PLATO’S EROTIC THOUGHT

This work is an attempt to understand the nature of the object of Eros in Plato’s writings. In the first chapter certain considerations based on a passage in Plato’s Symposium lead to a discovery and characterization of the nature of that object and several of its features. Then it is realized that the chief problem or mystery about the nature of the object of Eros is how it arises. The book then explores the Lysis and the Phaedrus, which both address how the object arises, in two different ways, the Socratic and the Platonic. Alfred Geier is associate professor of religious and classical studies, University of Rochester.