Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Preliminaries: reading Plato
- THE DIALOGUES
- Introduction: The simile of the cave in the Republic
- 1 The Apology: Socrates' defence, Plato's manifesto
- 2 The Phaedo: Socrates' defence continued
- 3 ‘Examining myself and others’, I: knowledge and soul in Charmides, First Alcibiades, Meno, Republic, Euthyphro, Phaedrus
- 4 The moral psychology of the Gorgias
- 5 ‘Examining myself and others’, II: soul, the excellences and the ‘longer road’ in the Republic
- Appendix to Chapter 5: Socrates vs Thrasymachus in Republic I
- Interlude: A schedule of the genuine dialogues
- 6 Knowledge and the philosopher-rulers of the Republic, I: knowledge and belief in Book v
- 7 Knowledge and the philosopher-rulers of the Republic, II: the limits of knowledge
- 8 The Theaetetus, and the preferred Socratic–Platonic account of knowledge
- 9 The form of the good and the good: the Republic in conversation with other (‘pre-Republic’) dialogues
- 10 Republic and Timaeus: the status of Timaeus' account of the physical universe
- 11 Plato on the art of writing and speaking (logoi): the Phaedrus
- Epilogue: What is Platonism?
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Plato on the art of writing and speaking (logoi): the Phaedrus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Preliminaries: reading Plato
- THE DIALOGUES
- Introduction: The simile of the cave in the Republic
- 1 The Apology: Socrates' defence, Plato's manifesto
- 2 The Phaedo: Socrates' defence continued
- 3 ‘Examining myself and others’, I: knowledge and soul in Charmides, First Alcibiades, Meno, Republic, Euthyphro, Phaedrus
- 4 The moral psychology of the Gorgias
- 5 ‘Examining myself and others’, II: soul, the excellences and the ‘longer road’ in the Republic
- Appendix to Chapter 5: Socrates vs Thrasymachus in Republic I
- Interlude: A schedule of the genuine dialogues
- 6 Knowledge and the philosopher-rulers of the Republic, I: knowledge and belief in Book v
- 7 Knowledge and the philosopher-rulers of the Republic, II: the limits of knowledge
- 8 The Theaetetus, and the preferred Socratic–Platonic account of knowledge
- 9 The form of the good and the good: the Republic in conversation with other (‘pre-Republic’) dialogues
- 10 Republic and Timaeus: the status of Timaeus' account of the physical universe
- 11 Plato on the art of writing and speaking (logoi): the Phaedrus
- Epilogue: What is Platonism?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Phaedrus is – like so many other dialogues of Plato's – one of a kind. It appears to reach its climax with one of the most memorable pieces of Platonic writing (the great myth of the chariot of the soul), only to go on to treat it as a starting-point for a dry discussion of what Socrates calls the ‘art of words (logoi)’. What emerges at the end of this discussion, between Socrates and Phaedrus, an amateur enthusiast for rhetoric, is a critique of writing as a medium of communication, and a strong statement of preference for the spoken word, in the particular form of dialectic between master dialectician and student. It is the critique of writing, together with the description of a new, philosophical rhetoric that frames it, that will be the main subject of the present short (and last) chapter.
The basic lines of a coherent interpretation of the Phaedrus were laid down by W. H.Thompson in the introduction to his edition of the dialogue, published in 1868. The dialogue starts, after some preliminaries, with Phaedrus reading an exhibition speech by – the person we know as – the great Attic orator Lysias on the theme ‘a boy should grant (sc. sexual) favours to the man who is not in love him rather than one who is’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing , pp. 266 - 272Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007