Phaedrus
By Plato

Reading Notes--Adam Kissel

Note: in this round I'm paying attention more to rhetoric than to other subjects in Phaedrus.

Lysias, says Phaedrus, "argues that it is better to give your favors to someone who does not love you than to someone who does" (228c). Socrates gets P to repeat the speech of Lysias on the subject. They find a place to sit, and S says in passing that he believes in the communal myths because he does not have time to explain them in more plausible terms: "I have no time for such things; [I rather seek] to know myself; . . . I accept what is generally believed" (230a).

Speech of Lysias (spoken by Phaedrus)

Lysias seems to define the lover as the "mad lover" who is jealous, ambitious, easily angered, and over-emotional. On the other hand the friend does not keep score and will treat you as an end in yourself. The mad lover seeks to belittle you, while the friend seeks to lift you. Friendship includes a non-erotic love like that among members of a family. The lover needs you, but the friend deserves you (it's like mercy vs. justice, with justice the higher good).

But Socrates calls this speech a "Bacchic frenzy" (234d). The points seem to have no order to them, and they are repetitive. Socrates values "a clear and concise manner, with a precise turn of phrase" (234e). On a timeworn topic like this, the main arguments are also timeworn, so "we cannot praise their novelty but only their skillful arrangement; but we can praise both the arrangement and the novelty of the nonessential points that are harder to think up" (236a). So P gets Socrates to give a better speech on the same topic. Socrates calls upon the Muses for inspiration, seemingly to ridicule that style of flourishes (237a).

The speech is told as a story in which a boy is being persuaded by a lover who is pretending to be only a friend. The person says, in classic Socrates, that we must know what we're talking about before we can talk about anything else regarding that thing (237c). The mad lover desires pleasure, while the friend "pursues what is best" (237d); an individual must choose the good over the merely pleasurable, when the two desires are in conflict. [Ditto in choosing what to do with our words for an audience.] The lover makes his beloved into whatever gives him the most pleasure and avoids the truths of philosophy; the friend encourages his friend to "improve his mind [via] divine philosophy" (239b).

The lover wants his beloved to be cut off from all other people; the friend seeks to increase his friend's humanity. The eros relationship is lopsided; the friend relationship is more equal. The lover makes promises that, when the winds change and passion subsides, he will not keep; the friend's promises endure. (But the parts about the friend are only implied, as P also points out.)

Socrates feels a guilty conscience for giving such a speech, for he has only talked about "mad love," rather than true Love, which "is a god or something divine [and] can't be bad in any way" (242e). It is unacceptable to stop here and let his comments against 'love' be taken as though they are against 'Love.' So Socrates must give a restorative speech (as though to the same boy).

Speech of Socrates #2: In Favor of the True Lover (244a-257b)

The "True Lover" has a mania for the good, and this kind of mania, coming from the divine, is superior to human self-control of the irrational passions. The mania for the good is an expression of the desire of the immortal soul, which has experienced the supreme good/beauty of the divine and wants to reclaim that experience of supreme good/beauty. The soul also has the elements of the rational and the mad, which are like the "good horse" and the "bad horse" that must be driven in concord; when these elements are disordered, the soul "loses its wings" and adds a mortal body. The goal of the incarnated soul is to learn how to manage the "bad horse" through habitual reining-in, in order that its wings grow again; i.e. the soul must regain self-control and true knowledge. Many souls mistake "their own opinions" for true knowledge (248b). The better-understanding souls are incarnated as better beings: the top level has the philosopher (the true lover of wisdom and the good) and also the true artist (the true lover of beauty); second is the just king; then the statesman-manager; then a trainer or doctor; then the prophet and priest; then the poet or a merely representational artist; then the manual laborer; then the sophist; last, the tyrant. On any level, the just are reincarnated to a higher level, and the unjust to a lower level, until the wings grow back and heaven is regained, or punishment and full justice are meted out on the being.

When an incarnated soul sees beauty on earth, it is reminded of divine Beauty, and this helps the just soul ascend. Divine Beauty has an incarnate form, but the soul's justice and self-control do not, so it is much harder, having seen Beauty, to add to it these qualities (justice and self-control). There is even a pain associated with the difference between limited earthly beauty and supreme divine Beauty. So most people end up succumbing to the (usually) resulting desire for physical and even unnatural pleasures, rather than loving the beautiful and the good with true Love. But when Love is happening, "all its pain subsides and is replaced by joy" (251d).

Love requires virtue; the lover pours divine inspiration "into the soul of the one they love in order to help him take on as much of their own god's qualities as possible" (253b). Likewise, "bad is never friends with bad, while good cannot fail to be friends with good" (255b). The beloved is lifted to recognize Beauty somewhat also, "seeing himself in the lover as in a mirror" (255d), but the beloved continues to feel only friendship rather than Love. The love and friendship can rise into Love by resisting the "bad horse" with "modesty and reason," but it can also fall into trouble if it lets the "bad horse" and the animal desires hold sway. [Here is a good argument against unfettered sexual activity.] Said another way, the choice is between philosophy, which leads to the good, and ambition, which easily succumbs to the undisciplined desires.

