QuestionsWhat is love?Love is the desire for beauty, and it rests only in God
What is love?An ascent to beauty

Love is the desire for beauty, and it rests only in God

Ficino's Platonic love; the desire for beauty

Marsile Ficin 1433 · 1499Translated Plato for Europe and made love a desire for beauty that rises from the body to God.
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What it claims

To love is therefore to climb: from the beauty of bodies to that of the soul, then of angels, up to the beauty of God, where alone the desire for beauty finds its rest.

Why

To love is to desire beauty; a body's beauty comes from a higher beauty, infinite in God, which alone quiets desire.

The same idea through history
Plato380 BCPlato, the Symposium: Diotima describes the ladder of love, from beautiful bodies up to Beauty itself. Ficino wrote the first great Renaissance commentary on it.
Marsile Ficin1469Commentarium in Convivium Platonis de amore (1469): Ficino defines love as desire for beauty, distinguishes love from mere passion, and makes the soul's ascent to the beauty of God the meaning of all love. The expression "Platonic love" comes from him.
In short

"Love is the desire for beauty, and it rests only in God" is an argument by Marsile Ficin (Commentary on Plato's Symposium, De amore, 1469, 1469) on the question "What is love?" (answer: an ascent to beauty). Its claim: To love is therefore to climb: from the beauty of bodies to that of the soul, then of angels, up to the beauty of God, where alone the desire for beauty finds its rest. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Commentary on Plato's Symposium, De amore, 1469
Valid with an implicit premise

In Florence, Marsilio Ficino comments on Plato's Symposium for his friends. His definition is simple: to love is to desire beauty. But beauty is perceived only by the mind, the eyes and the ears: true love is therefore not bodily passion, which he calls frenzy. And the beauty of a body is not first beauty, since it changes and is mixed with ugliness. It comes from a higher beauty, that of the soul, then of angels, finally of God, which has no limit. Love therefore climbs from step to step, and desire is quieted only in God.

P1Love is the desire for beauty.
P2We enjoy beauty only through the mind, sight and hearing. Love is content with these three; the desire of touch and taste is not love but passion.
P3The beauty of a body is neither pure nor first: it changes and is mixed with ugliness. The beauty common to many bodies depends on an incorporeal maker, God, who acts through angels and souls.
P4God's beauty is infinite, and an infinite beauty demands an unlimited love. No love of a created beauty therefore fully satisfies the desire.
P5 · implicit premiseThe desire of a being who seeks beauty is directed to the highest beauty it can reach: it does not stop at a beauty known to be derived.
To love is therefore to climb: from the beauty of bodies to that of the soul, then of angels, up to the beauty of God, where alone the desire for beauty finds its rest.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world where God's beauty is infinite but desire stops at a beloved person, without climbing. The other premises are true, the conclusion is false.
Valid with P5. Without it, we show that all created beauty comes from a higher beauty and that God is infinitely beautiful, but not that desire must climb up to God: one could love a beautiful face while knowing it is derived, without looking higher. P5 is Plato's idea (Diotima's ladder), and the premise the objectors contest.
Analogy. A child loves a postcard of the sea, then looks at the sky from the window, finally dreams of the sea itself. Ficino says: the postcard was lovable, but it was an echo of something greater, and desire is quieted only at the end. His critics answer that one perhaps loves precisely the postcard, and that the person who sent it matters more than the sea.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Gregory Vlastos 1973 · attacks premise 5

For Vlastos, in Platonic love, what is loved is not the unique person but the beauty she carries. Persons are successive occasions of the same beauty and are left behind, like the rungs of a ladder. For him, Plato does not speak of loving a person for her own sake.

Ficin replies
M
Marsilio Ficino 1469 · Ficino (Oratio II, text earlier than the objection)
Ficino describes mutual love as an exchange of persons: in mutual love there is but one death and a double revival. The lover loses himself, then lives again in the beloved, who thinks of him, and finds himself in him. Each is thus nearer to the other than to himself.
The debate goes on (our summary) This text does not answer Vlastos by name, who writes five centuries later. A defender of Ficino can see in it proof that love for a person matters to him. A follower of Vlastos answers that the beloved remains there the occasion for finding oneself, and that what is loved is still the other's beauty seen as a reflection of God.
Where the debate stands (our summary)The debate is over what Platonism loves in a person: her individuality or the beauty she reflects. Scholars of Plato and Ficino are divided; some hold that one can love the person because she shares in beauty.
Søren Kierkegaard 1847 · attacks premise 1

For Kierkegaard, love that picks one being because it finds him beautiful remains a form of self-love: the passionate partiality of love closes around this one beloved as selfishly as self-love closes around this one self. True love is a duty to love every human being, whoever he is.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1847, after the author's death (1499).
The debate goes on (our summary) A Platonist answers that love of beauty does not close around the beloved: it climbs towards what all beautiful beings share, up to God. Kierkegaard answers that one then no longer loves the concrete person but beauty, and that a love that depends on beauty can end with it.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: is love based on a quality of the beloved (beauty, virtue), or must it love unconditionally? Ficino answers with the quality; Kierkegaard with duty.
Thomas Aquinas 1271 · attacks premise 1

For Thomas, what is loved with the love of friendship is loved simply and for itself; what is loved with the love of concupiscence is loved for something else. Defining love as the desire to enjoy beauty describes concupiscence, which is not love in the full sense, since it aims at a good for oneself rather than someone's good.

no reply
see the argument
We have not yet found a direct reply by Ficin in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Ficino does not answer this distinction in the text read here. A defender of Ficino can point to his text on mutual love, where lovers give themselves to each other. A defender of Thomas answers that this gift remains, in Ficino, a consequence of the desire for beauty rather than its starting point.
Where the debate stands (our summary)The debate remains open: does love begin with a lack (desiring the beautiful) or with a gift (willing the other's good)? Both camps recognise that both movements exist; they dispute the order.