Midterm Essay 2

Write a 3-page (approximately 1,200 word) essay on the following topic. The essay is due in hard copy on Monday, November 27.

What are the mysteries of love in Socrates’ speech in The Symposium (be specific) and what is their relation to Plato’s theory of forms? Refer to the reading without quoting at length.

Note: Plato often uses the expression “the X itself” in order to refer to the form of X. For example, “the beautiful itself” is the form of the beautiful. Remember that, for Plato, the form is eternal, perfect, unitary (there is only one form of any given kind), and available to pure thought. On the other hand, particular things are temporal (caught up in time), imperfect, multiple (there are many of them), and available to the senses. Plato has different ways of expressing the relationship between forms and particulars. He says that a form is illustrated by its particulars (e.g., the form of the beautiful is illustrated by particular beautiful things); that particulars participate in the form (e.g., particular beautiful things participate in the form of the beautiful); and that the form causes the characteristic a particular thing possesses that makes it what it is (e.g., the form of the beautiful causes the beauty that is present in particular beautiful things). Plato also has additional ways of referring to forms. The form of X, the X itself, being X, and Xness all mean the same thing (e.g., the form of the odd, the odd itself, being odd, and oddness).

Plato also tries to demonstrate that there is a highest form, a form of all forms, a “what it means to be a form.” He names the highest form The One, The Good, and Absolute Beauty. Every form is one form rather than many, good in the sense of perfect, and beautiful since it is an object of desire, at least for those who love wisdom. This means that every form illustrates or participates in the highest form of The One, the Good, and Absolute Beauty.