Abstract

This dissertation investigates current feminist arguments about the concept and value of "eros" and attempts to evaluate and advance these arguments by making use of Plato's extensive writing on eros and other forms of desire. ;The dissertation begins by examining recent feminist contentions that negative understandings of and approaches to eros play a key role in creating the problems of Western cultures, and that, correspondingly, a revaluation of eros holds the promise of bringing about a better social world. I locate the foundation of these claims in the feminist idea that relationships to eros shape structures of power, in ways that can be either oppressive or liberating. I take the position that there is value in exploring the potential life-affirming power of a broadly-conceived desire, but that existing arguments greatly oversimplify the issue of desire. In particular, feminist writers have not adequately addressed questions of our potential to desire harmful things; rather, they idealize eros as an inherently good force. As a result, much of the feminist writing about eros is weaker than it might be. ;In the second part of the dissertation I employ a reading of three of Plato's dialogues, the Republic, the Symposium, and the Phaedrus, to help strengthen feminist thought about eros. By taking these dialogues together, I argue, we can see how Plato calls attention to precisely this tension between the beneficial and harmful possibilities of desire. Plato highlights the question of the relationship between desire and "the good," and brings in models of the relationship between reason and desire to address this question. After exploring some obstacles entailed in employing Plato's philosophy to speak to contemporary feminism, I contend that while feminists cannot answer questions about the value of desire in the specific ways that Plato did, we would do well to emulate Plato in asking such questions. ;The final argument of the dissertation is that feminists who want to theorize about the value of eros need to talk about reason as well as desire; indeed, we need to talk most of all about the intricate relationship between reason and desire