Plato – Phaedrus[1]

First, I’ll give a recap of the speech:

A. Phaedrus begins the speech, which starts with the notion that the lover is a mad man, that is, insane with desire. This insanity is damaging to the lover and the beloved.

1. This speech of Lysias is cynical at this point, describing a physical, selfish love.

2. The speech itself is badly written, a parody actually, which shows the weakness and corruption of the thought behind it. Plato has a reason for writing it in this way. Socrates fears that this speech will corrupt Phaedrus, who is quite taken by it, and, in turn, Socrates makes derogatory and ironic comments about the speech of Lysias.

B. Socrates refutes the speech with a speech of his own.

1. He puts a cloak over his head and delivers an improved version of the Lysias speech. It is better, but still not as good as his final speech at the end of the dialogue.

2. Socrates starts out by defining love, and he organizes the speech much better than Lysias did.

3. At this point, what Socrates says about love is in the realm of right opinion as opposed to true knowledge.

4. He appears, in part to agree with Lysias’ idea of love (an irrational desire for the object of the desire). But he then breaks off when he realizes that he has praised what to him is a non-lover.

5. At this point, Plato works in mention of the ancient Greek lyric poets Ibycus and Stesichorus.

6. Socrates is becoming dithyrambic, and wants to leave. Phaedrus asks him to stay; it is “scorching noon”

7. Socrates’ daimon orders him to stay and make up for his impiety 9in talking about love in the way he has; the gods have overheard him and are unhappy.

8. Stesichorus was blinded for his impiety in writing an unflattering poem about Helen of Troy. The real target of Plato is Homer (who was said to have been blind), whom Plato believes has miseducated everyone, including the lyric poets. Stesichorus atoned by writing an encomium to Helen and his sight is restored.

9. Maybe this is related to the symbolism of the cloak over Socrates’ head. He has been, in effect, blind and therefore his speech about love has not been one of true knowledge. But by removing his cloak (having his vision restored, like Stesichorus) he is now ready to give us this true knowledge. Lovely metaphors Plato ole’ buddy!

C. Socrates decides to start again: “The essence of good speech is telling the truth.” That is why his first speech failed, because it accepted some of Lysias’ values and assumptions, and therefore was not true.

1. Socrates admits that love is madness or a type of insanity. But not all insanity is evil.

2. There are four kinds of “insanity” that are good, endowed by the gods: prophecy, purgation or atonement for sins, lyric poetry, and love.

3. Socrates third speech is actually all of these things, the “great instantiation” of love in a kind of divine or superhuman sense.

4. If we want to characterize these speeches metallurgically, Lysias’ speech as a “bronze” speech; Socrates’ first speech as a “silver” speech; and his third and final encomium is a “gold” speech.

D. Socrates give us an image of the soul in love. He uses the metaphor of a winged chariot, driven by charioteer and pulled by two horses. This chariot takes us up out of the realm of space and time to the home of the gods and the realm of the forms.

1. Most humans have a white horse (docile and good) and a black one (hard to handle, bad). The problem is to get the black horse of the soul under control.

2. Only in this way can we “stand on the back of the universe” to see reality and live with the gods for the 10,000 year cycle of the cosmos.

3. If we do not control the “black” horse, we suffer the human condition of living in the world of substance, longing for the beautiful realm of the forms.

4. Love reminds us of the beauty of what our souls once knew in an earlier existence – if you’re familiar with Plato’s conception of the “Transmigration of the Soul” (described here), then you’re on the right track. – maybe. . .

5. Real love is thus an attempt to improve the other by improving their soul. This is what Socrates is trying to do for Phaedrus.

6. Plato believed in a cycle of life, judgment and rebirth in one thousand year cycles (within the larger 10,000 year cosmic cycle). If, after 10,000 years, you are virtuous, you “get your wings” and live with the gods. However, if you are like Socrates, practicing this kind of (“Platonic”) love, you need only go around three times. Convenient!

E. Socrates lets us know that sex is to the body what good, improving speech is to the soul. This is unselfish, divine

love. This is the true speech about love, which Socrates is delivering with the cloak off his head, symbolizing light

in truth.

1. At this point, after a religious speech about love, Socrates begins to talk about rhetoric, and a definition of the “good” speech. In this case, he accuses the Sophists as the seducers of the demos/polis.  Their motives are suspect because they want to gratify themselves, not improve the demos.

2. Socrates wants to persuade people and society for their own benefit. Knowledge is the essence of a good speech.

3. A speech must move towards dialectic. Some rhetoric is acceptable, but Socrates’ rhetoric is different (more orderly) than that of the Sophists.

4. Socrates then gives a whole catalogue of opposites, which express what the soul is, and what our identity is. We are seen and known in our speech.

5. Again, we see that Socrates is divinely inspired (dithyrambic), undergoing a purgation, using lyric poetry, and expressing his love for Phaedrus.