Even if the worse path is chosen, however, something of the path of virtue remains in the soul; nevertheless self-control is the highest aim which remains. But if the better path is chosen, that of heavenly joy, love, and friendship, this is yet better than the "human self-control" which it has used but transcended (256d). [In other words, Lysias set up the pair "love vs. friendship," while Socrates sets up the pair "Love and friendship vs. the meager love of the non-Lover."] [It also seems that speechmaking can easily persuade in one direction or another almost equally, and so in the wrong hands oratory can be readily misused. See next section.]

Politicians are speechmakers; their speeches are anonymous because they because laws adopted by the Council as a whole. Some laws are good, some bad [implied], so [though for other reasons too] "Writing speeches is not in itself a shameful thing. . . . It's not speaking or writing well that's shameful; what's really shameful is to engage in either of them shamefully or badly" (258d). Rhetoric as a subject is morally neutral; it can harvest a good or a bad crop. The real question is, how to identify good words from bad.

Interlude: The Song of the Cicadas: they give good reports of those who choose various arts, to the respective Muses; the best reports are of those who choose philosophy and philosophical discourse.

Good words have to come from a knowledge of the truth about which the words are said. Further, they have to come from someone who really knows what is just, rather than someone who has learned only "what will seem just to the crowd who will act as judges"--although Phaedrus has heard just the opposite (260a).

The "device of stages" (see Perelman): in an oration [or a dialogue], if you are arguing for something that is false, "you are more likely to escape detection, as you shift from one thing to its opposite, if you proceed in small steps rather than in large ones" (262a). But you can only deceive expertly if you already know exactly what you are talking about. Likewise, if you follow only opinions and not certain knowledge, you are quite likely to deceive yourself, even through careful deduction from your opinions, and so you are likely to lead your audience, unwittingly to all, astray.

Socrates continues to do a rhetorical analysis of the various speeches; the points below are supplemented by examples from the speeches.

Rhetoric has greater power on topics of ambiguity, because it is easier to argue the point in any of the reasonable directions. This also means that rhetoric has the most power to deceive on topics of ambiguity, which are just those topics that everybody wants to find a good opinion on. Rather, we should first seek knowledge. The honest orator at least begins by defining his terms, which he can only do rightly so far as he understands them. Then, each part of the speech must follow in a reasonable order.

A main method of understanding is to see the common aspects of scattered things; another is to divide a complex thing into its parts. The person successful at both together is called a "dialectician" (266b). Yet Phaedrus notes that rhetoric seems to be something more than just dialectic. Socrates agrees, but only to ridicule the list-making of the rhetoricians about all the parts of a good speech [a practice which has continued on]. Could there really be something valuable other than definitions and dialectic? Then, Socrates agrees with a serious answer: yes, there are rhetorical techniques that help you get your point across, but you have to have a point. The techniques are necessary but not sufficient conditions for being a good orator. Nevertheless, people learn only the techniques, without dialectic, and then think they have learned rhetoric. (through 269b)

Rhetoric requires a knowledge of the soul, both to be able to give good reasons, which lead to convictions [not necessarily knowledge, if ever], and "customary rules," which (when followed) lead to the virtues [not necessarily virtue, if at all] (270b). The good orator must begin by demonstrating knowledge of the soul "with absolute precision" so as to be trusted, and also so as to lead his audience to that same knowledge, ultimately in order to persuade the audience about a specific point at hand (271a).

Specifically, the orator must know what kinds of words move which kinds of souls, so as to be truly persuasive in real-life situations. Or is S being ironic here--is there really only one type of soul, one knowledge, one rhetoric? Practically speaking, people do seem to be different enough that different methods really are useful to persuade different people of the same truth. We often must move through "the likely" on the way to truth, and so it is fair to provisionally accept the likely.But we must beware of being satisfied with merely "the likely" (272e), which, being closest to the truth, can most easily be the first step away from truth into its opposite. Nevertheless, in many cases in which R is desirable, the likely is all we have, even though the crowd and the expert differ on what the likely is.

Another danger of words-as-knowledge is that the hearers do not necessarily make the words their own and try to understand them; they merely repeat their teacher's words (275a). A text needs an interpreter to be best understood, for it remains ambiguous on its own, however it may try to be fully clear. [Though many points do seem clear and S is being unfair here.] But there is a special kind of text which "can defend itself, and it knows for whom it should speak and for whom it should remain silent" (276a; cf. Strauss?). Weak discourse is like the seed on the path; real Discourse is the seed well planted in toward the soul. This is an "action" discourse rather than a "words" discourse. The discourse of the dialectician is just the right kind, partaking in true philosophy and the divine. It can both teach and persuade the various kinds of souls. There is some middle ground between full ambiguity and crystal-clear texts. [277d-278b, compare the "ideal of the right" and the "ideal of the left" with Kass' discussion.]

The dialogue ends with a prayer to the gods "that I may be beautiful inside" (279c).