Love and Beauty in Plato's Symposium: 'Only in the Contemplation of Beauty is Human Life Worth Living'
Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center 919 West Illinois Street Urbana
This lecture takes three ideas from Socrates' famous speech on love (eros) in Plato's Symposium and advances them as providing a plausible contemporary understanding of beauty: first, love desires to possess beauty; second, love desires to 'give birth' in beauty's presence; and third, love drives lovers to place beauty in ever broader contexts. These ideas bear remarkable similarities to Nietzsche's views on beauty and illuminate the importance of beauty as a value in the general economy of life.
This presentation keynotes the conference Life, the Universe, Everything—and More: Plato's Timaeus Today held September 13–16.
Hosted by: Department of Philosophy, Department of the Classics
In conjunction with: more than forty-five campus units and community organizations are supporting this presentation.
Professor