What Is Love Essay - 796 Words

Challis Maxwell Philosophy 369 Due Monday Oct. 19th What is Love? According to Webster’s dictionary the word love is described as a strong, positive emotion of regard and affection. But in society today it seems as if we throw the word love around in such a loose manner it really has lost its meaning. Ranging from â€Å"I love Coach purses†, to actually telling a person â€Å"I love you† is now a common thing. Throughout this essay I’ll be taking a philosophical approach to help give a better understanding of what love is according to the speakers in the Symposium, and which conception of love I believe is most compelling. In the Symposium, each speaker decides to compose his own eulogy of Love. It all starts on page 9 with Eryximachus†¦show more content†¦I differentiate between the two as Common Love being a one night stand. There’s affection, passion, and eroticism, but there isn’t any emotional satisfaction. It’s like trying to fill some type of void that you’r e missing in your life. Heavenly Love on the other hand is that can’t eat, can’t sleep, heartache when you leave feeling that is truly undeniable. My favorite quote that defines this type of love is from the movie Wedding Crashers, â€Å"True love is your souls recognition of its counterpoint in another.† Each speaker looks at love in a mysterious and powerful way but with their own twist of ideas added to it. Love is Eros. Love is desire, essence, wholeness, beauty, and so much more according to all the speakers in the Symposium. Eryximachus speaks about how great and wonderful a god Love is, and how his power extends to all aspects of human and divine life. His way of understanding love is to compare it to medicine. And he says on page 19, â€Å"Medicine, in essence, is knowledge of the forms of bodily love as regards to filling and emptying.† I don’t find this argument the most compelling along the lines of breaking down the core concept of love but it helps give a clearer and somewhat more defined definition of what love is. The one statement that is in the Symposium that I agree with is the one spoken by Aristophanes on page 26. He simply puts it as â€Å"love is the name for the desire andShow MoreRelatedWhat Is Love? What It Is?1527 Words   |  7 PagesWhat is Love? When asked the question â€Å"What is Love?† what are some of the first things that come to mind? Some people might say it is an emotion that we experience when we interact with the world around us. People can have love for many things such as money and other material possessions, family and friends, even the world around them. These are just a few examples of how we often use love in our lives. 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