Book · -385
Symposium
by Plato
Seven Athenians take turns defining love at a dinner party, and Socrates closes by reporting what a priestess taught him about desire and immortality.
What does Reddit think of Symposium?
r/askphilosophy owns the conversation — 17 of those mentions — where it appears in reading-list threads rather than dedicated argument. The arc is consistent: commenters recommend it as an entry point alongside the Apology and the Republic, and one ↑44 commenter traces their entire philosophy habit back to starting there at 19. r/philosophy's most-upvoted mention (↑365) doesn't discuss the text directly; it's a tangential comment on science and philosophy. A ↑43 post does engage the content, treating the four-limbed primordial humans speech as a metaphor for homosexual love — about as far as direct textual engagement goes in the sample. r/Stoicism contributes 3 mentions, last seen in 2023. No one disputes its foundational status on Eros. No one finds it immediately applicable to anything.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · The nature and philosophy of love (Eros)
- · Ladder of beauty and the ascent toward the Form of Beauty
- · The role of philosophy as a form of desire
- · Myth, metaphor, and the origin of human longing
- · The relationship between wisdom, beauty, and the good
Common praise
- + Serves as an on-ramp to Plato that doesn't require prior philosophy reading, as multiple r/askphilosophy commenters confirm.
- + The Diotima speech on the ascent of love gets cited in aesthetics reading lists alongside Plotinus and Longinus.
- + Short enough that the ↑44 commenter who started with the Apology at 19 read it immediately after and kept going.
Common criticism
- − Direct engagement with the text's arguments is rare in the sample — most of the 17 r/askphilosophy mentions are list-placements, not analysis.
- − The high-upvote r/philosophy thread (↑365) that mentions it doesn't actually discuss it, which says something about how Reddit uses the title.
Who it's for
If you want a philosophy reading list that traces love from its oldest Greek roots, this is the required start before Plotinus's 'On Beauty' and Ficino's commentary. Not for anyone expecting a systematic argument — the text is a set of speeches, some contradicting others, and Socrates wins by attributing his view to someone else. The ↑42 r/askphilosophy comment that places it in a sequence running from Pythagoras through Plotinus maps exactly the kind of reader this rewards: someone building a canon, not solving a specific question.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Symposium?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“> The scientific revolution left little for philosophers to discover about the natural world Are you kidding??? Science merely raised the bar A LOT for them, so you can no longer just talk plain nonesens about things without any decent evidence to support your claims, such as the "noble savage" or …
“I started my journey in philosophy, when I was about 19 years old, with a very short book, The Apology of Socrates. Before this book I was never interested in reading philosophy, but after I read it I became hooked. I also enjoyed the Symposium and the Republic by Plato. Then I found it quite hard,…
“> "humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces" (from Plato's The Symposium). That's all. Lol it's a metaphor for the legitimacy of homosexual love.
“Pythagoras: *Fragments* Plato: *Symposium* and *Phaedrus* Aristotle: *Poetics* and parts of *Metaphysics* Longinus: *On the Sublime* Plotinus: *On Beauty* Pseudo-Dionysius: *The Divine Names* St. Augustine: *On Music* Boethius: *On Music* Aquinas: parts of *Summa Theologica* Ficino: *Commen…
“Well sure, both Sartre and Camus won the literature nobel prize for their work, both were philosophers and writers, and their novels, stories and plays all contain philosophical topics presented in various ways, sometimes as dialogues (Like Sartre's No exit or Dirty Hands) sometimes as internal mono…
“Why guess? There’s a whole article about it, that’s what the link leads to > The Plato readings were from the Symposium, particularly passages on Aristophanes’ myth of split humans and Diotima’s ladder of love.
“See (Definitely Greece, The Greek Female Philosophers…). Their list includes * Themistoclea of Delphi, possible tutor of Pythagoras * [Theano of Crotone](
“Abstract: Philosophy is a subject that many might find interesting but also challenging. Figuring out where to start with philosophy is an entire challenge in itself. This video is designed for those interested in philosophy but haven’t yet explored the literature. Before recommending books, there …
“Plato's Symposium is one of the earliest works on love. Not super relevant to contemporary discussions, but foundational none the less. More contemporary, I know Sam Shpall at the University of Sydney has done work on love. [This volume](
“Quite basically the issue with this position is not really its being rooted in Aristotle or not, or even in Thomas, but in how this line of thinking has been extended and interpreted within a Christian framework. Firstly, people like Kant in the Third Critique famously argue that we can only posit i…
“They are more or less pop philosophy, they do not cover philosophical issues in a way that represents the discourse of ideas around those philosophers. For example, he talks more about love and relationships in Plato's Symposium on his video on Plato rather than Platonic theory of forms, the Socrati…
“Indeed, plenty of free options online, and Plato's dialogues are some of the easiest philosophy books to find even second hand. I would probably start with something like the Symposium. And libraries, let's not forget libraries. Even small, local libraries are sure to have a copy of the main dialogu…
“I study philosophy and I've never heard anyone engaging with her thoughts. How about starting with general history of philosophy? Plato's Symposium is also a good alternative.
“Plato's Lysis dialogue depicts the initial stages of training to gain philosophical knowledge. In it, two students engage the older sage, Socrates, in a conversation about the meaning of conventional notions of love, friendship, freedom, authority and knowledge itself. Through this conversation they…
“Start with the greeks. Namely, Plato's works (five dialogues, the republic, the symposium), then read the stoics. Afterwards, you can branch out and read famous works in different branches of philosophy (ethics, epistemology, political philosophy). This is my humble advice, other than that go to r/A…
Convinced? Pick up Symposium
What else does r/askphilosophy read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Symposium — frequently asked
Is Plato's Symposium a good starting point for reading philosophy?+
Yes, with a caveat. A ↑44 commenter on r/askphilosophy started with the Apology and moved straight to the Symposium and the Republic, and credits that sequence for getting hooked on philosophy entirely. It's short and the speeches are self-contained. The caveat: r/askphilosophy treats it as foundational rather than engaging its arguments directly, so don't expect the community to help you go deep.
What does Reddit actually say about Plato's Symposium?+
Mostly, it lists it. Direct argument-level engagement is rare. The ↑43 post on r/philosophy interpreting the four-limbed humans speech as a metaphor for homosexual love is the sharpest take in the sample.
Does Plato's Symposium come up in r/Stoicism, and why?+
It does, 3 times, last seen in 2023. Stoicism and Platonic eros overlap loosely around the question of what we should desire and why, so the crossover isn't surprising. The 3 r/Stoicism mentions are all neutral — it's present in that community but not a centerpiece.
Is Plato's Symposium worth reading if I just want to understand contemporary philosophy of love?+
Depends on your goal. r/askphilosophy places it alongside Pythagoras, Aristotle, Longinus, and Plotinus — it's foundational canon, not contemporary. If you want current work, the same threads point to academic literature beyond Plato. If you want to understand where the conversation started and why Diotima's ladder appears in every aesthetics syllabus, read it.