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CMV - “platonic love” does not mean “non-romantic” (lemm.ee)

submitted 6 months ago by loopy@lemm.ee to c/humanities

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/32338762

…or at least only non-romantic love. I’m learning about history of western philosophy and understand that Plato’s Symposium describes his theory on love and that a person initially desires physical love, but then eventually grows to love things that feel fulfilling, and eventually love the ideal form of beauty itself. It seems like more of a spectrum/progression that includes romantic/physical love, not abstaining from it. “Platonic love” would seem to include physical love and doesn’t seem consistent with the dictionary definition of “friendship love.”

Any thoughts on that?

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[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 8 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's quite simple. This person is committing the etymological fallacy. A word's meaning today does not have to be exactly equivalent to its meaning in the past, or to the words it evolved out of.

But even in Plato's depiction of love I don't think they've quite got it right. "that includes romantic/physical love" seems to be conflating romantic love with carnal attraction, which is pretty strongly not what Plato was about.

[–] loopy@lemm.ee 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I agree, meanings change throughout time. I guess I should have asked should it mean something different? To say platonic love only means non-romantic seems like it belittles the richer meaning of Plato’s views of love as being able to love a passion or eventually beauty itself. How do fully realize to love the concept of beauty itself without first experiencing romantic love? I don’t think a person needs to experience romantic love to experience beauty initially, but to achieve the most developed version of love that Plato describes, how could a person appreciate that without experiencing it?

Reading more about Plato’s thoughts about love, I think I understand what you mean; most of what he described was about the love of questioning and thought. I guess I’m just trying to read between the lines that even if Plato did not value romantic love as highly, is it not a part of “beauty itself”?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ah right, when I wrote that I hadn't clicked through to the original post. Didn't realise both the original and the x-post were by you.

should it mean something different

I guess that depends on what you think "should" be. The term "platonic love", as it is currently popularly understood, refers to something really useful. I think there "should" be a word for that. It's something that people need to refer to much more often than they need to refer to what Plato meant by the term.

I think the common phrase "platonic ideal" fits well with the original version of Platonic love. The platonic ideal of anything is it's most perfect form, encompassing all that that thing is. The original Platonic love was the platonic ideal of love, at the top of the ladder above mere carnal attraction or romantic affection.

[–] loopy@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

I think that’s a great way to put it, “Platonic ideal love.”

And I somewhat agree that there is a use for distinguishing from romantic love, but I think it would be even more helpful if there were more descriptions for the different kinds of love, like one for companionship love, loving a family member, loving a passion, etc. They somehow all get lumped together to “love.” Maybe that’s a limitation of English as a language too.