The Symposium -

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Résumé :
Set in ancient Athens, Symposium follows a group of philosophers attending a banquet and indulging in banter, squaring off in a friendly battle of speeches. Plato included Socrates as one of the characters, which is thought to be a criticism of Socrates and his philosophy as against the previous belief that it is a fitting tribute to his teacher. However, multiple traditional views of this book suggest the latter to be true. Considered one of Plato's most impactful works, Symposium was showered with heavy praise for the style of writing and philosophy. The men in this philosophical text are required to sing praises to Eros, the god of love, desire, and valour. While the book was written in dialogue form - a literary technique that Plato used in many of his works - he seems to have been lenient with its usage, especially since Socrates had a different approach to the topic at hand in this storyline. Symposium is viewed as a work of great importance in the philosophical tradition. It laid the foundation of the idea of 'Platonic Love' - one that transcends desire and sexual gratification. This particular edition of the book has been translated by Benjamin Jowett, who was a famed administrator, tutor, theologian, and reformer of his own times, and went on to translate many of Plato's dialogues from ancient Greek into English.

Biographie:
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347 BC) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought, and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the pivotal figure in the history of Ancient Greek and Western philosophy, along with his teacher, Socrates, and his most famous student, Aristotle.[a] Plato has also often been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality.[4] The so-called Neoplatonism of philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry influenced Saint Augustine and thus Christianity. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.[5] Plato was the innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy. Plato is also considered the founder of Western political philosophy. His most famous contribution is the theory of Forms known by pure reason, in which Plato presents a solution to the problem of universals known as Platonism (also ambiguously called either Platonic realism or Platonic idealism). He is also the namesake of Platonic love and the Platonic solids. His own most decisive philosophical influences are usually thought to have been along with Socrates, the pre-Socratics Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Parmenides, although few of his predecessors' works remain extant and much of what we know about these figures today derives from Plato himself.[b] Unlike the work of nearly all of his contemporaries, Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years.[7] Although their popularity has fluctuated over the years, the works of Plato have never been without readers since the time they were written