More than Friendship. Even though the concept of “Platonic Love” is often thought to have its origin in Symposium, the term doesn’t appear there. The colloquial understanding of the concept—which contrasts it with romantic love—actually has more in common with ideas found in Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus. In Symposium Plato sees love as needing to transcend attachment to particular bodies and souls altogether, seeking union with eternal goodness and beauty.

The Invisible Plato. Although Plato portrays his teacher, Socrates, as well as many of his historical contemporaries as characters in many of his dialogues, Plato himself never appears in any of these texts—even at events at which he probably was present, such as the death of Socrates, which he describes in the dialogue Phaedo.