PLATONIC LOVE  , a

term commonly applied to an affectionate relation between a man and a woman into which the sexual element does not enter . The term in English goes back as far as Sir William Davenant's Platonic Lovers (1636) . It is derived from the conception, in Plato's Symposium, of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth . Amer platonicus was used, e.g. by Marsilio Ficino (15th century), as a synonym for amor socraticus, referring to the affection which subsisted between Socrates and his pupils .