Abstract

Platonic eros is a desire that goes beyond love for an individual, being directed toward the world of ideas and culminating in the form of the good/beautiful. We are faced here with an asymmetrical relationship, where the lacking nature of the philosopher as a human being is juxtaposed to the self-sufficiency of the Good as a first principle. In his treatment of the relationships between human beings, however, Plato stresses the need of reciprocity by shaping a symmetrical relation, in which the roles of lover and beloved are closely intermingled. This confusion of roles is well exemplified in the figure of Socrates in the Symposium and in the other so-called erotic dialogues