What is platonic love? It is a term of frequent use in popular vocabulary to refer to an impossible or inaccessible love. Despite the adjective “platonic”, which links expression to Plato’s philosophical vision, we will see that this philosopher’s postulates on love actually followed another line of thought.
We know that love has always been a subject that has aroused many thoughts and opinions, has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for many poets, writers, thinkers and philosophers since time was recorded. well-known ancient Greek philosopher called Plato spoke on the same subject.
- Plato was a Greek philosopher who was a disciple of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle.
- Was he responsible for many studies and texts.
- Including? The banquet?And the “myth of the cave.
- ” In the first title.
- Plato developed his conception of love.
- Which is the basis of the concept of platonic love in its later definition.
Love of Plato is a motivation that leads us to know and contemplate beauty itself, however the contemplated beauty follows the principles of dualism, which is one of the pillars that underpin its entire philosophy. This philosophical current? Dualism is based on the theory that reality is made up of two independent substances that can never be mixed: mind and matter.
These two substances can come together, but not mix, Plato considered that the human being was composed of a soul and a body, to which the soul belonged in terms of ideas and body on the material plane, so that the soul coexists with the body. , where he’s actually trapped. These are two independent realities.
From this philosophical conception, Plato developed his concept of love. Misunderstood by many, the idea that platonic love offered abstention, spiritual love, even when it never happened and never happened. The love proposed by this philosopher is in fact on an intermediate path between this concept and carnal love. He avoids promiscuity, but also abstinence, because for him morality means moderation.
The great number of uses, meanings and feelings included in this concept makes the task of defining it almost impossible, so one of the essential characteristics of love is that it is a universal concept that implies a myriad of meanings and refers to affection between beings. .
In Portuguese, the word love covers many different feelings. It ranges from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the asexual closeness of family love. It also includes deep devotion to religious love and affection for friends.
No matter what kind of love we are talking about, the emotions present are always quite powerful, if we wanted to catalog these emotions we could classify them as irresistible, making it impossible to escape love, it is a feeling that acts as an important facilitator of interpersonal relationships, is a source of inspiration for the arts and object of study for psychology.
“What is done out of love goes beyond good and bad. “-Friedrich Nietzsche-
The adjective “platonic”, incorporated into the concept of love, refers to the doctrine of this Greek philosopher. Plato, in Socrates’ speech, stresses that love is a motivation or impulse that leads us to try to know and contemplate beauty itself. eternal, intelligible, perfect forms or ideas that go beyond the physical beauty we can appreciate?but it doesn’t rule it out.
In other words, for this philosopher, love is born of the desire to discover and admire beauty, the process begins when someone appreciates physical beauty and then advances towards spiritual beauty, with a pure, passionate and detached admiration of the essence of beauty as one more. Advanced stage.
Thus, platonic love in itself is not an inaccessible or impossible love, this has to do with a love that transcends the limits of physical beauty and is therefore difficult to achieve, there are no sexual elements as we know them simply because authentic love for Plato is not what is directed towards a person, but directs him towards the essence that transcends beauty itself.
At work? Plato’s concept is as follows
According to Plato, in the face of beauty comes in us love, which can be defined as the impulse or determination that impels us to know and contemplate, is a series of phases that are given gradually, each type having a particular type of beauty:
This last stage is characterized by the knowledge of beauty in a passionate and therefore selfless and pure way for Plato, who glimpses a feeling that does not become corrupted or changes over time, so it is not an impossible love in itself, but enough. appreciate perfect, intelligible and eternal ideas and forms.
The phrase “Platonic Love” was first used by Marsilio Ficino in the 15th century. The concept was made from the concept that platonic love was a love focused on the beauty of the person’s character, his intelligence and not his physique. However, it is a love present only in the world of ideas, in which it is considered perfect and incorruptible.
According to Plato, it is not really possible to attain the purity of this feeling because love is not based on interests, but on virtue, and this is not achieved in our world, that is, would it be perfect love, and is it?Perfection itself an illusion in the real world?Is there nothing perfect: because this can only be possible in a world of ideas and virtues, which differs from our material world.
To simplify the idea, we can say that what we mean by platonic love is what is idealized, transcends the body and therefore does not even include sexual desire. In colloquial language, platonic love is described as the romantic feeling felt for a person. which for some reason is not achievable, so this love also does not include sexual connection.
In this sense, the expression is parallel to what the philosopher says about love, yet it speaks only of a small part of plato’s conception of love, and of the wrong means to achieve the same end. expression in a frequently used and familiar error.
According to Plato, beauty is equal to the right, the good and the true, so love seeks and needs the beautiful, the just, the good and the true to drive it away; In short, platonic love alludes to the task of seeking and finding the part of the soul that we lack in another, but a person who becomes for us the representation of all that is good, beautiful, true and just.
Therefore, platonic love is not really an impossible or inaccessible love, it is a path, a means, which of course can include the sexual, but it is not the central point, you can generate a body, you can fertilize a body, but it is more than that, it means falling in love with ideas, the soul of another being, with or without exclusion or physical and sexual inclusion , goes beyond all this by transcending the matter from which we are made.