How to Understand Platonic Love or Friendship

By far the most common usage of the word "Platonic" or "platonic" outside of philosophy circles is when it's referring to a friendship or relationship. Within the discipline of philosophy, "Platonic" generally is the adjectival form of Plato, thus pointing us directly toward him or any of his doctrines. But in day-to-day lingo, when someone says "platonic," what they're usually doing is setting it up as a contrast to sexual. Note that in philosophy or other academia, "Platonic" is generally capitalized, whereas in the popular usage to which we shall be referring, it's often signaled as such by taking the lower case.

The following is the third definition of Platonic (platonic) listed in a dictionary.

"(usually lowercase) purely spiritual; free from sensual desire, esp. in a relationship between two persons of the opposite sex."

In this article you will learn one way in which this popular usage of "platonic" relates to the scholarly usage of "Platonic". We shall be referring to Plato's "Symposium", which is one of the most famous works on love ever written.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copy of Plato's "Symposium" helpful but not necessary ( see "Resources" below).

1. Learn the Background of Plato's "Symposium"
   
   Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher born around 428 B.C. who died around 347 B.C. He wrote dozens of dialogues, in which Socrates usually played the starring role. One such dialogue is the "Symposium".
   
   In the "Symposium", outside of the city gates of Athens, a banquet is held in which there is much drinking and speech-giving (symposium means literally "a drinking together," and when we studied Plato's "Symposium" in my Senior Seminar, we drank wine). Several VIP participants deliver encomiums/encomia (speeches of praise) about Love (capitalized as a god). Among the encomiasts is Socrates, and in his speech he recalls his teacher of love, a priestess/prophetess named Diotima, and what she taught him of love. This forms the body of his encomium.

2. Learn What the Ascent Passage Means
   
   Socrates' account of Diotima's teaching is often referenced as "the ascent passage" of the "Symposium." This is because the teaching is one of upward movement (ascent) from base or vulgar love toward higher love. This is also often referred to as "Diotima's ladder."

3. Start the Ascent
   
   Begin with the love of a particular body.

4. Move to the Love of ALL beautiful bodies, a generalization.

5. Ascend to the Soul.
   
   Love the soul more than bodies (as souls are eternal and bodies are ephemeral). This is the step that probably best describes our popular understanding of "platonic love" or the "platonic relationship." Today we might often say, instead of soul, that one loves the other's mind or heart. In fact, the word "psyche" (directly derived from the Greek), which today we often associate with mind alone meant something closer to "soul" to the ancient Greeks.

6. Learn the Love That's Even Higher
   
   The top rungs on Diotima's ladder take us to even greater generality and abstraction. She moves us toward the love of knowledge, and through this toward the love of Beauty as an entire concept rather than beauty in its particular manifestions. The word "Beauty" is capitalized in that in this broadest sense, it is one of what Plato calls the "Forms"; it's the timeless, ideal essence of beauty, that which all particular things beautiful possess. We then end up with the Platonic equation: the True = the Good = the Beautiful.

7. Conclude
   
   So then, we can see one reason why our popular usage of "platonic" refers to the non-sexual or non-bodily and toward a more spiritual type of love or friendship.

Tips & Warnings

• Please see my eHow article "How to Understand Plato's Forms." Link below under "Resources."
• As with any famous figures, just because Plato or Socrates says it, doesn't make it automatically true.

Resources

• Symposium Text
• eHow to Understand Plato's Forms

[MidniteWriter]

on 1/2/2008 so sad that we use love in this culture to describe things that are so different. Americans are terrible at this! They equate love with sex!! It was never intended to be that way.
The greeks really describe love the best. Thanks for this article.