Evoultion of a word: from Platonic (philosophical thought attributed to Plato) to platonic (good friends)?

There's nothing Platonic (meaning "or, related to, or associated with Plato) about the word "platonic" (which means friendly, as opposed to romantic.)

There might be a vague connection, as Plato wrote one of his most well-known dialogues on the virtues of erotic love and friendship. If you're interested, it's called the "Symposium." Don't read it when you're "EXTREMELY bored," or else you won't get anything out of it.

-John

A simple example of platonic relationships is a deep, non-sexual friendship between two heterosexual people of the opposite sexes.

At the same time, this interpretation is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Platonic ideal of love, which from its origin was that of a chaste but passionate love, based not on uninterest but virtuous restraint of sexual desire..

For more information about the topic Platonic love, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/p/platonic_lo...

Platonic love is a term commonly applied to an affectionate relationship into which the sexual element does not enter, especially in cases where one might easily assume otherwise. The English term dates back as far as Sir William Davenant's Platonic Lovers (1636). It is derived from the concept in Plato's Symposium, of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth.

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/PL/PLATO...

Plato did not invent the term or the concept that bears his name, but he did see sexual desire as the germ for higher loves. Marsilio Ficino, a Renaissance follower of Plato, used the terms amor socraticus and amor platonicus interchangeably for a love between two humans that was preparatory for the love of God. From Ficino's usage, Platonic (already present in English as an adjective to describe what related to Plato and first recorded in 1533) came to be used for a spiritual love between persons of opposite sexes. In our own century Platonic has been used of relationships between members of the same sex. Though the concept is an elevated one, the term has perhaps more often been applied in ways that led Samuel Richardson to have one of his characters in Pamela say, "I am convinced, and always was, that Platonic love is Platonic nonsense."

Platonic relationship is believed to vaugely relate to Plato's "Symposium" a work which initially examines the meaning of non romantic relationships before altering course and examineing 'Eros' or sensual love.

As for it relating to "Platonic thought" as it refers to his teachings based on what he learned from Socrates, there is really no relation.

Your search might be more productive if you used the word "etymology" in a search engine instead of "evolution"

How do you know that it didnt go the other way around...

Perhaps platonic in Latin/Greek (whichever) meant something similar to "good friends"... and that is why Platos parents named him that.

Platonic Idealism says that there are true forms and the distorted versions we see in the physical world. Base love is the distortion, and "platonic" love is the idealized version.