F. At the end of this “hymn to love”, the sun is setting.  This spreading darkness is a return from passion to reason and logic.  Socrates now moves to philosophy to finish the “journey” of the dialogue as they return to the city.

1. Socrates suggests a prayer, demonstrating the importance of piety as a bridge to the gods.

2. The concluding idea is that the love reaches into the soul and makes it divine. This happens only in the presence of another soul, which we can love. Love is the gift of the gods.

OK, so there’s the general structure of Plato’s argument before the section on speech/rhetoric and writing.  Now let’s try to see how exactly Phaedrus engages the role of public and private life of the Athenian citizen and the relationship between individuality versus collectivity in this piece. . .

• Early on in this piece we get a social/urban rural/individual divide – Socrates resides in the grove seeking truth and Lysias (the Sophist) is in the city, practicing his Gorgianic art.  Here also the binary between nature/society is already becoming apparent.  Nature=truth or inartistic proofs, society=artistic proofs.
• You “learn” things in the city from people. . . which sounds noble; however, if we take Plato’s other writings into account, “learning” isn’t nearly as valuable as looking inward and discovering truth.  Pg. 115, 1^st column.
• Lysias’ speech seems to argue that it is better to give your affection to a non-lover because they are more likely to be able to return that affection in kind.  ‘
• Socrates’ first speech makes the argument that the lover will do what he needs to do to turn the loved into something the lover wants, not what is best for the lover.  This too is a mistake because it is woefully self-indulgent and doesn’t exhibit a concern for the loved best interest.  If we extend this metaphor to rhetoric and the role of the rhetor in public life, it would appear that Socrates – in his first speech – is arguing that the rhetor can take his “lover” or audience for a ride without care of repercussion toward self interested motives; however, he recants this position after his daimon pays him a visit and lets him know that he has offended the gods by assigning “love” – a deity – an essentially negative quality.  In response, Socrates reconceptualizes his notion of “love” and how to deal with it.
• On the immortality of the soul:  so, that which is moved from the outside is soulless.  Extending this line of reasoning to truth, that soul resides in truth. . . or actually the truth resides in the soul.  That truth, found inside the soul, should instantiate the Beginning of movement.  If moved from outside (through the artistic proofs that rhetoric provides), then the movement – the logos – is artificial and non-truthful, or at least not commensurate with the soul.
• In his second speech, Socrates corrects both Lysias and his first speech by recognizing that the good lover will only care for his beloved – even to the point of losing all of those things that Lysias claimed he would cut off from his beloved in his speech.  Extending this further, the lover of discourse and speech would do well to heed Socrates’ call for the interest of the larger beloved – the polis/demos.  126
• We get the indictment of sophistical rhetoric on 131, 1^st column.
• Socrates grounds rhetorical practice as an art that leads the soul with words both inside and outside of public life.  He notes, “Is not rhetoric in its entire nature an art which leads the soul by means of words, not only in law courts and the various other public assemblages, but in private companies as well?”  Further, Socractes notes that the “art of contention in speech is not confined to courts and political gatherings, but apparently, if it is an art at all, it would be one and the same in all kinds of speaking, the art by which man will be able to produce a resemblance between all things between which it can be produced, and to bring to light the resemblances produced and disguised by anyone else.” (132)  In both these sentences, Socrates is grounding rhetoric in a public and private context – or perhaps neither of these contexts exists and rhetoric simply is a state of being.
• When epistemology, Socrates relies on dialectic to produce meaning (135).  As such, sophistical rhetoric is merely a precursor to the real work of dialectical reasoning because it relies on formulas and manipulation rather than a process of arriving at truth (137, 1^st).
• Socrates lays out the perfect rhetorician on 138, 2^nd column.  He must know the class of speech, the kairotic moment, his audience (and the practical application of a class of speech to that audience) and the proper delivery.
• For public deliberative speech, probability is king; therefore, sophism will reign because the need for truth is not as persuasive as the need for likelihood.
• The need to speak – according to the Sophists – is a distinctly public activity; however, the need for reasoning and good speech is – according to Socrates – pleasing to the Gods and therefore necessary in all aspects of life (139).
• The end of Phaedrus serves as an invective against writing because it serves as an artificial wisdom that stands in contradiction to dialectic – it also cannot speak for itself, another strike against being dialectical.  True to form, Socrates never wrote anything.
• Much is made of Socrates’ negative perception of Athenian law courts at the end of Phaedrus.
• Diverging from his pretty harsh treatment of the Sophists in Gorgias, Socrates treats rhetoric with a lot more respect in Phaedrus.  He concludes that rhetoric is a neutral art in this piece.  Ideally, he only wants it to be put to use by the philosopher.
• Everett Lee Hunt argues that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is an extended version of Phaedrus.  Specifically, he sets up the following principles:
  • Disgrace lies in speaking badly, not in the act of speaking itself.
  • Knowledge on the subject matter is essential to the speaker.
  • Rhetoric is most useful in doubtful matters, where the outcome is unclear.
  • The true art depends on:
    • A speaker’s knowledge of nature
    • The speaker’s knowledge of the soul
      • The genus and species of souls
      • How the soul acts or is acted upon
      • How causes affect the soul
    • The speaker’s ability to enchant the soul
  • A discourse has a bodily structure, and therefore, has parts (proem, narrative, testimony, evidence, probabilities, and recapitulation).
  • Rhetoric is a difficult art, but worth practicing. (qtd. In Murphy and Katula 25-6)
• I think that Plato is basically saying in this piece that rhetoric is useful – in fact, it’s utility lies in its neutral art and its status as a way to encourage dialectical engagement across disparate discourses in civil society.  Unfortunately, this principle doesn’t seem to be extendable beyond the dialectical encounter of the individual to a larger polis/demos wide conversation. . . when it gets that broad there are too many voices and it devolves to simple sophism.

