Why Love Is Immortal

The symposium presents a set of cases for love. Different views of love are being expressed, in a variety of ways to think. In comparing Diotima’s influenced Socrates’ views on love and Pausanias’ views we find two completely different ways of thinking. Diotima seems to make a much stronger case and many would agree that she might have even just made the best case for love on the night. Although Pausanias thinks of love in more direct realistic way, it seems to be too narrow minded and flat. Pausanian Puts love in a perspective of man and women. The sexual attraction, which we find as lust, is referred to as common love, while love as we know based on deep attractions, going beyond the physical aspect, rather a connect coming from the soul is referred to as heavenly love. In a different direction points Diotima her argument for love. She looks at love as a desire, an innate need for achieving things. She points out happiness as a key, wether it be one’s own happiness or someone that they care for happiness, it’s the same concept. Immortality, the desire to forever live through something. Physically through reproduction, or mentally through learning and education. She sees everyone as a lover, anyone who takes any action in seek of immortality is a lover. In the symposium, Socrates informs the guests that he had sought out Diotima of Mantinea for her knowledge. Diotima then asks Socrates why Love is love of beautiful things or of loving good things. Socrates replies that Love is the desire for things to become one’s own so that one will be happy. Diotima put love in the simplest for she possibly can, “In a word, then love is wanting to possess the good forever” (pg 52). It seems that Socrates agrees with Diotima that everyone always wants good things and happiness to be theirs forever. They explain that, in fact, everyone is a lover, but we only call certain people lovers. We only seem to call a certain “class of people” lovers. This is similar to the fact