Plato's Symposium describes a convivial drinking party where the celebrants agree to drink moderately and, rather, to become intoxicated by their accounts of eros; is, perhaps, Plato's most well-known dialogue. Included are Aristophanes' account of how the gods cut humans in half and the "erotic " effort to find our other half and return to our original wholeness.
Socrates describes the "ladder of love ", erotic desire ascending from the particular object to the universal. We will examine the accounts provided by each of the seven main speakers.
We will also note the comparison and contrast with the Symposium written by Xenophon many years later.
