Volume 64, Issue 3, September 2024
Thanassis Samaras
Pages 223-234
https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq202562255
Plato on Love in the Symposium and the Republic
The argument of this paper is that although in the Symposium Plato accepts pederasty as the most likely avenue to the only real love, love of the Form of Beauty, this acceptance is only instrumental. In the Republic, despite the fact that he acknowledges the strength of both homosexual and heterosexual desires in human beings, Plato promotes a model of affection among philosopher-rulers, who are both male and female, that does not involve any form of pederasty. This means that the difference between his position in these two dialogues and the outright rejection of pederasty in the Laws is smaller than what might be otherwise assumed.