Insights from Plato on Love, Beauty, and the Human Condition
Jesse Bluma at Pointe Viven. All rights reserved.
It is remarkably easy to drift along unexamined zeitgeists [zahyt-gahysts], curating digital facades, pursuing superficial validation, and allowing raw impulse to dictate the rhythm of life. Yet this habit is far from novel. Thousands of years ago, in the city-state of Athens, a community of roughly a quarter of a million people featuring fine public baths, theatres, temples, vibrant shopping arcades, and bustling gymnasiums, citizens grappled with the same human condition. Plato stands out among the great thinkers of the time that worked to protect self-government through the power of beauty and goodness.
It was within this setting that Plato, born into one of Athens’s most prominent and wealthy families, dedicated his life to helping human beings achieve eudaimonia, a Greek term denoting deep fulfilment or human flourishing. A devoted student of Socrates, Plato composed thirty-six dialogues, including The Republic, The Symposium, The Laws, The Meno, and The Apology. Plato' s philosophy takes the abstract and turns it into an urgent, executive functioning, and a practical tool for mastery and cultural health, and wellness.
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True Love is Mutual Transformation
In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato presents a model of romance. He contends that love is rooted in an active, admiring pursuit of moral and intellectual growth, "True love is admiration."
According to Plato, we are drawn to a romantic partner because we recognize in them essential virtues that we ourselves lack, be it courage, executive organization, or profound warmth and sincerity. By forming an intimate bond with such an individual, we create a relationship in which those missing qualities can be absorbed and cultivated over time. As Plato stated in The Symposium, "According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, it is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, it is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.”
Consequently, a healthy Platonic partnership rejects static complacency. A couple must commit to educating one another, navigating the unavoidable "stormy passages" that authentic personal transformation entails. True partnership is an active, generous habit, a shared endeavor in which each partner encourages the other into becoming a nobler, more outstanding person. As Plato promulgated, normal and typical is not the aim. Individuals and married couples must apply the lessons to grow, learn, and become better than normal. That is Plato's ongoing cultivation of excellence.
The Quest
To account for humanity’s intense, lifelong hunger for connection, Plato’s Symposium features a famous origin myth delivered by Aristophanes. In primeval times, Aristophanes explains, human nature was divided across three distinct sexes: male (descended from the sun), female (descended from the earth), and the androgynous race (descended from the moon, combining male and female traits).
These original humans were spherical, possessing four arms, four legs, two identical faces set in opposite directions. They moved with formidable agility, tumbling rapidly on all eight limbs. Intoxicated by their physical features and immense vigor, they grew excessively proud and attempted to scale the heavens to assault the gods.
To humble humans without annihilating the species, which would deprive the divine of sacrifices and worship, Zeus devised an ingenious punishment. Zeus sliced each human being in half, "just like those who cut sorb-apples in preparation for pickling, or those who cut eggs with hairs." Apollo was instructed to turn their faces toward their wounds, draw the skin together at the belly like a drawstring bag, and tie it off at what is now called the navel, leaving a few stomach wrinkles as an enduring reminder of their ancient affliction.
Ever since this cosmic division, each halved human has spent its life yearning for its lost counterpart. When two halves reunite, they are overcome by a profound spell of intimacy, affection, and belonging, desiring to fuse back into a singular entity. As Plato summarizes, eros is ultimately "the desire and pursuit of the whole", an innate drive to mend our fractured nature through profound union. This ancient allegory remains foundational food for thought.
Great Political Theories V.1: A Comprehensive Selection of the Crucial Ideas in Political Philosophy from the Greeks to the Enlightenment available on Amazon.
Philosophy and Emotion
Plato’s primary mandate for achieving human flourishing begins with an imperative: "Think more." Most people spend their lives governed by what the ancient Greeks termed doxa, popular opinion or unexamined common sense. Across his dialogues, Plato systematically demonstrates that popular cultural axioms, such as "fame brings happiness," "always follow your heart," or "wealth is the cornerstone of a good life", are riddled with prejudice, delusion, and illogic.
To liberate oneself, Plato framed philosophy as an essential practice. Left unexamined, human emotions operate like a team of wild horses, dragging the individual recklessly along by raw impulse. Cultivating knowledge provides the steady internal reins required to prevent undisciplined feelings from steering life off course.
This discipline is best conducted through Socratic inquiry. Whether pursued through self-reflection, metacognition (thinking about one’s thinking), or in conversation with an expert, teacher, or professor, the Socratic method subjects beliefs to logical examination, public transparency and input from various perspectives, enabling us to govern our choices by reason rather than unexamined impulse.
Great Political Theories V.1: A Comprehensive Selection of the Crucial Ideas in Political Philosophy from the Greeks to the Enlightenment available on Amazon.
