The Symposium (Penguin Classics)

by N/A

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $4.36

  In this text Plato uses a dinner party as a scene for a series of speeches by the guests. From these there emerges a complete and complex philosophy of love. The pivot of the argument is Socrates' speech in which sensuality is transcended and we move from the sensible world to the ideal world. Just as the preceding speeches are vital to the theme and scheme of progression, so to is the character sketch of Socrates by Alcibiades which rounds off the dialogue.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.42

  In this text, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC at which the guests, including the poet Aristophanes and Plato's mentor, Socrates, each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of short speeches ends with Socrates' account of the views of Diotima, a propetess who taught him that love is man's means of trying to attain goodness. And then into the party bursts the drunken Alcibiades, the most popular and notorious Athenian of the time, who insists on praising Socrates himself rather than love, and gives a sketch of Socrates' own enigmatic character. Robin Waterfield is the translator of Plato's Philebus , Theaetus , Early Socratic Dialogues and The Republic , as well as Plutarch's Essays .

• New

  Paperback
  1980

  $30.97

  An edition of Plato's Symposium for students of Greek in universities and the upper forms of schools.