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.

Plato's dialogues take on greater depth and resonance the more of them one reads. Socrates' character in them remains much the same: seemingly diffident, almost self-effacing, as he asks a series of questions that gradually reveal unstated assumptions on the part of the person with whom he is speaking. What changes from one dialogue to the next is the particular area of interest that a dialogue engages, and the character of the person or people whom Socrates engages in conversation. In the case of Phaedrus, Socrates' co-respondent is, unsurprisingly, Phaedrus -- a young man who is basically a person of good will, someone whom Socrates likes and trusts. Yet Phaedrus is a bit too much in love with artful rhetoric for its own sake; he praises a sophistical speech by one Lysias. Socrates demolishes Lysias' unethical arguments with ease, and then proceeds to lead Phaedrus into an in-depth discussion of what rhetoric is. In contrast with Gorgias, an earlier dialogue in which Socrates argued that all rhetoric is basically window-dressing for bad ideas, Phaedrus offers a more nuanced argument: that because rhetoric increases the persuasive power of an idea, it is all the more important that people of good will use the power of rhetoric to lend additional force to arguments that are ethical and moral. Socrates makes his point well, and it is a point that people of this era cannot help but appreciate: If you persuade one person that a donkey is a horse, that is a misfortune for one person. If, on the other hand, you persuade an entire society that donkeys are horses, it can be an entire nation's tragedy. The history of the 20th century, from Hitler and Stalin through Slobodan Milosevic and the architects of the Rwandan genocide, demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Socrates' ideas about rhetoric only too well.

I am embarrassed to admit - this is the first book by Plato that I have ever read (inspired by reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"). Phaedrus (actually Socrates) is excellent - clever, sophisticated, and to a certain extent even humorous. Now I need to read Plato's Republic...

Read for class. Second work by Plato I've read this year. I don't know if Socrates was really the way Plato characterizes him, but if he was, it's no wonder they wanted to poison him lol.

Ugh, these philosophers think they're so cool. It's HIGHLY annoying.

Platão é a minha crush filosófica desde o 12º ano. É bom constatar que há coisas (positivas) que não mudam.

“Come una corrente di vento o un’eco che rimbalzando su una superficie levigata e solida si ripercuote al punto d’origine, così la corrente di bellezza penetra di nuovo nel bell’amato attraverso gli occhi. Così per il suo naturale canale raggiunge l’anima, e come vi arriva disponendola al volo irrora i meati delle penne, stimola la crescita delle ali e a poco a poco riempie d’amore l’anima dell’amato.”

La domanda legittima è: perché, quando uno sta già leggendo altri sette libri, una bella mattina si sveglia e legge il Fedro di Platone? È una forma esplicita di insania mentale? Un pervicace accanimento della sorte? In realtà si tratta soltanto di una cortesia fatta a un familiare: mia sorella mi ha chiesto di leggerlo in sua vece. Così per due giorni ho accantonato Guerra e pace per fare un tuffo nella non-troppo-lontana vita liceale e fare un saluto a… Platone.

Deluderò le aspettative di molti se dico che la filosofia non mi ha mai intrigato granché. Sì, è carina da studiare, interessante quanto volete, abitua al pensiero, ma non sono mai stata disposta ad attribuirle un fondamento di verità. Un uomo coltissimo e acuto (coltissimo e acuto quanto volete, ma pur sempre un uomo) un giorno si dà a trascrivere la propria visione del mondo, che è la sua propria, senza dover necessariamente essere la mia. Perché la sua visione del mondo dovrebbe essere più fondata della visione di un uomo qualunque? Non negheremo che la filosofia ha una importanza culturale e artistica assoluta, che è uno strumento in grado di cavalcare la storia ed influenzarla, di guidare il pensiero degli uomini, tuttavia, se permettete, la filosofia è anche qualcosa di personale. C’è la filosofia di Platone. C’è la filosofia del mio vicino di casa. La differenza sta nell’esposizione. Quanto al contenuto, impossibile stabilire se il mio vicino di casa abbia meno ragione di Platone.

