The Symposium
by:
Plato (author)
Walter Hamilton (author)
Of all the Greek philosophers Plato (427-347 B.C.) was perhaps the greatest. The Symposium - a masterpiece of dramatic dialogue - is set at a dinner party to which are invited several of the literary celebrities of Athenian society. After dinner it is proposed that each member of the company...
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Of all the Greek philosophers Plato (427-347 B.C.) was perhaps the greatest. The Symposium - a masterpiece of dramatic dialogue - is set at a dinner party to which are invited several of the literary celebrities of Athenian society. After dinner it is proposed that each member of the company should make a speech in praise of love. A full discussion follows and the dialogue ends with a brilliant character sketch of Socrates by Alcibiades. Throughout Plate reveals, as few other authors have done, the beauty, power, and flexibility of Greek prose. --Back Cover
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780140440249 (0140440240)
Publish date: February 28th 1952
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Pages no: 122
Edition language: English
(Original Review, 2003-03-02)The problem for me is that philosophy is surely about ideas which are themselves constructed out of language. Dinosaurs, or evidence for them in the fossil record, are not linguistic constructs - but philosophical ideas would seem to be. If you're into stuff like thi...
You've really got to love the way Plato writes philosophy. Whereas everybody else simply writes what is in effect a work of non-fiction explaining some ideas, Plato seems to have the habit of inserting them into a story. Okay, he may not be the only philosopher that uses a story to convey his philos...
When I was a young man, I and my friends certainly had some strange conversations, possibly aided by some substances of questionable legality in certain countries, but we never quite managed to attain the heights of strangeness reached at this banquet/drinking party(*) held in 416 BCE when Socrates ...
Where the phrase "Platonic love" came from. Contains some of the most well-known ideas & arguments in classical Greek philosophy. I read the free Benjamin Jowett translation, & it's also sort of interesting to see how a Victorian attempted to "explain away" certain stuff in his "introduction".
I suppose one should read some Plato to be considered an educated person. I really want to be an educated person, but this is an example of a book I would never get around to reading if I weren't pushed by some situation outside of myself. In this case the push came from a book group of which I am ...
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