Beauty
Plato analyzed why human beings are captivated by visual beauty. His conclusion bridges aesthetics and moral psychology: beautiful objects whisper vital truths about the good life. We instinctively deem things beautiful when we sense in them qualities that our own inner psyche lacks, such as balance, gentleness, harmony, peace, and strength. Beautiful aesthetic forms perform a significant function, helping to re-balance and align our souls.
Conversely, Plato regarded ugliness as a genuine hazard. Ugliness parades damaged, chaotic, and discordantly aggressive traits before us, making it significantly harder to remain calm, kind, and wise. For Plato, surrounding oneself with intentional aesthetic forms is far from an idle luxury; it is vital for individual and civic health.
This insight sheds light on how contemporary readers curate their everyday environments. From architecture to interior design, from the objects on our desks to the media we consume, our visual choices act as subtle acts of quality living. We absorb the qualities of what we choose to look at and choose to focus on in our lives. As Plato noted in The Symposium, “love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good”.
At the same time, in The Republic, Plato promoted the habit of having clear eyes regarding art. He warned that traditional imitative art often contents itself with mimicking mere appearances rather than ultimate realities, distracting the mind from truth. In his ideal state, imitative art that encouraged wild emotions was to be strictly regulated. Plato insisted that creators, whether ancient poets and painters or modern novelists, designers, corporate executives, clergy, and media producers, carry a profound moral duty to make works that actively help citizens live harmonious, virtuous lives.
The writings of Plato demonstrate he was an early intellectual pioneer of democratic ideals who championed the defense of self-governance through aesthetics and virtue. His Symposium illustrates concepts of divine beauty and describes love as a thoughtful seeking of wisdom and goodness. For instance, the ancient sculpture known as the Terme Boxer exemplifies profound cultural impact of physical and artistic beauty in ancient Rome.
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The Terme Boxer embodies Plato’s ideas regarding the power and influence of beauty in culture. Found on Quirinal Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, "Some have identified him as the Boxer of Quirinal, who won at Olympia for the first time in 336 B.C. following a grueling career of continuous defeats. Others say he is Polydamas, an athlete of legendary strength who was born in Tessaglia and then called to the court of Persia by Darius II. Yet others call him a historic figure or a heroic mythical one" (Tinti).
The statue's power lies in his enigmatic expression, which leaves it unclear whether the boxer is victorious, defeated, or merely a grateful survivor. This uncertainty forces viewers to contemplate the violence of Roman sport and the tenacity of human nature.
Society Needs Character
As a utopian political philosopher, Plato reflected deeply on society. Drawing inspiration from Athens’ rival, Sparta, a city organized like a military machine to produce formidable warriors. Plato redirected this focus toward a higher purpose: designing a culture that produces fulfilled, morally outstanding citizens. In The Symposium, Plato questioned, "what if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,...the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;...would that be a life to disregard?”
In The Republic, Plato expressed immense frustration with Athenian society’s idolization of the wealthy (such as the louche aristocrat Alcibiades) and sports celebrities (such as the famed boxer Milo of Croton). He recognized that a culture’s chosen heroes subtly dictate public conduct, and that elevating flawed figures bestows glamour upon character defects. This analysis is an evergreen lesson, where celebrity culture routinely amplifies superficiality, narcissism, and moral turbulence, elevating allure and mystique over character.
Plato proposed replacing empty celebrities with "Guardians", wise, public-spirited individuals distinguished by modesty, simple habits, wide experience, and a total disdain for the public limelight. These Guardians would serve as living models for public emulation. Furthermore, observing how few voters engage in rational reflection before casting ballots, Plato argued against demagoguery and mob rule. He advocated for leaders to think rationally as philosophers, encapsulating his political vision in a famous declaration: "The world will not be right until kings become philosophers or philosophers kings."
Platonic Thinking
Underlying Plato's philosophy is idealism. Plato viewed philosophy as the way to heal individual souls and tend to culture. From his ideas of romantic love as mutual moral development to his political insights and aesthetic values, his works challenge us to abandon unexamined habits and live with intent. That is why, in ancient times, Plato’s birthday (Platoneia) was a celebrated event. In the era of the Renaissance, the Platonic Academy of Florence celebrated him during November.
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Plato’s teachings are an invitation for self-examination of routines. To thoughtfully select our romantic partnerships, live in healthy civic spaces, and promote outstanding cultural icons. If we treat our communities as gardens for the soul, and our romantic bonds as commitments to mutual transformation, our daily lives will be elevated.
Bibliography
Google LM.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). https://iep.utm.edu/plato/
Meinwald, Constance C.. "Plato". Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato.
Plato, Symposium, translated by Seth Benardete.pdf.
The Boxer: An ancient masterpiece comes to the Met - The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (n.d.). https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/the-boxer
The Getty Museum. Getty Museum. (n.d.). https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/power_pathos/
YouTube. (n.d.). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDiyQub6vpw
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