Mentre faccio questa tirata, il Fedro mi guarda in cagnesco appoggiato su un gomito. È un dialogo abbastanza permalosetto, di quelli che se la tirano. « E secondo te io non avrei più ragione della tua vicina col cane che abbaia sempre? ». Ok, abbasso la cresta. Il Fedro è una bestiolina un tantino intimidatoria.
« Innanzitutto io sono un pezzo di storia, capito? Non scherziamo con queste cose. La vostra concezione del mondo dipende in gran parte me, occidentali spocchiosi dalla memoria corta. Uno, il vostro Cristianesimo da strapazzo ha fatto copia-incolla e riadattato quello che di me gli andava più a genio. La vostra anima che sopravvive al corpo e bla bla bla, da chi pensate che viene, eh? E no, vogliamo mica parlare dell’amore platonico? No, vabbè, meglio non parlarne, sennò mi vengono certi nervi. No, perché, insomma, siete menomati mentali o cosa? Come se l’amore platonico fossero due cretini che stanno lì a guardarsi da lontano e s’amano. Ma dico, s’è mai sentita una scempiaggine del genere? Il vostro amore platonico ha finito per essere un travisamento totale del mio. L’amore che io dico è un amore dell’anima, certo, ma non prescinde certo dall’amore del corpo. L’amore che io dico è un amore perfetto di anima e di corpo, che mena amante e amato alla sapienza. I vostri due damerini che languono e sospirano sono pure abbastanza patetici da guardare. Poveri occidentali sfigati che avete dovuto inventare tutto un mito di amore puro… e di che avevate paura? A parte che, parliamone, che noia quel vostro amore uomo-donna. Donna… conoscerò giusto tre donne con cui valga la pena di parlare. Le altre se fanno la minestra è meglio. Vogliamo invece mettere l’arricchimento del rapporto tra un uomo saggio e un bellissimo giovane tutto da educare? Dio, non vedete che favolosa storia d’amore è? No, non lo vedono. Loro preferiscono quei due beccamorti di Dante e Beatrice che, per carità, tutto il bene del mondo, ma l’amore gli è passato attraverso “li occhi” ed è rimasto lì. Che tristezza, che tristezza mi fate. »

Beh, il Fedro s’è innervosito e straparla. Mai svegliare il Fedro che dorme.
Signor Platone, caro Fedro, se non vi spiace io tornerei a Guerra e pace, eh? Perché, se debbo dirvi la verità, a me il falso-amore-platonico mi garba tanto e pure Nataša Rostova e il principe Andrej. Ma è stato un piacere. Questo è il mio numero di telefono. Fate uno squillo quando siete in zona, che ci facciamo un aperitivo.

Je t'adore Platon mais dis à ton pote Socrate d'arrêter de parler pour rien dire

proč Sókratés furt mluví

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A truly miserable read. Two stars only because it has so much importance

Contrary to the image of a stiff built up by some of his other work, Plato here seems willing to allow for forms of ‘divine’ madness caused by love for another person, tempered by shame, awe, and pre-birth memory that facilitate the contemplation of the forms, even when you don’t know you’re doing it!

The existence of the soul is taken for granted rather than argued for, maybe it’s argued for elsewhere, but I’ve not seen it. Either way, if you were to grant this point then the arguments Plato makes from there - that the soul is immortal, that it is privy to that which physical being corrupts, and that its continuance in human bodies allows us to partially remember ‘how things really are’ are basically believable. But, again, that first point of the soul existing at all is taken as a given, or indeed that anything but the physical is real.
From there, though, the defence of love as a force through which we can contemplate and become obsessed by the true form of beauty, through the vector of another person, is very good. This latter argument is presented in a palinode which is opposed to two previous speeches which are broadly ‘clever’ in their condemnation of gratifying lovers as opposed to non-lovers, but ultimately, as Plato shows, fail to account for the possibility that loving and being loved can aim towards something other than the gratification of physical lust or social ambition.

The argument I found most convincing was not even the main subject of the book, Plato roundly trounces the ‘expertise’ of rhetoric by showing that a truly good rhetoric would essentially be identical to philosophy, so why someone would pursue rhetoric as opposed to that is made doubtful in the extreme. Maybe, we might say rhetoric is good because it allows us to present the truth in an attractive way that will bring others closer to it. But again, Plato demonstrates that to do this one must a) know the truth in the first place and b) be aware of what sort of person we’re talking to so we know to what sort of persuasion they would be most malleable. All this is identical to dialectical philosophy, one on one conversations contemplating the truth of the divisions and categorisations we have come up with.

I was embarrassingly showed up for my preference for reading books over talking about philosophy to people. Plato argues that the written word obscures one’s ability to think properly by not only damaging the memory by making it rely on ‘jogging’ exercises, but also filling it up with phraseology that we might instead replace with our own conversations. That Plato wrote this at all, of course, belies that there may be some value to writing after all.

This is up there with the Symposium in terms of having merit both as philosophy and as a piece of fiction. Weirdly for Plato especial attention is given to Socrates and Phaedrus’ surroundings, they are in the countryside, and the two comment on the beauty of their location. This is not only beautiful language, it also provides relevant window-dressing to the philosophy itself - what better way to gear us up for a conversation partly about the merits of being enraptured by beauty than bringing the beauty of nature to the forefront?

Maybe I shouldn't have finished Phaedrus at the airport at 10 o'clock at night while waiting for my delayed flight to arrive at the gate, but man. This was terrible, and a terrible example of the kind of philosophy available from 4th century BCE. I added a star because of its valuable place in the history of ideas and thought.

I must be super cranky today.

Todo mundo cita só o final desse livro (trecho sobre a superioridade do conhecimento oral sobre o escrito), mas a verdade é que esse diálogo tem muitos trechos importantes, inclusive, e na prática, uma antecipação in nuce do que viria a ser a Retórica de Aristóteles. Excelente.