Question

Question based on Plato's Symposium

Near the end of the Symposium, in her exchange with Socrates, Diotima poses the following question:

"But how would it be, in our view,” she said, “if someone got to see the Beautiful itself, absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or colors or any other great nonsense of mortality, but if he could see the divine Beauty itself in its one form?"*

Question: In your considered opinion (having read the entire dialogue), what kind of experience does Diotima seem to be referring to when she talks about seeing "the Beautiful itself”?

instructions:

minimum length requirement between 200 and 225 words.

Answer 1

Diotima, by the phrase, "Beauty itself" refers to the form of beauty which is absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or colors or mortality. The form of beauty is the very concept of beauty. These forms are absolute, immortal, unchanging and not admitting of their opposites.

She says that all things which we claim to be beautiful, are actually beautiful because they participate in the form of beauty. It is the essence of beauty, "the beautiful itself", which makes all beautiful things, beautiful.

This form of beauty could be experienced by the lover of knowledge's ascent toward beauty. This ascent is one of increasing generalization where one's love of beauty ends up embracing a lot of things.