Love and beauty have always been connected through justice, goodness, and happiness. Different philosophers have established the link between love and beauty, including Socrates and Plato. However, these two terms remain crucial in understanding human behavior, aspects of the soul and deities. Plato developed one of the underlying arguments in support of an existing connection between beauty, goodness and love from his conception of eros. The following paper will evaluate the presentations in support of Plato’s conception of Eros, by using a different approach in understanding appearance and reality and their influence on love, fate and eternity. “The Consolation of Philosophy“ by Boethius supports the concept of eros, although it tends to emphasize on God’s dominance in almost all human activities.
Plato has always maintained that Eros and the concept of reality are integrated. Reality is identified as the general knowledge of a process, substance or event. Reality is realized through intellect and generates a general and eternal definition of a substance, irrespective of variations in actual dimensions. However, appearance is generated through senses, which are always subjective and hence liable to change. A rectangular table, for example, may appear trapezoidal from a distance, due to appearance of two acute and two obtuse angles. However, reality dictates that a rectangle will always have right angles and cannot be disputed.
The distinction between appearance and reality helps in structuring an analysis for the arguments presented by Plato, Socrates and excerpts from Boethius. All these arguments concur on the elements of goodness, love, beauty and evil. According to the three arguments, humans are always after love, which is associated with beauty. The quest for beauty is promoted by love, which is the desire to have what never existed, and the ability to keep it forever. The quest for love is therefore similar to the love of beauty, since everything that is loved, must possess beauty. Beauty is therefore an imperative aspect in the quest for love, since it represents everything that is good, and which must be retained forever.
According to the novel, humanity always strives to accomplish its desire for good things, despite some existing misinterpretations on who is to be branded evil or good. The excerpts illustrate that all the actions carried out by men are for the benefit and the quest of good. The argument presented distinguishes personal good and community good. In all human endeavors, all decisions are aimed at achieving goodness, irrespective of the consequences on human interactions and existing relationships. The argument concurs with Plato’s assertion that love and beauty are achieved through an eternal quest for happiness. In addition, Socrates had earlier argued that despite the longstanding misconception about gods, human souls influence the interaction of the two. Socrates defined the soul as being composed of two horses with a single charioteer. The argument in Socrates definition of a soul is that evil deeds weaken the horses’ wings, subjecting the soul to mortality, while righteousness, which comes from philosophy, gets an individual closer to reality.
Plato and Socrates describe the human soul as independent of thoughts and actions and hence possess the freedom to choose right from wrong. In addition, humans base the argument on the quest for unending beauty and love on the ability to engage in intellectual evaluations in order to differentiate between appearance and reality. However, the novel argues that humans are dependent on pre-determined actions by God. The novel claims that the soul may be trapped to the mortal world, if the connection between humans and God ceases to exist. In addition, the novel argues about fate as the major driving force towards an individual’s actions. The argument is based on the claim that God knows and predetermines future events, and that man cannot change any of the events. This is contrary to Socrates and Plato’s argument on the quest for love and desire for eternity.
The argument presented by Plato is that humans have the capacity to transform their lives by identifying beauty in all activities, thereby choosing the right path. In addition, Socrates argues that since two horses with varying characteristics represent the soul, the decision to engage in bad or good behavior is influenced by the level of self-control. This is however refuted in the novel, since the author claims that fate is stronger and remains the predetermining factor in an individual’s character and actions. However, the novel tries to argue that the dominance of fate depends on an individual’s willingness to learn and differentiate reality from appearance. Just as philosophy is the love of wisdom, all authors concur on the superiority of philosophy in enhancing individual knowledge and independence.
The aspect of eros has therefore been elaborate in all texts, since the authors try to generate a connection between love, desire, good and eternity. There is always beauty in love, and as illustrated in the definition of the soul, the mortal horse is ugly while the immortal horse is beautiful. In addition, concepts of love and beauty are connected to immortality, and hence the relationship between love, reproduction and eternity. To the mortals like humans, the only way to remain immortal is through reproduction.
That way, some traits are passed on to another generation, hence giving one pride of being immortal. However, the arguments concentrate on the connection between love, gods, beauty and good. According to the novel, the superiority of God on all decisions relating to good and evil can be compared to a doctor’s decision to administer bitter and sweet drugs to different patients. A patient and well wishers may misinterpret the doctor’s decisions based on the taste of drugs, but the doctor is always impartial since he understands the problems affecting every patient. In the same context, God has the power over all universe and offers everyone what he thinks is best.
The three texts outline the human quests, especially in search for happiness, goodness and beauty. Since everything that is loved is beautiful, human aspire to have and hold forever anything that is beautiful. However, care must be taken when evaluating the goodness or evilness of an object, process or event in order to avoid making mistakes in differentiating between appearance and reality. As Plato argued, eros must be enhanced by eternity. Socrates also argues that souls fail to see reality because of indulging in evil matters and failing to have self-control. The novel notes that although fate is set for every individual, getting into philosophy weakens the subjectivity of fate and increases degrees of freedom in the quest for love and beauty. Humans are mortals, who aspire to connect with the gods, who are immortals with different body and soul. Their independence is unmatched, and humans can only achieve similar status by maintaining rationality, intelligence and understanding of differences between appearance and reality.