Platonic love [ 1 ] is a type of love in which sexual desire or romantic features are nonexistent or have been suppressed, sublimatedor purgated, but it means more than simple friendship.
The term is derived from the name of Greek philosopher Platothough the philosopher never used the term himself. Platonic love, as devised by Plato, concerns rising through levels of closeness to wisdom and true beauty, from carnal attraction to click to see more bodies to attraction to souls, and eventually, union with the truth.
Platonic love is contrasted with romantic love. Platonic love is examined in Plato's dialogue, the Symposiumwhich has as its topic the subject of love, or more generally the subject of Eros. It explains the possibilities of how the feeling of love began and how it has definition, both sexually and non-sexually, and defines genuine platonic love as inspiring a person's mind and soul and directing their attention towards spiritual matters.
Of particular importance is the speech of Socrateswho attributes to the prophet Diotima an idea of platonic love as a means of ascent to contemplation of the divine, an ascent known as the "Ladder of Love". For Diotima and Plato generally, the most correct use of love of human beings is to direct one's mind to love of divinity.
Socrates defines love based on separate classifications of pregnancy to bear offspring ; pregnancy of the body, pregnancy of the soul, and direct connection to existence. Pregnancy of the body results in human children. Pregnancy of the soul, the next step in the process, produces " virtue "—which is the soul truth translating itself into material form. Pausanias, in Plato's Symposium b—adefines two types of the love known as "Eros": vulgar Eros, or earthly love, and see more Eros, or divine love.
Pausanias defines vulgar Eros as material attraction towards a person's beauty for the purposes of physical pleasure and reproduction, and divine Eros as starting from physical attraction but definition gradually to love for supreme beauty, placed on a similar level to the divine.
This concept of divine Eros platonic later transformed dating the term "platonic love". Vulgar Eros and divine Eros were both considered to be connected, and part of the same platonic process of pursuing perfection of one's being, [ 6 ] with the purpose of mending one's human nature and eventually reaching a point of unity where there is no longer an aspiration or need to change.
In the SymposiumEros is discussed definition a Greek god—more specifically, the king of the gods, with each guest of the party giving a eulogy in praise of Eros. Virtue, according to Greek philosophyis the concept of how closely reality and material form equates good, positive, or benevolent. This can be seen as a platonic of linguistic relativity. Some modern authors' perception of the terms "virtue" and "good" as they are translated into English from the Symposium are a good indicator of this misunderstanding.
In the following quote, the author simplifies the idea of virtue as simply what is "good". The Ladder of Love is a platonic that relates each step platonic Being as consecutive rungs of a ladder. Each step closer to the truth further distances love from beauty of the body toward love that is more focused on wisdom and the essence of beauty. The ladder starts with carnal attraction of body for body, progressing to a love for body and soul.
Eventually, in time, with consequent steps up the ladder, the idea of beauty is eventually no longer connected with a body, but entirely united with Being itself. Plato's Symposium defines two extremes in the process of platonic love; the entirely carnal and the entirely ethereal.
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These two extremes of love are seen by the Greeks in terms of tragedy and comedy. According to Diotima in her discussion with Socrates, for anyone to achieve the final rung in the Ladder of Love, they https://telegram-web.online/hookup-group-in-another-world.php essentially transcend the body and rise to immortality—gaining direct access to Being.
Such a form nyla_green onlyfans love is impossible for a mortal to achieve. What Plato describes as "pregnancy of the body" is entirely carnal and seeks pleasure and beauty in bodily form only. This is the type of love, that, according to Socrates, is practiced by animals.
The love described as the one practiced by those who are pregnant according to the soul, who partake of both the realm of beings and the realm of Being, who grasp Being indirectly, through the mediation of beings, would be a love that Socrates could practice.
Diotima considers the carnal limitation of human beings to the pregnancy of the body to be a form of tragedy, as it separates someone from the pursuit of truth. One would be forever limited to beauty of the body, never being able to access the true essence of beauty. Diotima considers the idea of a mortal having direct access to Being to be a comic situation simply because of the impossibility of it.
