Honors Class 5: Love, Sex, and Friendship
Out of all of the Honors classes I have taken thus far, none were more new to me than the Love, Sex, and Friendship course. Between that and the existentialism course, I chose the former to try and avoid complex philosophical concepts. I quickly found out that there was much more philosophy to love and friendship than meets the eye. We covered a few of the Greek classics, such as Plato’s play Symposium and Aristotle’s virtue ethics to find insights on love; not just between individuals, but also in terms of abstract beauty. In addition, we covered the definition of friendship, such as the varying, the different types of friendship, and how to ultimately make it grow. Last but not least, we covered the topic of Christian love. How do Christians show their love, and how does it differentiate between a personal and intimate one?
Overall, I thought Dr. Blincoe did a splendid job with the course. He made the philosophy behind our material fun, and presented it in a variety of fun and engaging ways, such as a Black Mirror episode and several clips that showed examples of the different types of loves. He made sure that we understood the material and always encouraged us to visit him in office hours, even if just to chat and catch up. His teaching style and the way he presented the material reassured me that Honors classes are definitely the most fun, and I found myself using the material in my personal life to reevaluate some friendships as well as to reexamine personal faith. Altogether, I still found myself glad that I took this over any of the other dry philosophy courses.
Attached is one of my reflection papers on a speech from Diotima, a character from Plato’s Symposium. In that speech she argues that are love evolves, starting from an individual physical attachment to a general love for the world. I spend the article summarizing her speech in more detail in addition to defending her argument, stating that it is generally true with a few exceptions.