Customer Reviews

Commentary on Plato's Symposium on Love

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I was very excited to read this book. I've always been a big fan of the SYMPOSIUM (and the PHAEDRUS) and Marsilio Ficino
is supposed to be one of the top Plato commentators of all-time. Unfortunately, the accolades bestowed upon him were a bit misplaced.

The more I read this book, the more I felt as though I was reading St. Thomas Aquinas. For people like me, that's not good news. What was worse, only maybe 35-40% of this book actually dealt with Plato. Much of it was typical medieval theological conjecture, with an occassional reference to the SYMPOSIUM.

On the upside, the strongest section of the book was the chapter on Aristophanes' speech. This I found to be quite insightful, and it dealt directly with Plato on his own terms (as opposed to trying to twist him into a pseudo-Christian prophet of some kind). The Aristophanes chapter is perhaps worth the price of the book.

As for the rest of it, there are some snippets of cogent polemics & insights here and there, but not a litany of them. Many of the claims contained in the book have been disproved by our modern understanding of physics (although this cannot be entirely held against the text).

In sum, this book is mainly for 3 kinds of people: those who relish medieval theology, those who adore Plato and those who are huge fans of Aristophanes. Anyone outside these parameters who is searching for a commentary on Plato would be better suited looking elsewhere.