“Phaedrus” is structured as a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus that explores the nature of love, provides a critical perspective on rhetoric and communications, and insights into the cultural and intellectual context of ancient Greece. With its philosophical depth, engaging style, as well as historical significance, it is a valuable addition to anyone’s reading list.

Very similar to Symposium.

''Trebuie să facem tot ce ne stă în putinţă pentru a ne împărtăși, cât suntem în viaţă, din virtute și înţelepciune. Frumoasă e răsplata, iar speranţa mare. Firește, nu se cade ca un om cu bun-simţ să se înverșuneze în a susţine că lucrurile stau întocmai așa cum le-am înfăţișat eu. Dar ceea ce se cuvine să susţin cu toată dârzenia este că, de vreme ce sufletul, nu-ncape îndoială, e nemuritor, soarta și sălașurile lui vor fi cam așa cum am spus. Crezând asta, cred că merită să îţi asumi oarecare risc. Căci e un risc frumos și tot ce ţine de el trebuie să ni-l repetăm ca pe o incantaţie. Iată de ce zăbovesc de atâta vreme asupra mitu- lui. În orice caz, ţinând seamă de acestea, omul care, de-a lungul vieţii, și-a luat rămas-bun de la plăcerile și de la podoabele trupului, pe care le socotea străine de el și dăunătoare, omul care, dimpotrivă, și-a dat toată silinţa să înveţe ceva, care, în loc de podoabe străine, a vrut pentru sufletul său podoabele sale adevărate: cumpătarea și dreptatea, curajul, libertatea și adevărul, omul acesta trebuie să aibă încredere în soarta sufletului.''

n  I am myself a great lover of these processes of division and generalization; they help me to speak and to think.n

This is one of Plato’s more discursive dialogues, wandering from topic to topic like a real conversation rather than presenting a tight argument. As such, it is not exactly satisfying as a presentation of Plato’s idealistic philosophy by itself; but it makes for a wonderful companion piece to other dialogues, such as the Gorgias or the Symposium.

The two primary themes of this dialogue are love and rhetoric; and they are combined in the criticism of speeches about love. The love that Plato embraces is, predictably, Platonic: the admiration of the soul rather than the lust of the body. As usual, Socrates attacks rhetoric for being the art of twisting and obscuring the truth; and as usual, I find his arguments to be rather purposefully naïve. Knowing the truth and convincing somebody else of it are two entirely different things; and the skillful use of language can very much help with the latter (though, of course, it can also be used to deceive). Plato of all writers knew the value of rhetoric: it is as much for his literary skill as his intellectual merit that he remains so widely read.

As a case in point, this dialogue is notable for containing some of Plato’s more memorable episodes. We see Socrates, for once, outside the city, relishing the beauty of the natural scenery, his senses almost drunk with pleasure. The “madness” or “divine inspiration” of lovers and poets is frequently noted, to be contrasted with the cool rationality of Socrates. Plato also gives us the famous metaphor of the soul as a charioteer with two horses, one of the flesh and one of the spirit. And the dialogue ends with Socrates’ denunciation of writing—which, again, can only sound playfully disingenuous when written by Plato. The dialogue then ends, and Socrates and rhetoric live to fight another day.

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The Phaedrus was not one of the dialogues we read in my Plato seminar in grad school, so I thought I'd finally tackle it. I didn't like it much. I'm guessing that that might be the influence of my particular professor, but I'm not sure.

Some of the other goodreads reviews are very well-written and do a nice job of analyzing the dialogue. Many highly recommend it.

The dialogue is a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus out for a walk on a hot summer afternoon. They take shelter in a cool spot and discuss love and rhetoric.

The dialogue begins playfully and flirtatiously, and I enjoyed the discussions of same-sex love which is often part of the cultural milieu in Plato's dialogues, but is explicitly discussed here.

Socrates argues at one point that lovers must be avoided and then turns around and argues the exact opposite, which then leads into the real topic of the dialogue -- rhetoric and how it can be used to argue most anything and to deceive people from the truth. A number of other topics appear, including the immortality of the soul and its make-up and even interesting comments on divine possession, revelation, and religious practice (I wrote an essay on Socrates on this topic in grad school).

There is good and important information here for student of Socrates/Plato, however I didn't find it, overall, as engaging (both as literature and philosophical treatise) as many of Plato's other works.

