THEplatonic love it has been and continues to be at the center of various texts by writers, poets and philosophers. When one tries to describe it immediately the idea of a comes to mind spiritual love, released from any physical attraction. A feeling pure and unconditional, but which sometimes becomes unattainable and impossible in reality. However, over the years, platonic love has taken over more than one meaning and revealed itself in different situations. Let's find out better what it is.
At the origins of platonic love
As you can guess from the name, the term "platonic love" comes from Plato, Greek philosopher who lived in Athens between 428 and 348 BC During his life, Plato wrote and spoke of love in most of his works, combining it with the treatment of the main aspects of his philosophy. According to him, in fact, reality would consist of two independent substances among them, the crafts - also understood as a spirit and belonging to world of ideas - and the material. In man we find them both in the split between soul and body.
This theory meets the concept of love as early as Cratylus, where Plato defines eros “as something that flows in from the outside“, Through the eyes. Later, he delves into this topic in the Symposium where it dates back to the birth of the god Eros and explains the various degrees of love for human beings. According to the myth, Eros was born from the union of Poros, god of ingenuity, and Penìa, that is Poverty, who forced himself on the male divinity. Already from this we understand how Eros was born from need to possess what you don't have.
Therefore, according to his philosophy, Platonic love would have a first stage simply dictated by body beauty. This feeling develops in the presence of a particular beautiful body, which, however, leads to a later stage. Thus, following a person's aesthetic appreciation, love contemplates the beauty of the soul, Or the inner world of that individual. Only later, for Plato, does the impulse of eros rise further, detaching itself from any material form, concentrating on the elusive and perfect world of ideasand knowledge and wisdom.
Therefore, to say a pure and spiritual love as "Platonic" can appear as an inaccurate definition if you carefully review the whole thought of the Greek philosopher, because for him this feeling always had anyway an initial physical plan and led to teaotal detachment from the figure of another human being, to contemplate the "high things in life“, Such as beauty in itself.
From love according to Plato to the definition of an unattainable love
Thus, it would be natural to ask why nowadays with platonic love we mean a feeling completely disconnected from the body and that it arises from a mental attraction or that it is even fruit of the imagination. All this can be traced back to the discussions in this sense of the medieval literature, where we find as the first exponent Dante Alighieri. In fact, that already represents the antecedent of today's Platonic love courteous of the Florentine poet and of the circle of writers related to him. In these poems the beloved woman is famous for Dante Beatrice, it is not exalted from the body and physical point of view, but from the point of view spiritual. She is almost always a woman unattainable with which the poet can only exchange glances or at most a few words of greeting.
This meaning of platonic love is emphasized even more by the Renaissance philosophy headed Marsilius Ficino. To tell the truth, the Italian philosopher was the first to use this expression literally and with it he indicated a love that focuses only on theinwardness and on a person's character. However, according to Ficino, this feeling could only be present in world of ideas, that is a world perfect and incorruptible. This reality is not accessible to men and it is thus that Platonic love assumes the meaning not only of chaste and pure, but also of impossible and unattainable.
Platonic love today
After retracing the evolution and success of the concept of platonic love, it is natural to ask what it is today and how it manifests itself. It consists in a spiritual feeling that does not involve physical relationships. So saying, it can also be understood as platonic love a long distance love or even one unpaid. Many believe that it can also be defined platonic infatuation that is born every day among thousands of people on different dating app. In fact, until there is an actual meeting, getting to know someone through a dating app will essentially be based onmental attraction and not on physical desire.
However, just like unrequited love, platonic love can have a decidedly negative side - that is, it can become too idealized. Having an image completely detached from reality ed excessively high of your partner or an ideal person who would like to be at your side causes anyone to leave without distinction, because no one will ever meet the required requirements.
Platonic love or friendship?
Before concluding, let's clarify the distinction between Platonic love and friendship. The boundaries between these two feelings can be difficult to identify if you are in the so-called "friendzone“: The friend we have had for a lifetime suddenly seems less and less a friend and we would like something more from this friendship. In that case it serves intellectual honesty on the part of both: you have to understand if it is an infatuation due to a squeeze mental connection and complicity which can be accepted within a friendship or if, to this platonic feeling, it is united a physical aspect too dictated by desire.
Article source Alfeminile
