Plato on Eros and Philia

The project is an article-based PhD with three separate albeit connected articles making up the main thesis. The articles all deal with friendship and love in Plato’s texts. The first article (Love Between the Interlocutors in Plato), primarily concerned with the Gorgias, explains the prerequisites for establishing a loving relationship between participants; the second (Interpersonal Love and Friendship in Plato), primarily concerned with the Lysis and the Alcibiades I, deals with how such relationships are performed in practice; and the third (Political Institutions and Love in Plato), primarily concerned with the Republic, looks at how such relationships affect Plato’s political thought. The project as a whole will make up a claim that the concepts of friendship and love are essential parts of conducting philosophy for Plato. Whenever we see Socrates making philosophical claims I think we also see that he has some form of relationship with his interlocutor that correlates to how friendship and/or love can be interpreted in Plato’s dialogues.