The Symposium is one of Plato’s most influential dialogues: its seven speeches made in praise of Love (Eros) during the festival of Dionysus take the reader through a series of deepening insights into the power which draws us to the great ocean of divine beauty and, ultimately, its source which works a magical transformation on the soul. But well before the speeches begin we have a curious episode that may be worth considering, since it is easy to pass it by without too much attention. The teller of the tale of the symposium says that when walking to the party with Socrates, his companion fell into a quiet state of meditation in a nearby porch and, refusing to come into the hosts house until he had finished, he therefore arrive late to the gathering. What does Plato mean the reader to take from this seemingly unimportant aside?
The session is an opportunity to explore it and perhaps see it as a very important moment in the path of Eros, that all philosophically-minded seekers must take.
These evenings include short talks and/or readings from Platonic writings – but we hope they will be genuinely interactive, with all participants invited to contribute to our collaborative search for truth. No previous experience of formal philosophy is required.
Admission is free, but we do encourage those who are able to donate £5 in order to cover our costs, either as cash on the day or donating through this website
Most of these evenings are self-contained and every effort is made to make them accessible to the newcomer, while allowing the great profundity of the Platonic tradition to step forward and speak to us at whatever level our present understanding sits. Some of these sessions are coupled together, in order to give us the space to examine more fully particular texts and themes, but even here we will ensure that if those attending have missed the first of the two sessions a recap of what has gone before will help all participants to pick up the main threads of the theme.
We will be drawing from this paper: Socrates in the Porch
The Trust has run similar activities for some 18 years, and in our experience they allow the most profound questions concerning human life, the nature of reality, and our interactions, to be explored at once both seriously and with good cheer. Our aim is to provide a forum for honest and straight-forward enquiry, but which is unafraid to explore inward-moving paths too often neglected by modern schools of thought.
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