In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates delivers a speech where he describes and defines what Eros is. In his speech, he introduces a character Diotima, a woman who educates Socrates on the ladder of love. According to Socrates, “love is the desire for permanent possession of the good” (Plato, p. 199). The ladder of love shows the different levels in which people contemplate beauty. Those who are higher up on the ladder are able to achieve a kind of beauty close to immortality. While the other speeches, like Pausanias’ speech, place an emphasis on certain isolated aspects of pederasty (the love of the mind), Diotima’s ladder of love incorporates both the emotional and intellectual aspects of the pederastic relationship.
The first step of the ladder is loving the physical beauty of an individual boy (202). This love leads to beautiful discussions and conversations. The next step is to then recognize all physical beauty (202). After being able to do this, the next stage of the ladder is to have a greater love for mental beauty than physical beauty (202). After a love for mental beauty takes priority, discussions that improve the minds of the young can be produced. The generation of knowledge allows one to climb to the next step of the ladder, seeing the beauty in different types of knowledge, which inspires finer thoughts and arguments. The last step of the ladder is beholding the ultimate and true beauty, the closest thing to immortality any mortal can achieve (203). The theory of the ladder incorporates the love for both physical features and intellectual stimulation, the two main purposes of pederastic relationships. With the physical and intellectual aspects of pederasty being represented in a theory about appreciating beauty, it validates the argument that pederasty is one of the highest forms of education a young boy can receive. Those who love mental beauty and intellectual discussions are closer to achieving “immortality” than others, according to Diotima. Thus, Socrates shows the benefit of the education in pederastic relationships and how they make the world more beautiful.
