the lower status of women i.e. they are not strong and able enough to do anything for other. But at the same time, he praises the virtue of lover and says that a woman can also risk her life for the sake of her lover. Here he does not actually praises women strength to risk her life and show courage but actually praises the virtue of love, because of which she is risking her life. Although, he seems to give status to some women but in reality he makes a distinction. In this particular example, he tries to persuade that women are not actually capable of giving any sacrifice but they do because of being in love.
Lastly Socrates speech somewhat improves the standard of women at that time. The standard of women seems to us elevated because of the fact that Socrates gives his speech from Diotima’s (a wise woman from Mantinea) point of view (209 b-c). Socrates discussed the pregnancy in both women and men (with seed of wisdom) and also confessed that the labor is very painful for both of them. By these words, it seems that he is praising women for the creation of another life but in the end, he ultimately gives this credit to man. He justified his point by saying that the birth of wisdom and knowledge is more important than that of giving birth to human children.
Thus we can say on the basis of symposium that women were not considered equal with men. Even women’s love and devotion for their love ones were enough to prove them weak and sensitive. So we can say that most of the speaker’s speeches support the idea of inequality in gender that leads to unequal status of both of them in same society.
Love is a perfect harmony.
I have ever thought that love is just a strong emotion between human and human, or human and thing. It is simply a feeling. However, when I read “Symposium” by Plato, I was really impressed on the Eryximachus’s philosophies; love is not just affection, in broader meaning, love is a harmony. His definitions bring a new outlook about love for audiences. In his speech, he connects with Pausanias’s argument; he agrees that love is the attraction of “human soul” and “human beauty” (470). And also, he supplements that love does not only restrict itself to human but also occur in animals, plants and even gods. In the following part, he gives his argument that love need harmony, everyone and everything can be reconciled to create love. He presents many of evidences to support for his argument about the harmony in medicine, music and season.
In medicine domain, it is the harmony between “healthy and diseased constitutions.” We know that a diseased constitution and unhealthy body is very easy to find each other but it is not the harmony. Eryximachus says that “the Love that is noble from the Love that is ugly and disgraceful. A good practitioner knows how to how to affect the body and how to transform its desires” (470) so the relationship between them need medicine as a remedy to make them become healthy, a healthy body will make healthy love. As a physician, he can implant good love or reduce bad love. And his task is to reconcile and create good love between bodily elements like “hot to cold, bitter to sweet, wet to dry” (470). Or another example about the harmony he show in his speech, they are the harmony among opposite elements in music. Similar to medicine, music need agreements to make good love. A beautiful song is the connection among the “high and low notes” and “fast and slow rhythms” (471). He proceeds to mention about the concord in season domain. “Hot and cold,” “wet and dry” are the elements of climate and their agreement can bring plentiful harvest and good health for everyone and everything (471).
Opposite elements can even create a great harmony to make good effects and the love is that perfect combination.
Why do we seek love?
“Why our hands have the empty spaces between these fingers?” – asked my friend.
I laughed at her childish question.
“…because they need someone else’s hands which fit our hands to fill these spaces up to become full!”
Since my friend told me, whenever I look at my hands I remember his nice explanation!
Recently when I read “Symposium” by Plato, I have encountered a speech that makes me reminisce of those words again: Aristophanes’ speech.
Aristophanes began his speech by giving us a nice story about the nature of human beings at the beginning. Human beings, originally called as “androgynous”, were the combination between men and women. They had four hands, four legs, four ears, two faces, two sets of sexual organs (Plato, 473). Because their powerful strength to run riots threatened the Gods, the “androgynous” were separated into two individuals by Zeus as a punishment. Human beings then always need to live together to co-exist with the harsh environment or otherwise, they will “die from hunger and general idleness” (Plato, 474). Zeus also created the magic of reproduction when “the man in the woman” (Plato, 474). Love was formed since then.
This is really a nice story about the birth of love. Because each individual bears the wound in his body forever as the consequence of the Gods’ punishment, the wound will keep causing pain if he is not with someone else. Therefore, he needs to seek people to “heal the wound of human nature” (Plato, 474). This story helps me give the answer why people are depressed and upset when they are lonely. Come and unite together is the antidote for recovering the wound and live happily.
Aristophanes said: “Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete” (Plato, 476) give me a meaningful interpretation rather than the literary meaning when I first read it. Life is the endeavor to be better than yesterday. The existence of Love in the world, then, plays a significant role in our lives because Love helps to improve one’s personality. The power of love can create the perfectionists. People seek love because their desire of being perfect.
Love, therefore, is one of the most important goals that human beings attempt to seek for. Like my friend’s explanation about the existence of the empty spaces between our fingers, Aristophanes speech really inspires me to seek my own love!
Works Cited
Plato. The Symposium. Plato: The Complete Works. Ed. Cooper, John M. Cambridge: Hacker Publishing Co. 1997.
AUW's Interpreting Texts, Spring 2013 