Eros in Plato and Plotinus

Abstract With the aim of providing a solid basis for the examination of the Platonic concept of Eros in medieval Arabic and Jewish sources, the starting point of the study is the ladder of beauty in the Symposium and the intertwining of Eros, self-knowledge, and knowledge of God in Plato’s Phaedrus. Inheriting Plato’s framework, Plotinus develops the ontological concept of Eros and extends the theme of devotional love to the dimension of mystical union. Plato’s and Plotinus’ concepts of Eros were so complexly woven around basic concepts of epistemology and ontology that it became possible to express psychology and metaphysics through a terminology of love.