Plato’s Symposium: Part 2 of 2 (including Socrates' Speech)

Plato's Symposium presents a series of speeches, each devoted to praising Eros, the Greek god of love and desire. Each account is beautiful but also deeply revealing, as each speaker interprets the nature of love through their own principled lens.

What lies at the heart of our highest praise for love? Why does Eros inspire such profound admiration across human experience?

In the final half of this two-part series, we discuss the final speeches through to the end, including Agathon, Socrates' account (via Diotima) featuring the 'ladder of love', and the dramatic intrusion of Alcibiades.

Assigned Reading For the full text, see this public-domain translation: Plato's Symposium (Project Gutenberg but there are many others online. I prefer audiobooks (especially the one from Ray Childs).

Optional: Leo Strauss has a helpful book on this dialogue that I definitely recommend.