Plato Freud

Santas Gerasimos is the author of Plato Freud: Two Theories of Love, published by Wiley.

Preface ix Abbreviations xii

1 The Study of Love 1

Introduction 1

Questions about Love 3

Terms of Love: Eros, Philia, Agape 7

Limits of This Study 9

2 Plato's Theory of Eros in the Symposium 14

Introduction 14

Some Preliminary Speeches: Eros all Good, Eros Good and Bad, Eros a Cosmic Force 15

The Speech of Aristophanes: Eros as Desire to Unite with One's Other Half 18

The Speech of Agathon: Good and Beautiful Eros is Eros of Beauty and Goodness 22

The Speech of Socrates: Introductory 25

The Deficiency and Egoistic Models of Desire Applied to Eros 26

Generic Eros: Desire for the Good to be One's Own Forever 32

Specific Eros: Desire to Create Offspring in Beauty for the Sake of Immortality 34

The Ladder of Love: From Eros of a Beautiful Body to Eros of Beauty Itself 40

Beauty, Immortality and the Good 43

3 Passionate Platonic Eros in the Phaedrus 58

Introduction 58

Pleasure, Rationality and Eros as Human Madness 59

Eros as Divine Madness 62

The Phaedrus and the Symposium 69

Philosophic Eros in the Phaedo and the Republic 72

4 Plato on Friendship and Familial Love 81

Introduction 81

Friendship in the Lysis: Like to Like and Opposite to Opposite 81

What is Neither Good nor Bad is Friend to the Good 84

Friendship and Familial Love in the Republic 89

Friendship as Sharing Knowledge and Desire for the Good 91

5 Freud's New Theory of Sexuality 97

Introduction 97

The Old and the New Concepts of Sexuality 100

What is Sexual? 102

Psychosexual Development and the First Appearance of Love 107

Normal Sexuality 110

6 Freud's Theory of Love 116

Introduction 116

The Central Thesis: All Love is Sexual in Origin 117

The Main Characteristics of Love: Exclusive Attachment and Overvaluation 119

Explanations of the Choice of Love-Object 122

Narcissistic Models of Object-Choice 127

Freud's Explanations of Overestimation 133

Narcissistic and Egoistic Love 137

Familial Love, Friendship, and Sublimation 139

Love, Happiness, and Civilization 144

7 The Two Theories of Love Compared 153

Introduction 153

Freud's Own Comparisons to Plato 154

The Function of Love in Plato and Freud 157

The Origin of Love in Plato and Freud 162

Sublimation and the Ladder of Love 169

Choice and Overestimation 172

Plato and Freud 177

Epilogue: More Questions About Love 185

Bibliography 189

Index 194