plato

• Aristotle - Disagreed with Plato’s ideas on the soul
• Brisson - “In short, because he considers that human beings are defined more by their soul than by their body, Plato is led, quite logically, to place women on the same level as men, from every viewpoint. This position, which was shocking or laughable in antiquity, has become the rule in our societies”
• Brown - “Plato believed that the abolition of the family would improve the cohesion of the society as a whole.”
• Brake - Plato has the unique view in the ancient world that there should be no family units. Marriages should be temporary and only for the sake of procreation
• Waterfield - “Socrates seems to have exercised self-restraint, and to have disapproved of the sexual side of homoerotic love.
• Dover - Eros is defined as not a desire for bodily contact, but a love of moral and intellectual excellence
• Hamilton - Considers Aristophanes’ speech to be one of Plato’s most brilliant literary achievements
• Ferrari - “Plato does not have a comprehensive theory of love."
• Krant - "Physical beauty is not to be treated as entirely without value”
• Waterfield - “One part of us sympathises with Alcibiades and his sorry tale of unrequited love; but then we remember that Socrates is meant to be our ideal and we disapprove of Alcibiades being so stubbornly erotic.”
• Waterfield - (About sex stopping us from ascending to the Forms): “This is the love that enslaves us.”
• Dodds - "Socrates does not wholly condemn couples who occasionally give in to their sexual urges.”
• Dover - In praising the ability to resist temptation to bodily pleasure, Plato was fully in accord with Greek moral tradition
• Jiminez - “Diotima engages with the previous speeches, and their parts contribute to her whole speech”
• Kraut - Diotima says nothing to suggest eros can be a destructive force in human relationships, and as our principal authority on love we are inclined to believe her
• Waterfield - Diotima's ladder is "blatantly fallacious”
• Dover - Pausanius speaks for Plato