(Only read The Phaedrus, so no rating).
I came back to Phaedrus after reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in which the narrator's alter ego is known as Phaedrus. I originally read this text in college, as part of Literary Criticism class. The outline of arguments for and against rhetoric versus philosophy, while heavily weighted, give the reader (or listener, as it should be!) the opportunity to be led, incrementally, as the suggested approach warrants, through a dialectical argument for knowledge, as part of The Good, over the blind rhetorical imprint left by a speech made purely to persuade. Chicken soup for the lawyer's soul? Wink, wink.

(i only read phaedrus)

Didn't get much out of this one. Can't seem to find a work yet by Plato that I truly adore. Aristotle for me!

Here Plato gets pretty heavily into the philosophy and art of love and rhetoric, in the context of a discussion or "dialogue" between Socrates and Phaedrus about whether a boy is better served by an older man who loves him or doesn't love him and just admits his desire. I'm not going to spend a ton of time raving about Plato because his writing is obviously a foundation of western thought, and this text does nothing to disprove the notion. The letters concern several episodes of Plato's political tribulations and touch upon his notions of representative democracy. Mostly I was struck by the certainty that we as people are not fundamentally very different than we were ~ 2400 years ago when this was written. It was also fun to see what I had underlined 25 years ago when I first read the book as part of a freshman lit class.

The tail end of Plato's Phaedrus is notable for the story of Thamus's rejection of Thoth's gift of writing, a story which gets a lot of play in certain corners of 20th-century theory and philosophy.

a little underwhelming compared to other Plato works and not a huge takeaway but still a good example of his writing style and prose, I enjoyed it as light reading

My favourite of the Plato's dialogues that I have read so far.

Deeply poetical, I find, despite Plato’s always ironic rejection of such in The Republic! Literarily beautiful, and some good ideas sprout up: the divisions of the soul as a chariot led by the procession of Greek gods; the true art of rhetoric as actual knowledge of the subject one persuades for or against, and the section of Thamus & Theuth (on why speaking is better than writing) is great, too. Also quite a quick read!

I read the Phaedrus and parts of the seventh letter for a course on language, communication and philosophical form in Plato's work. I think the Phaedrus is my favourite dialogue so far, mostly because of the playful way in which Socrates' and Phaedrus' relationship is presented. But I must say I'm not a fan of this translation. For those who read dutch I recommend Charles Hupperts' 2016 translation; he offers many more interesting notes on (cultural) context which make the dialogue even more interesting.

Socrates' description of the soul of the lover painfully sprouting feathers upon meeting the beloved is one of the most beautiful and erotic passages in western literature.

That Socrates was one saucy queen.

"Why Phaedrus, is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me? My dear friend, nothing would please me more than to hear you recite that speech. Sure, let's take a walk to the countryside and discuss love. Don't you find that walking barefoot in the stream is more refreshing?[...] Oh, now, that was one delightful speech. Simply divine. No, no, I couldn't possibly compare...well, if you insist, I guess I'll try (this glade is just full of spirits - perhaps if I hide my face from you, one of them will infuse my words)."

And then he really gets started.

The dialogues present a model of literary criticism that depends on imitation and refutation--i.e., "oh yeah? Well, how 'bout this?" followed by a speech that blows the first one out of the water.

But the best part is the stuff in between the speeches. Coy taunts and ironically humble, Socrates is such a winner of a character. Plato knew what he was doing when he made it into a series. (Socrates, First Word Part Two...with Sly in sandals!)

The letters are Plato's response to an appeal for political advice. My favorite part comes in the editor's preface, where he describes the fate of Dionysus, tyrant of Syracuse, who ended up in exile as a schoolteacher!

Phaedrus is a dialogue generally believed to come in the later part of Plato's middle period, possibly being the last dialogue of this period. There are chiefly two things being discussed: Love and rhetoric.

There are a few things about this dialogue that struck me as unusual. Firstly, the dialogue takes place outside of the city of Athens surrounded by nature (Plato's dialogues almost invariably take place within the city). This sets us up for the next unusual feature of the dialogue, which is that Socrates makes two relatively long speeches in quick succession, each of them promoting opposing ideas, the first of these speeches being uncharacteristically rhetorical, and the second uncharacteristically poetic.

The third and (for me) most notable feature of the dialogue is that it seems to have a higher concentration of Plato's core ideas than any Platonic dialogue I've read so far. It includes a myth similar to The Myth of Er from Republic, the Doctrine of Recollection from Meno, the idea of rhetoric as flattery (Gorgias) and the Ladder of Love (Symposium), all wrapped up in a short 70-80 page dialogue. Having read the above-mentioned dialogues, I found the Phaedrus quite straightforward in its ideas, but would strongly recommend reading all four of them before reading the Phaedrus if you are not familiar with these concepts, or at the very least Meno and Symposium, or you may find yourself very confused by Plato's sometimes offhand references to these quite complicated ideas.

The newest idea discussed in Phaedrus seems to be Plato's new method of 'dialectic', which he describes as being of the 'collection' and 'division' of particular ideas relating to the topic under discussion. Apart from this, the Phaedrus felt something like a recapitulation of of Plato's main ideas up to this point. This isn't a bad thing though, and it's very satisfying to feel the various Platonic concepts that you've worked to understand in the preceding dialogues come together as one complete picture.

My own experience of reading the Phaedrus was a good one, even though I did find it a little heavy on the myths (I know some people love this side of Plato but I find it a little tedious in all honesty). What I noticed most of all was that I read the entire dialogue in one sitting, even though that meant staying up a lot later than I'd planned in order to finish it. At that point, I felt quite energised by this dialogue and decided to give it a 5 star review. Upon the customary second reading that is necessary for Plato's work, however, I found it difficult to get excited about and gave up after about 20 pages. I think this may be because most of the ideas that are discussed are ideas I was already familiar with before Phaedrus, so after the novelty of seeing them all tied together in the first reading had worn off, there was little left to keep me confused enough to maintain my interest. Anyway, that's why it gets 4 stars from me. All in all, a really worthwhile dialogue if you still have energy after Meno, Republic and Symposium.

The Seventh Letter is quite interesting too, particularly Plato's anger at the idea of someone writing his (Plato's) ideas down in book form, which helps us to further understand the arguments that close the Phaedrus and the way in which he sees his own dialogues as being completely disconnected from more direct philosophical treatises.