Socrates View of Love
In The Symposium, Socrates addresses the grand question of “what is love” by stating that desire is the desire for immortality. The greatest fear in life is death, yet love instills in us a longing for the immortal. Desire is a transcendence of finitude, with the aim of human desire being to become like the gods, eternal and immortal. So, how does desire lead one to pursue immortality? The method is through procreation; desire gives one the impulse to reproduce and have offspring. But how does one procreate? There are two ways of procreation. One way is through physical means, where encountering a beautiful body inspires one to pursue them and have physical offspring together. Even if one dies, one’s genes continue in the offspring, achieving immortality in a physical sense.
Another way is through studying, which is what we call philosophy. Philosophy is the mother of all subjects; it is the basis of all subjects. Knowledge and thoughts are eternal, immortal. When we learn knowledge and study truth, we connect ourselves with these eternal ideas, which are immortal.
Socrates also mentioned something called the Ladder of Love.
Individuals are often dominated by their senses, falling in love with someone because of the beauty of their body. Over time, as one encounters more and more people whom they find attractive, they realize that each beautiful person shares a common beauty, which is the essence of beauty itself. Beautiful girls are everywhere. From there, one’s appreciation evolves from the beauty of individual bodies to the beauty of the soul. Once you reach the level of appreciating the beauty of the soul, the beauty of the body becomes less important. What you appreciate is not the body anymore, but the person as a soulful being.
Advancing further, one ascends to a point where they fall in love with the beauty of knowledge. When asking scholars who are deeply versed in their disciplines why they are so passionate about their field of study, they all respond that it is because their subject is beautiful. Mathematicians, for example, will say that they see beauty in mathematics, and their love for their field is driven by this aesthetic appreciation of knowledge.
The highest stage on the ladder of love is the love of beauty itself, which is the idea of beauty, knowledge about beauty, and the truth of beauty. The ultimate realm of desire is the love of truth, which is the love of wisdom.
Our love of knowledge is a higher-level love, no longer the simplest physical desire. Instead, it is the love of the rational, the love of the immortal. The offspring of this love will no longer be another body; instead, it is the soul, the beautiful things, the ideas, knowledge. Socrates’ soul is immortal in this sense. Only knowledge and truth can make people immortal. It is in the sense of loving wisdom that love can achieve human immortality.
The physical desires allow human beings to exist, while the desire for knowledge makes human existence meaningful and valuable. The best way to deal with the fear of death is to find something you truly love; the love of material is short-lived. I like women, but I don’t love them. What we should really love is knowledge, God, the immortal ideals, which will stand forever.
What philosophy truly teaches us is to love your life, which is the essence of humanity.
