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Hello, in Plato's Symposium Aristophanes tells a story about love.

He says that once near the beginning of time there were three types of human, one male, one

female and one that was part man and part woman.

Each human type had four hands and four feet and one head with two faces

and what they lacked in beauty they made up for in power and bravery

they even dared to attack the gods.

Its use as usual lost his patience and resolve to split these creatures in

heart to diminish their strength and increase their numbers. His plan was that there

be more people to offer sacrifices but they'd be too weak to challenge

the gods. However, with the split he inadvertently created us, lonely creatures,

forever searching for our other halves. Aristophanes explained to Socrates,

human nature was originally one,

and we were a whole,

and the desire and pursuit of the whole is what we call love.

That's one version of love. It still seems to have strange

echoes in the culture of today. But how has the Western understanding of the

philosophy of love developed since Plato and has it always been about finding our other half.

With me to discuss lovers the philosopher, Professor Roger Scruton, author of many books including

sexual desire, also with me is Angie Hobbs, a lecture in philosophy at Warwick University and author of Plato and the Hero, and Thomas

Doherty, Professor of English at the University of Kent.

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