A virtuous circle

[Arturo_Munoz]

There is a scene in Plato in which Socrates and some friends get together at Agathon’s house for a small party. The wine flows freely, as do the innuendoes, and everyone gets sort of drunk (except for, apparently, Socrates who maintains an air of seriousness at all times, being the perennial party pooper). Well the question of what the nature of love is comes up and different responses are given, in turn by Phaedrus, Aristophanes and Agathon, amongst others and finally by Socrates himself, who, after demolishing everyone else’s argument in the characteristic fashion that ultimately got him killed for being such a bother, deigns to speak.

Socrates says that you can think of love as being separated into three ascending categories: love of the body, which is the lowest type; love of the spirit, which is higher up; and love of the Good, which is the highest. Being college students, and having hosted parties perhaps similar in style to the one that Socrates attended (although probably different in content, since we don’t have Socrates or [Insert playwright’s name here] there), we are probably pretty familiar with what Socrates meant by love of the body. I am not an ancient philosophy expert (it is probably my weakest suit) but I want to say that by love of the body Socrates meant a love of physical forms, something that we might today call sexual attraction, although the word eros is more complex. Someone who loves the body might think that loving someone means having lots of sex.

The love of the spirit, or, if I interpret correctly, the love of the mind, is probably rarer in our community, although not unheard of. I say it is rarer in general because it takes a certain level of intellectual maturity to be able love someone else’s mind. It is not uncommon to hear someone say that they love someone for their mind. Many a confused person in a college relationship probably resorts to this type of vaguery because it sounds sort of convincing, sort of like the right thing to say so that one’s significant (or insignificant) other feels less objectified. But the Socratic meaning of love of the mind probably needs that one *know* the mind to be loved, something that seems if not impossible, then definitely something of a life’s journey.

The third and final type of love is the love of the Good, which Christian theologians have interpreted to be the love of God, agape. It is difficult to know exactly what this means since the concept is completely abstract. I think the best way to visualize it is that whoever loves the Good loves things as and in the way they truly are. Plato (via Socrates) says that all things participate in the Good, which is the highest form. Thus to love the Good, is in a sense to love everything, or to love that in which everything participates most highly.

This doesn’t quite answer “what is love”, in my opinion. It simply disambiguates what we mean by ‘love’ so that we can be sure that we are talking about the same thing. The question now isn’t ‘what is love’ but rather, ‘what is love of the body’, ‘what is love of the spirit’, ‘what is love of the Good’? And these have definitive answers (or more definitive answers): Love of the body is sexual attraction as commonly understood; love of the spirit is an abstract notion that sometimes includes love of the body, but also includes a love of the way that another person functions or thinks, it is basically love of a kindred mind; love of the Good is the most abstract notion of all and it is to love everything in the way that it truly is. Now, anyone who has been paying attention will notice that the word *love* occurs in the explanations. Call it a virtuous circle.