I got tired of Lysias/Phaedrus’s know it all attitude about love and eros real quick and found Socrates arguments here fairly weak. If you are interested in ancient Greek attitudes on friendship, lovership and everything in between, then this is your jam, otherwise this is a long Plato read than can be skipped with little loss imo.

A very interesting read. With the Symposium, this book is one of Plato's most important books on love. His exploration of the relationship between love and beauty is very interesting.

His treatment of love in a homoerotic relationship (specifically between adult men and boys of between approximately 13 and 18) in both the Symposium and the Phaedrus is sometimes placed center screen, as if Plato was approving of it, when it is only a culturally accepted practice that is used by Plato as a way of talking about love (and, in fact, of pointing away from sensuality towards training in philosophy). Some people try to make a great deal of Plato's treatment of homoerotic love, as if this is what the book is about. This is to misread Plato. For others, his treatment of this subject may keep them from reading this book, but, it is worth noting that though homoerotic relationships between boys and men were often accepted in Ancient Greek culture, Socrates and Plato are actually to be read as dissenting voices. In fact, as the translator and editor of this volume notes, Socrates and Plato would probably have argued that homoerotic behaviour was against the very nature of love, as the purpose of love was reproduction. Physical erotic love was for reproduction (thus between a man and a woman), and so was mental or spiritual love. But mental or spiritual love was for the reproduction of lovers of the divine ideas and beauty--the philosophers.

Almost all of Plato's observations, made in the context of homoerotic love between men and boys, can be removed from that context and placed within the context of any human relationship.

وقتی چشمانش به چشمان معشوق می‌افتد٫ لرزش بدنش به گرمایی سوزاننده تبدیل می‌شود. بخشی از روح که محل رشد بال‌هاست اما در طول زندگی زمینی خشک و چروکیده شده٫ شروع به ذوب شدن می‌کند و دوباره بال‌های کوچکی از آن جوانه می‌زند:
«همانند کودکی که دندان‌هایش تازه جوانه زده و لثه‌هایش می‌خارد و درد می‌گیرد، وقتی بال‌ها جوانه می‌زنند روح متورم می‌شود، درد می‌گیرد و می‌سوزد.»

I have heard a tradition of the ancients, whether true or not they only know; although if we found the truth ourselves, do you think that we should care much about the opinions of men?

Delightful rumination on the contrast of rhetoric and philosophy, on the written against the spoken and the madness which is love. I read this as grist for a Derrida project which failed to appear on command. Other tools require being readied.

Sokrates kadar büyük bir adamı ancak Platon kadar büyük bir adam ve büyük bir yazar anlatabilirdi... İç içe geçmiş gölgeler gibi, hangisinin daha büyük olduğunu asla bilemeyeceğiz...

"at this point, then, his whole soul seethes and pounds––in fact, the soul of someone who is beginning to grow wings experiences exactly the same sensations that children feel when they are teething, with their teeth just starting to grow, and they feel an itching and a soreness in their gums. so the soul, as it grows its wings, seethes and feels sore and tingles."

&

"at the end of their lives, when they leave their bodies, they may not have any wings, but they do have the desire to gain them, and this is no small prize to have gained from the madness of love. for it is a law that those who have already made a start on the skyward journey shall no longer go into the darkness and enter upon the journey downward to the underworld. instead, they live a life of brightness and happily travel in each other’s company, and sooner or later, thanks to their love, gain their wings together."

read in dialogue with death in venice, got caught on the strange & lovely eroticism of this account of teething soul-wings ? & on the poetic brilliance of a too fleshy, too earthbound love that still carries its lovers upwards ?

lysias is an opp

I love Plato! I think the argument made in Phaedrus is so important—how rhetoric and memory rely on something we believe is more than it is. I think the story of memory is so important because we believe we have this skill and knowledge, but really most of our memory is just reminding not remembering. It makes me want to put more effort into the actual act of recollection. So good!

tFedro é um texto dos mais complexos. Mais do que ser lido, é um texto para ser estudado. Assim, acho que o livro será muito mais apreciado se acompanhado por algum tipo de orientação. Felizmente, hoje, há diversos vídeos no Youtube que podem auxiliar o leitor e também cursos online que valorizam a leitura.
tUma das dificuldades é abundância de temas presentes no diálogo. Fale-se sobre o Amor, mas também sobre a Teoria das formas, a Dialética e a Retórica. Enfim, muita coisa.
tDito isso, temos Sócrates que se encontra com o Fedro e, do lado de fora das muralhas, sob a sombra de uma árvore, passam a tratar do Amor. A base inicial é um discurso elaborado por Lísias.
tAs bases, como em todos os diálogos de Sócrates, é a. a melhor vida é aquela em que se visa a conhecer a si mesmo; b. a busca de si mesmo é feita através de um tipo especial de diálogo.
tO diálogo, aliás, é um método mimético, ou seja, se não é possível ser Sócrates (o modelo de vida bem vivida), o diálogo é uma imitação por meio da arte da vida do filósofo.
tAqui, como em outras obras, há uma hipótese formulada por Sócrates sobre algo da alma humana e examinam-se as consequências dessa hipótese.
tAlém disso, tudo em Platão, cada palavra, cada frase, significa algo: Fedro e Sócrates estão do lado de fora das muralhas, ou seja, buscam algo que não pode ser oferecido pela vida na pólis. Além disso, uma simples linha “Ó caro Feder, aonde e de onde?” ou, em outra tradução “Para onde vais, amigo Federo, e de onde vens?” pode gerar uma enormidade de comentários.
tO discurso é o modo como se pode conseguir apanhar e tornar inteligível a confusão do mundo. O discurso, de novo a mimesis, é um jeito de tentar se aproximar desse mundo de conceitos:
t“Que deve todo discurso constituir-se como um ser animado, tendo um corpo que seja o seu, de modo a não ficar sem pé nem cabeça, mas ter partes centrais e extremas, escritas de modo a se ajustarem entre si e com o todo” [264c]
tDaí, que mesmo o diálogo possa ter tratado do amor, também pode ser entendido como um grande tratado do método filosófico e, assim, o primeiro discurso de Sócrates pode ser lido como uma crítica ao discurso desordenado de Lísias. Sócrates, mesmo discordando, usa os mesmos argumentos para elaborar algo coeso.
tDe qualquer modo, o Amor significa um encontro com esse mundo das ideias, porque nos permite, por meio de uma loucura/delírio momentâneo essa reminiscência da beleza do mundo das almas.
t
t

Socrates be like "Bros b4 hoes(who are dudes)...wait, but what if hoes...could be your bros...and lead your soul to remember its contemplation of True Beauty in the realm of The Forms? That'd be tight."

Then Phaedrus is like "Hell yeah it'd be."

przepraszam, ale nie mogłem znieść tego pierdolenia….

Previously considered a lesser work by Plato, but more recently considered important because of Derrida. The text is about writing and oral communication and their role in telling the truth. The dialogue very cleverly intersperses the difference between true and false love with the difference between true and false rhetoric. In reading this, it helps to understand the opposition between Socrates and the sophists that pervades most of the other Platonic dialogues, but the Phaedrus can stand alone.
The Phaedrus highlights the irony of Plato having a written dialogue that criticizes whether writing can tell the truth. This irony appears to cut at the very core of the use of Plato's writings and the relationship between Socrates and the sophists.