At first glance, Pheadrus is a dialogue about homoerotic love. The dialogue takes place between young and attractive Athenian aristocrat, Phaedrus, and the familiar Socrates, as they walk, and then sit under a tree waiting for the heat to pass. Within this outwardly simplistic organisation, however, Plato constructs an intricate layering of forms, topics, and arguments.

The work is composed around three speeches: the first one is given by Phaedrus (actually he is regurgitating a speech written by Lysias); the second and third are composed by Socrates in answer. Socrates' first speech is an improvement of Lysias' speech, correcting its structural and logical deficits, but not changing the thrust of the argument or the conclusion that a cool and calculating lover is superior to one enthralled by his beloved. Socrates second speech is a palinode, or recantation, of the first, and in it he argues that a kind of divine madness or passion is necessary for love to achieve its full (educational) potential.

SOCRATES: But I’m sure you’d agree that every speech should be put together like a living creature, with its own proper body, so that it lacks neither a head nor feet.

As Athenian women of the time were either wives (designated for bearing children) or slaves (designated for mindless sex), the focus on homoerotic love as a means for men to obtain education (from other men) is understandable within context. This topic is also addressed in Plato's  Symposium, but here Plato's concept of a tripartite soul is brought to bear on the problem. The soul is described through an analogy: the rational part of the soul is a charioteer trying to control two horses: the black horse (corresponding to the lustful/appetitive part of the soul) and the white horse (corresponding to the good/spirited part). In the palinode, Socrates explains that the best passionate lover will reign in his black horse (an argument against the physical aspect of a relationship) in favour of helping his beloved on the path to becoming a better man.

The palinode also touches upon other topics, such as the superiority of dialectic over rhetorical speeches and indeed, over the written word. Paradoxically, it seems, Plato argues against writing by writing about it. Nevertheless, as Waterfield points out in the Introduction, Plato chose to present his written argument in the form of a dialogue, which is as close to dialectic conducted in the flesh between two people as one can get on the page.

If you enjoy deep, aesthetically complex literary works, read Pheadrus. You don't have to be a scholar to appreciate it.


Note regarding the Oxford World's Classics edition: most readers, no matter how (in)experienced in philosophy or Plato's works, will greatly benefit from Robin Waterfield's forty-page Introduction. It is divided into sections addressing the relevant topics: Erōs and Homoeroticism, First Speech, Second Speech, Third Speech (the Palinode), Rhetoric, Dialectic and the Weakness of Writing, The Unity of the Dialogue.

Son varios los críticos que han señalado que el Fedro es un texto inconexo. Como insostenible por sí mismo, los distintos temas que toca parecen carecer de un algo que los anude y otorgue continuidad a un diálogo que habla sobre la poesía, la escritura, la locura, el amor y la retórica (entre otras cosas, claro está).
Sin embargo, encuentro ese nudo en la perspectiva que se tiene del lenguaje y que va a ser de tremenda relevancia para el mundo de la literatura occidental: el lenguaje es alterable, manipulable y posee la capacidad de determinar el comportamiento de las personas. El lenguaje que circula alrededor de las esferas públicas y privadas trae consigo el poder de alterar las percepciones y de engañar a nuestros cinco sentidos. Bajo esta perspectiva, el lenguaje, podría decirse, puede llegar a componerse de distintas ficciones. Son peligrosas en tanto esas ficciones pueden afectar el comportamiento, las creencias y los valores de la gente. Quien posee el poder de manipular el lenguaje a su favor guarda consigo un tremendo poder que, a ojos de Platón, es tremendamente peligroso. Así de grande es el poder que guarda un lenguaje, que, por primera vez en occidente se explicita de manera tan concreta, controla a las masas y altera los regímenes de verdad dentro de lo que se dice y lo que no.

He allí el nudo que, a mi parecer, logra unir los distintos temas que se tocan en este diálogo y que fue de gran aportación para el mundo de la teoría literaria occidental (cosa que fallaron en enseñarme al momento de toparme con el Fedro en mi formación académica). Platón establece de esta forma una manera de comprender el lenguaje como manipulación y que es, precisamente, lo que se realiza al momento de concretizarse una obra literaria: ya sea con fines estéticos, políticos o didácticos, el producto literario es de alguna forma u otra lenguaje manipulado. En tanto lenguaje manipulado, debe de ser cuestionado y analizado en las formas que transmite la información, pues de lo contrario puede guiar nuestras mentes a lugares que no deseamos que sean guiadas. Las distintas formas de organización del lenguaje nos afectan, pudiendo la poesía o el ejercicio escritural incitarnos al amor o la locura (que no son tan distintos entre sí) gracias al poder retórico y artificioso que poseen.

