Plato's Phaedrus
On a close reading of Plato's Phaedrus...
Phaedrus is one of Plato’s dialogues. In this one we see Socrates talk with Phaedrus on topics like eros, the human soul and rhetoric. At it’s core, I read this dialogue as a satire on rhetoric and also a love piece to the soul! I’ve plucked out some quotes from the dialogue and hope to provide a close analyses based on my understanding and it’s contemporary relevance today.
You can read Phaedrus online here and below I’ve linked a bibliography of resources on Plato and key philosophical terms.
I am using Socrates and Plato interchangeably here (Socrates as a character and Plato as the writer). I am on the fence as to whether Plato and Socrates shared the same ideas but that is a conversation for another day!
Notes on the Soul
“The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another in ceasing to move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never leaving self”
As a dualist, the soul was what mattered most to Plato — the body was just temporary. The soul he believes, is immortal, it is not immortal because it persists, but because it is able to move itself. Meanwhile, everything else, the body included, is contingent and subject to cause and effect.
There are flaws to Plato’s theory of the soul, which are more evident beyond Phaedrus, but in sum you could say Plato is early an early pioneer of the idea of selfhood as a self-generating energy.
“Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand”
For the Ancient Greeks, knowledge, or the truth, was essential. Therefore, the soul must also be involved in the seeking of knowledge. I will leave this quote for a moment and combine it with the next.
“this is the recollection of those things which our souls once saw while following God when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being”
Recollection anchors this passage in anamnesis — knowledge as remembering, not acquiring. Truth is not discovered externally but instead recovered internally. You already knew it, you just had to remember it. And how did you already know it? That’s where the theory of the forms comes in — a topic I plan to write on shortly!
Therefore, for Plato love is epistemological. And to forget is not just a passive activity, but a tragic one. In many ways you could compare it to dementia, how tragic this is for loved ones who watch their relatives forget who they are.
“But the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form. For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many”
In Phaedrus, it feels like you are getting an ethical commentary. While you get the most philosophical constructs in The Republic, Phaedrus is providing us with a moral psychology. Above it was suggested that time holds ethical qualities and here it suggests that forgetting happens through corruption, distraction or even misdirection. The truth could be right in front of us but we are living a life that pulls us away.
There are many contemporary examples that spring to mind here:
What is put on education syllabi
The types of newspapers you decide to read
The algorithm curated based on your biases
Notes on Rhetoric
If the soul is our connection to learning and knowledge, then rhetoric is about how we share and communicate such learnings. For Socrates, there is only one way to do this properly — and I think getting rhetoric right is also a way to eradicate the issues from the examples above.
“When opinion by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering principle is called temperance; but when desire, which is devoid of reason, rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is called excess”
Truth and persuasion are not the same system. You can know truth but fail to convince. Or you can persuade without the truth — think fake news or conspiracy theories.
“Rhetoric is a mere routine and trick”
Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speech or writing that wants to influence or motivate. It’s an unethical form when used with poor intentions. In Phaedrus Socrates is suggesting that rhetoric that is untethered from philosophy is no good.
“In good speaking should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is going”
What is being suggested here is that in order to use good rhetoric one must understand the soul of the listener. I don’t think this is barking up the wrong tree. Contemporary science have distinguished different ways of learning: those who learn from doing, lose who learn from reading, those who learn from listening etc.
Learning and rhetoric are of course slightly different as learning can often involve objective information whereas rhetoric involves persuasion and may be slightly more subjective. But either way, this way of speaking that accommodates is caring rather than manipulation.
“Every discourse ought to be a living creature, having a body of its own”
I am a firm believer in conversations. Whether that be between two people speaking, or between two novels. I don’t believe in one sided inconsiderate arguments (cough cough twitter). Plato/Socrates’ rhetoric is about composition with integrity. A good speech, or act of persuasion, has structure, proportion and coherence.
The discourse should feel alive, willing to be altered and changed as it goes.
Bibliography