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Kelsen gives a detailed description of Plato's philosophical development through the various stages of his life. Plato's philosophy is rooted in personal experience. Eros and an unsuppressible will to power over men are the affects which shake his soul and form his concepts. 'In consequence the supreme problem became for him that of the Good: justice which is the unique justification for dominance of man over man…' Without comprehending the peculiarity of the Platonic Eros, the homosexual Eros, neither the man nor his work can be understood.
Little is known about Plato's life. There are proofs of his admiration for father and uncle, no traces of the relationship to his mother who, after the father's death, married a politician. Plato, speaking of the crimes a man may commit, mentions as the first 'incest with his mother or any other unnatural union'.
Plato's attitude towards women, according to Kelsen, is that he sees in the masculine principle the good, in the feminine the evil. In Plato's mythical paradise of the Statesman it is evident that women were superfluous: propagation took place without them.
Plato's love means love of youth. In Phaedrus, the Eros which the sight of a beautiful youth awakens is interpreted as a reminiscence of the vision of absolute beauty in the beyond. In all these descriptions of love Plato maintains that sexual gratification is renounced; the struggle between moral sentiments and the sensual desires is pictured again and again.
Kelsen maintains that Plato was impelled to sublimate his Eros primarily because it was in conflict with the views of Athenian society. The belief that pederasty was a widespread practice in Athens is incorrect; it was, on the contrary, considered a grave danger for the youth and was morally condemned.
While most of the men with homosexual inclinations, like Socrates, were bisexual and had wives and children, Plato himself was entirely homosexual; he never thought of founding a family and therefore stood