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Plato's Symposium

In Our Time: Philosophy

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Plato's Symposium on Virtue

The dialogue's most centrally about Eros which is best translated as passionate love or desire but that takes us to a consideration of much broader ethical themes such as the nature of virtue and happiness in the dialogue. erotic relationships of the kind that are being discussed in this dialogue between an older male lover and a younger male beloved were not uncommon in the fifth and fourth centuries. The speakers present certain ideas about the nature of Virtue for example Phaedrus thinks heroic deeds on the battlefield are very important Agathan thinks that poetic expertise is very important and for Socrates intellectual virtue is prioritized. Each of them are concerned quite broadly with the sorts of things I think that one should advocate to the young as something worthy

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