The Symposium

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‘We who are here assembled cannot do better than honour the god Love’

At an elite Athenian drinking party in 416 BCE, a group of friends take their turn to speak in praise of Eros, god of love. At this symposium the guests, including statesmen, playwrights, poets and Plato’s teacher, the famed philosopher Socrates, discuss love’s role in beauty, virtue, immortality, and shaping the world they live in.

Plato’s deft retelling weaves together myth, drama and philosophy in search of deeper understanding of love. Held up as an example of the Socratic Method, central to the development of western thought, teaching and debate, The Symposium went on to shape philosophy for centuries to come.

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About the author

One of the most influential and renowned Green philosophers, Plato wrote on topics spanning politics, mathematics, aesthetics and ethics. A student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy in Athens, which is considered the Western world’s first institution of higher learning.