Our relationship was strictly platonic. Full Definition of platonic. Two Meanings of Platonic The two most common senses of platonic come from the same source, yet are different enough in meaning that it is rather important to distinguish between them.
Examples of platonic in a Sentence Whereas in the more northerly clime of England the courtly lover of Malory and the Round Table tended to platonic adoration from afar, the Parisian woman already expected—and received—more earthly devotion. The Three Phils are strictly platonic. Yet three-pal business relationships are just as vulnerable to messy implosions as their romantic counterparts.
Recent Examples on the Web The platonic ideal of university campus design generally includes classroom buildings, an auditorium, a green space, some sort of bell tower and plenty of dorms. First Known Use of platonic , in the meaning defined at sense 1. Learn More About platonic. Time Traveler for platonic The first known use of platonic was in See more words from the same year.
From the Editors at Merriam-Webster. Style: MLA. Get Word of the Day daily email! And that t hese truths are eternal. Here's a good way to understand this: consider a picture of a triangle or circle drawn in the sand or on the chalkboard, for example, in comparison to the geometric laws describing the inherent truths of triangles and circles. We cannot produce in this world a picture that is as perfect, as accurate, as true, as "ideal" as that which we can represent with mathematical formulas.
For Plato this is proof that the mathematical formulas -- and any kind of rational, logical thinking: philosophy -- is a better means of finding Truth than looking for it in the physical world.
The same goes for everything , including virtue, justice, love, beauty: there must be an ideal, unchanging, eternal Form that expresses all earthly, temporary representations -- there must be an eternal form of "love" that expresses and originates all love ; there must be an archetypal form of "beauty" from which all beauty descends etc. Well, we must be born with them, and they must precede our own existence because they are eternal , so knowledge is innate and we in fact recollect or remember or uncover truths.
The method for doing so is through the type of philosophizing or contemplation practiced in the Socratic dialogues: attempting, largely through logical analysis like math to establish eternal truths. Think of the type of Socratic questioning or skepticism practiced by Socrates as an attempt to strip away false impressions and reveal the true Form of an idea. Any student of Western philosophy is familiar with Plato , who along with Socrates and Aristotle formed a trio of pillars shaping ancient Greek thought.
The symposium will begin shortly. Many of Plato's writings feature Socrates as a character and are presented as dialectics , giving rise to the notion of the Socratic method of inquiry. Plato established a philosophy based around the notion of ideal forms, stating that all ideas exist in a pure form apart from the material world. From this philosophy comes the notion of a platonic ideal.
When that phrase is encountered in English, it often represents something visualized without the imperfections of real life:.
But, of course, Gillian was right, the village was like a Platonic ideal of a village—a packhorse bridge, a beck, skirted with yellow flag irises, that threaded its way among the gray stone houses, the old red telephone box, the little postbox in the wall, the village green with its fat white sheep grazing unfettered.
In a more roundabout way, we also have Plato to thank for an adjective that we use in English to describe relationships that stay within the bounds of friendship and never turn romantic: platonic. Their relationship is the emotional core of the film, capturing how platonic love can be just as intense and messy and significant in shaping who we are as a passionate romance.
In Plato's Symposium , Socrates and several other figures, including the playwright Aristophanes and the aristocrat Phaedrus, who figures prominently in another of Plato's works, attend a banquet and give speeches in praise of Eros, the god of love and desire.
Socrates, delivering his speech last among the group, recalls the words of a priestess named Diotima. All creatures desire immortality, she explained to Socrates, adding the idea of a ladder as a metaphor for the spiritual growth experienced by a lover. At the bottom rung is physical attraction to a particular beautiful body, followed by desire for all beautiful bodies, love for beautiful souls, for beautiful laws and institutions, and then the beauty of knowledge.
At the top of the ladder is love for beauty itself, and to arrive at an understanding of the notion of absolute beauty "a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you" is the ultimate inspiration.
This episode was recalled by the 15th-century Florentine theologian Marsilio Ficino, whose studies and translations of Plato's writings brought the philosopher's work to the forefront of Renaissance thought a branch of what is termed Neoplatonism , in which Plato's teachings were modified by Aristotle and subsequent thinkers. In Ficino published his commentary on the Symposium , and in so doing coined the term amor platonicus , interpreting Plato's writings through a Christian lens.
Ficino believed that the ladder's ultimate rung, the love for beauty itself, was made manifest through a love for God and that a true love between two individuals was drawn through a uniting of their souls. This is really quite reasonable, for he wishes and tries to become God instead of man; and who would not exchange humanity for divinity?
This theory of spiritual communion, or Platonic love , was viewed by artists of the day as an ideal that bordered on the ridiculous, and as English royalty and nobility embraced Neoplatonism in the 16th century, it became a convenient target of farce in poetry and literature.
By the s the adjective Platonic eventually uncapitalized had seen use in English in the "nonsexual love" sense that we know today. The trend toward Platonic influence was sent up in The New Inn , a satire by dramatist Ben Jonson that marks the first use of the "spiritual rather than physical love" sense documented in the OED.
Much of the plot of The New Inn concerns discussions over the nature of love and includes a courting session that is thrown into chaos and confusion by means of cross-dressing and characters concealing their identities.
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