%0 Journal Article
%T The Platonic sage in love
%A Dillon
%A John
%J Studia Humaniora Tartuensia
%D 2003
%I 
%X This article explores the nature of the erotic impulse set forth in Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposium, and in the myth of the Phaedrus, with a view to deciding how far Plato intends it to be a purely selfish process. After all, in the 'ladder of ascent' to the Beautiful Itself in Symp. 210-12, the individual beloved seems to be left behind, and even disdained, and Plato has been criticised for this, by such authorities as Gregory Vlastos. I argue that this cannot really have been Plato's intention, and adduce the later Platonist discussion about the proper form that a philosophic love-affair should take.
%K Plato
%K love
%K erotic
%K Symposium
%K Phaedrus
%U http://www.ut.ee/klassik/sht/2003/dillon1.pdf