I'm not sure about this, but I think the Phaedrus is probably among the most famous of the Socratic dialogues. On the surface, the first half of the dialogue pertains to the benefits and harms of erosic love, whereas the second is dedicated to one of Plato's favourite topics, the uses and abuses of rhetoric. However, I think its greatest contribution—and certainly its most discussed—is the Analogy of the Chariot, which provides insight both into Plato's conception of the soul and his theory of forms. The soul, Plato tells us, is like a chariot, with the charioteer driven by a charioteer (reason) and led by a good horse (the noble emotions) and a bad horse (desire). In the well-ordered soul, reason tames desire in such a way that it can pursue what is highest and most beautiful. I don't think it quite ranks among the very best of Plato's dialogues—Republic, Gorgias, Theatetus and the like—but it's close.

Phaedrus is about relationships between friends and lovers. It's also a case study in rhetoric. It even delves into the nature of philosophy.

I suspect that there is no way of translating it so that it's easy to approach for the reader with little idea of what Plato was about. It's probably a difficult text to translate at all. The introduction to the translation I read certainly hints that this is the case.

There are so many barriers between a modern-day reader and a text like this. Even someone as familiar with it and its context as Christopher Rowe, translator of the Penguin version, can't understand all the allusions and idioms it contains and he doesn't have the space to explain all the ones he does. His notes can't tell us everything about living in Plato's time in Plato's city. He can't provide a complete background to the discussion in terms of the history of philosophy or what other philosophers were saying at the same time. Some of the plays and poems Plato references have been lost and a summary of the ones that are extant would probably be longer than the discussion between the two men. Even the book's setting of Socrates and Phaedrus meeting up and going for an early morning walk to discuss a speech written by someone else has meaning that's not obvious to a casual reader like me.

My two stars say more about my inability to connect with the text than it does about the text itself. As a book, Phaedrus is very short, but it's a very dense, and difficult, read for the uninitiated.

This is a short dialogue and I read it quickly. It's the one with the argument against the invention of writing.

Basically Socrates (the character) is suspicious of any attempt to replace a process that uses the whole of a human's abilities (like spoken discourse) with an automated process that's simpler and more rigid, like written language. A book can't talk back to you, can't explain the nuances; a book is dumber than a wise human. (Just like, in the Laws, Plato is skeptical of legal codes because a formally codified law is dumber than a wise human.) I think this is a valuable concern, especially in an age of automation.

Initial Problem: Can a lover be a stable friend?

P1: The Lover is more dis-ordered than the non-lover.
P2: Love is a desire [Plato 237]
P2a: Erromenos Eros is the Supreme Desire.
P3: (Socrates speaking): The non-lover has all the advantages in which the lover is deficient.

P(1-3) establish that the lover is always unstable. He is concerned with pleasing the beloved. It seems if he is controlled by desire (Eros), then he isn’t rational. In fact, he is mad.

But Socrates raises an interesting question: Do we not consider Eros divine (the ancient Greek would have said yes)? If so, he can’t be evil. If he isn’t evil, does that call into question P(1-3)? Socrates renews his argument:

P4: What if madness weren’t necessarily an evil? [244]

Prophecy is a kind of madness, yet no one considers prophets evil (not usually). Therefore, “love” might be a madness, but it isn’t automatically evil.

Here Socrates breaks the narrative and talks about the nature of the soul. The soul is immortal, which means it is indestructible and self-moving. Therefore, the soul can’t be evil. Therefore, presumably, it’s desiring isn’t madness. In fact, it has to be mad.

P4*: Souls long for that which is beyond themselves [248].

Plato introduces the famous metaphor that the soul is a charioteer.

Soul tt=tGood Horse (forms)ttORttBad Horse (defective)
tttttttCharioteer

Knowledge

Problem: Truth is in the eternal realm, yet I am in this world of flux. How can I know truth? How can I know what I don’t yet know? Desire (Eros) mediates between what is known and what is unknown. As Socrates says, “I love, but know not what” [255]. Thus, knowing is a form of loving. As Catherine Pickstock says, “Eros is described as a liquid, pouring into the eyes and overflowing into others” (Pickstock 239).

Pickstock suggests that knowledge implies a pre-understanding “through a desire to know.”