What does 'platonic love' refer to?
I think it may have something to do with Socrates corrupting the youth by
refusing to sleep with them. Or, rather, than he consents to sleep with his
male admirers but then goes and does just that, snore snore, to the
consternation of his suitors. I think the relevant dialogues are the
Phaedrus and the Symposium. Particularly the Symposium. Both are a
discussion of the various loves, and both talk about the relation of these
to sex. Both also set this notion going about there being 'higher' love
than physical relations, which (to judge from the actions of the greek gods)
was not a very current idea at the time.
I'll bet that's where christianity get's it's mindset from too. Se
Augustine. Also C.S. Lewis 'The four loves'.
Yours Puzzled, E.
(Following a substance awareness course I note that both 'elephant' and
'horse' are colloquial terms for illegal powders. What can we do? Drop the
names? Mount a campaign for the reclamation of our tongue? Did we perhaps
start this usage unknowingly? Is any quadrapedal pseudonym safe? And the
quadrapeds?)
From: Enliten3@aol.com
Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 10:18:50 EDT
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: MD "friends"
Hey Folks:
It's somewhat of a colloquialism to refer to a male/female non-sexual
relationship as "Platonic". My incredible intellect leads me to believe
that
this may have something to do with Plato. What little I've read of Plato
has
never touched upon this derivative. In fact it seems as if Aristotle has
written more on the various types of friendshipsthan has Plato. Perhaps it
has somehting to do with the "forms" or "ideals"? I would venture to say
that 99.9% of the people who use this word have no idea of it's true source.
As I am still in that number, can someone enlighten me?
Clarke
P.S. Is it "Platonic" when she won't, but you want to?
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