Desire for the truth and desire for death and a god-like immortality

MARÍA ANGÉLICA FIERRO

MÉTHEXIS

Academia Verlag

Lugar: Sankt Agustin; Año: 2001 vol. 14 p. 23 - 43

                                                                RESUMEN Here I hope to bring some light to the close connection between desire for truth and desire for death as desire for a godlike immortality in Plato’s thought and about how the hope for a better life for the philosopher is derived from this connection. For this purpose I focus on the passage at Symp. 212a2-7, in order to establish what kind or kinds of immortality Plato refers to there. However, I first make some distinctions about kinds of immortality that Plato himself clearly makes in the Phaedo and the Symposium, insofar as these distinctions are useful for explaining what the problem is for the interpreter at Symp. 212a2-7 and how different scholars have understood the passage. Finally I offer a possible way of understanding this passage that contributes, I think, to a better understanding of the relation between the Symposium and the Phaedo and, as a consequence, of the central role assigned to desire in Plato’s conception of man.