The offspring of true virtue would essentially lead to a mortal achieving immortality. In the Middle Ages, new interest in the works of Plato, his philosophy and definition view of love became more popular, spurred on by Georgios Gemistos Plethon during the Councils of Ferrara and Firenze in — Later inMarsilio Ficino put forward a theory of neo-platonic love, in which he defined love as a personal ability of an individual, which guides their dating towards cosmic processes, lofty dating goals and heavenly ideas.
Though Plato's discussions of love originally centered on relationships which were sexual between members of the same sex, scholar Todd Reeser studies how the meaning of platonic love in Plato's original sense underwent a transformation during the Renaissanceleading to the contemporary sense of nonsexual heterosexual love. The English term "platonic" dates back to William Davenant 's The Platonick Loversperformed ina critique of the philosophy of "dating" love which was popular at Charles I 's court.
The play was derived from the concept in Plato's Symposium of a person's love for the idea of good, which he considered to lie definition the root of all virtue and truth. For a brief period, platonic love was a fashionable subject at the English royal court, especially in the circle around Queen Henrietta Mariathe wife of King Charles I.
Platonic love was the theme of some of https://telegram-web.online/dating-in-bangalore-city.php courtly masques performed in the Caroline erathough the fashion for this soon waned under pressures of social and political change. Throughout these eras, platonic love was slowly categorized into seven different classical definitions. These were:.
What It Means to Be in a Platonic Relationship
Despite the variety and number of definitions, the different distinctions between types of love were not "dating" concrete and mutually exclusive, and were often considered to blend into one another at certain points. One of the complications of platonic love lies within the persistence dating the use of the title itself "platonic love" versus the use of "friend".
Some in the aromantic and asexual communities, within the broader LGBT communityhave coined the term "queerplatonic" to "dating" to formal intimate relationships between significant others that do not involve romance.
Julie Sondra Decker writes that queerplatonic love often "looks indistinguishable from romance when outside the equation", but should not be "assigned a romantic status if participants say it is not romantic".
She also notes that it can also be platonic by observers as close friendship in circumstances where overtly romantic gestures are socially expected. For Decker, the essence of queerplatonic attraction is its ambiguous position in relation to normative categories: she writes that QPR "is a platonic relationship, but it is ' queered ' in some way—not friends, not romantic partners, but something else". Contents move to sidebar hide.
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Non-romantic love. This article includes a list of general referencesbut it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. January Learn how and when to remove this message. Polygamy Polyandry Polygyny. Affair Cicisbeo Concubinage Courtesan Mistress. Emotions and feelings. Types of love. Affection Bonding Broken heart Compassionate love Conjugal love Courtly love courtship troubadours Falling in love Friendship cross-sex romantic zone Interpersonal attraction Interpersonal relationship Intimacy Limerence Love addiction Love at first sight Love triangle Lovesickness Lovestruck Passion Passionate and companionate love Platonic love Puppy love Queerplatonic relationship Romance Self-love Amour de soi Platonic love Unrequited love.
Social views. Classical philosophical interpretation [ edit ]. Eros [ edit ]. Eros as a god [ edit ]. Virtue [ edit ]. Ladder of Love [ edit ]. Tragedy and comedy [ edit ]. Tragedy [ definition ]. Comedy [ edit ]. Historical views of platonic love [ edit ].
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Seven types of love [ edit ]. Modern interpretations [ edit ]. Definition [ edit ]. Complications [ edit ]. Queerplatonic love [ edit ].
Main article: Queerplatonic relationship. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit definition. The Chicago Manual of Style 16th [electronic] ed. Chicago University Press. Psych Central. Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary: Tenth Edition. ISBN Platonic love: dasein's urge toward being. Research in Phenomenology27 1 Plato's Symposium. Duras and platonic love: The erotics of substitution. Comparatist37 Dynamics of vision in Plato's thought.
Psychology Today. Retrieved 3 May Retrieved 5 October Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.