Platonic 的詞源

1530年代，“与希腊哲学家 Plato（公元前429年－约公元前347年）有关”，来自拉丁语 Platonicus，源自希腊语 Platōnikos。名字是希腊语 Platōn，是一个与他宽阔肩膀有关的昵称（来自 platys “宽阔”；源自原始印欧语根 *plat- “展开”）；他的原名是阿里斯托克勒斯，阿里斯顿之子。

“无 sensual desire”（1630年代，在 Platonic love “纯粹的精神爱，不掺杂性欲”的意义上，翻译自拉丁语 Amor platonicus），这个词如今通常具有的意义，是文艺复兴时期的概念；它基于柏拉图在《宴会》中关于苏格拉底对年轻人的兴趣的著作，最初并不涉及女性。相关词：Platonically。

The bond which unites the human to the divine is Love. And Love is the longing of the Soul for Beauty ; the inextinguishable desire which like feels for like, which the divinity within us feels for the divinity revealed to us in Beauty. This is the celebrated Platonic Love, which, from having originally meant a communion of two souls, and that in a rigidly dialectical sense, has been degraded to the expression of maudlin sentiment between the sexes. Platonic love meant ideal sympathy ; it now means the love of a sentimental young gentleman for a woman he cannot or will not marry. [George Henry Lewes, "The History of Philosophy," 1867]