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In Plato's Symposium, Diotima, lover and teacher of Socrates, defines beauty as the object of every love's yearning when she talks about Eros, personification of desire, procreation and generation of new life. According to Diotima, Eros is the son of Resource (father) and Poverty (mother). The antithesis of his parents made Eros a very contradictory God. Because of the qualities he inherited from his mother, Eros is a homeless, cruel beggar. At the same time, after the characteristics he got from his father, he is a brave, noble and glorious warrior. Diotima likened Eros to philosophers (= lovers of wisdom). Similarly to philosophers who live between ignorance and wisdom, Eros lives between ugliness and beauty. Diotima argues that wise humans and Gods, as well as the ignorants cannot be philosophers; the first because they already possess knowledge and the latter because they don’t care about it. Philosophers seek for wisdom, yet if they ever reached absolute knowledge they would no longer be able to love it. Likewise, if absolute beauty could ever be found a lover would no longer be able to crave for it. |