Mention Out Of Books The Symposium
| Title | : | The Symposium |
| Author | : | Plato |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Penguin Classics |
| Pages | : | Pages: 131 pages |
| Published | : | February 27th 2003 by Penguin Books (first published -380) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Classics. Nonfiction |
Plato
Paperback | Pages: 131 pages Rating: 4.04 | 39198 Users | 1428 Reviews
Ilustration Supposing Books The Symposium
A fascinating discussion on sex, gender, and human instincts, as relevant today as ever. In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts. The discussion culminates in a radical challenge to conventional views by Plato's mentor, Socrates, who advocates transcendence through spiritual love. The Symposium is a deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature of love--as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and as a means of ethical education. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Declare Books Conducive To The Symposium
| ISBN: | 0140449272 (ISBN13: 9780140449273) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Socrates (philosopher) |
| Setting: | Greece |
Rating Out Of Books The Symposium
Ratings: 4.04 From 39198 Users | 1428 ReviewsCrit Out Of Books The Symposium
The life of the party26 August 2015 You've really got to love the way Plato writes philosophy. Whereas everybody else simply writes what is in effect a work of non-fiction explaining some ideas, Plato seems to have the habit of inserting them into a story. Okay, he may not be the only philosopher that uses a story to convey his philosophical ideas, but he certainly stands out from his contemporaries, who simply wrote treatises. I've read a few of his works, and he always seems to structure it inLike many others before me, I dived right into this fully expecting only to understand the superficial parts of this ancient philosophy. This was one of the most interesting things I have ever read. I already knew that male homosexuality was accepted in Ancient Greece but it still blew my mind.
HEADLINE: This is priceless!When I was a young man, I and my friends certainly had some strange conversations, possibly aided by some substances of questionable legality in certain countries, but we never quite managed to attain the heights of strangeness reached at this banquet/drinking party(*) held in 416 BCE when Socrates was approximately 53 years old, once again the principal figure in this "dialogue" written by Plato between 12 and 15 years after Socrates' death by poisoning in 399 BCE.
It has been about 30 years since I attempted to read Plato, but this experience was a positive one for me. The Banquet is a relatively funny series of drunken dialogues on Love with Socrates present in his most sarcastic form. I enjoyed the interplay of the various speakers and the various concepts they batted around. One must, however, understand that the "love" that they are talking about is that between older and younger men and that the Greek society of the time was misogynistic in extremes
If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Non-Linguistic Constructs: "The Symposium" by Plato, Christopher Gill (trans.)(Original Review, 2003-03-02)The problem for me is that philosophy is surely about ideas which are themselves constructed out of language. Dinosaurs, or evidence for them in the fossil record, are not linguistic constructs - but philosophical ideas would seem to be.
In one of those strange literary coincidences this short treatise on Love by Plato has been referenced this past week in my reading of Barths The Friday Book and Hilton Alss White Girls. And for completely different reasons. I havent plunged head-first into White Girls just yet, so this is a great opportunity to pause and catch up on a work of antiquity.My copy of The Symposium is translated from the Greek by Percy Bysshe Shelley - he titles the work The Banquet of Plato rather than the more
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.