Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Love is the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
Plato · Platonism · Ancient · c. 385 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is Aristophanes's myth: humans were split from a double body, and love is the longing to be restored to that lost whole. A competing reading points out that Socrates, later in the same dialogue, replaces this with a ladder toward beauty itself, so the line is a memorable speech, not the dialogue's last word. It sits in Symposium 189c–193d. The comic poet is explaining sexual desire, including same-sex pairs, by a story of punishment and search.
Did Plato really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Aristophanes's speech in the Symposium, not Socrates's later account. The English is close to Benjamin Jowett's rendering of 192e–193a, where the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
Where it comes from
Symposium 192e
Approximate date: c. 385 BCE.
How to use it
The feeling that a relationship should complete you, that the other person is the missing half of an ordinary week, is the modern shape of his joke. It can be tender, and it can load one person with the job of finishing your life. Aristophanes is diagnosing the hunger, and he is not proving that a partner can be your other half in a literal sense.
A mindset reading
The habit is to remember who is speaking and what comes after. A beautiful account of longing can be placed in a dialogue in order to be surpassed. Ask whether 'the whole' means another person, or, on Socrates's later speech, a good the lovers do not yet know how to name.
Understand the philosophy
Aristophanes is answering why love feels like a need rather than a pastime. His key image is the circular humans Zeus cut in two, so that eros is the pursuit of one's other half. The whole, holon, is that lost original. Socrates will soon recast love as a desire to possess the good forever, with Diotima as his teacher, and the comedy remains the speech people remember.
- love
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is Aristophanes's myth: humans were split from a double body, and love is the longing to be restored to that lost whole. A competing reading points out that Socrates, later in the same dialogue, replaces this with a ladder toward beauty itself, so the line is a memorable speech, not the dialogue's last word. It sits in Symposium 189c–193d. The comic poet is explaining sexual desire, including same-sex pairs, by a story of punishment and search.
Did Plato really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Aristophanes's speech in the Symposium, not Socrates's later account. The English is close to Benjamin Jowett's rendering of 192e–193a, where the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
Which work is it in?
Symposium 192e Approximate date: c. 385 BCE.