Selections from On Rhetoric – Aristotle

• Again, this is an iconic text, so I don’t think I’ll be doing a summation on the piece as a whole; rather, I’m reading here for how Aristotle engages the public and private in his discussion.
• Aristotle agrees with Plato – and also Socrates – on the point that rhetoric is an art.  He notes that ordinary people do it – this seems to suggest that rhetoric is a popular enterprise; however, as the first line points out, you can’t have rhetoric without dialectic. . . so it must happen with the help of another.
• Aristotle also notes the tension between truth and probabilities.  Though not as harsh as Plato, he acknowledges that those who are able to consistently guess the truth can also guess the probabilities.  So, in a sense, he short-circuits Plato’s idea that those who trade in probabilities are poorly intentioned rhetoricians.
• Aristotle hints at man as discourse creating creature when he discusses the role of words vs. the role of the “limbs.”  Civilized men use words to demonstrate their arguments, not violence/force.
• Because rhetoric is an art unconcerned with one particular class of subjects, but the use of persuasion in discoursing on all subjects, it’s utility is universal and its practice is ubiquitous.
• Interestingly, Aristotle notes how rhetoric is persuasive because there is somebody whom it persuades. . . this again is the constitution of an “other” whereas Plato’s truth – the reason anyone should persuade – is a solely individual journey of self-discovery.  Though Aristotle isn’t necessarily changing the notion of rhetoric all that much from Socrates’ definitions in Phaedrus, he is situating it in a dialogic context – not a lone search in the soul for “truth.”
• A. notes how of the three elements in speech-making, the person addressed (audience) is what determines any speech.  As such, rhetoric is again perceived in this context as a public enterprise that is especially in tune with the audience (as opposed to lyric poetry perhaps).
• In his section on anger (book 2, chapter 2), we see another discussion of the applicability of rhetoric/dialectic to discourse between a small number of interlocutors; however, as A. notes in this section, it is rare that an emotion can be felt toward “man” in general.  This might again point to the notion of the “mob” or the “public” as a dangerous, easily swayed multitude of non-philosopher kings unable to make smart decisions for themselves (and hence, dangerous!). . . just a hypothesis.

Cicero – excerpts from De Inventione

• Cicero wonders early whether men and communities have received more good or evil from oratory or a devotion to eloquence.  So, here we see rhetoric grounding in the fore of a concern for the community.
• Cicero too believes that eloquence (rhetoric) needs to be supplemented with wisdom in order to be in the interest of states.
• Rhetoric is perceived as a way to argue for the welfare of your country in this piece.
• Cicero notes – much like Aristotle’s conversation about the use of “limbs” as opposed to rhetoric – that man at one time resorted to brute force to sort things out; however, language and eloquence became a civilizing (perhaps the civilizing) force in man’s existence.
• We find this process of civilizing constituting a functioning public community by codifying law, justice and the common good through persuasive discourse.
• Cicero attaches governances of states to the art of eloquence – he seems to also draw the development of class to this same practice (9).
• Cicero makes a distinction between public and private affairs on 11.  First time.
• An echo of Aristotle’s metaphor for proper rhetorical practice vis-à-vis the role of medicine is echoes in Cicero.  He notes that “we say that the function of the physician is to treat the patient in a manner suited to heal him, the end is to heal him by treatment.”  Likewise, the function of eloquence seems to be in a manner suited to persuade an audience, the end is to persuade by speech” (15).

Cicero – excerpts from De Officiis

• Early on, Cicero offers proscriptions for young and old alike on how to spend their public time in the service of friends, each other, and most of all the state.  The young should labor physically while the older should labor mentally.  No one is urged to remain in a state of leisure.  A contradiction with Plato?
• For the public (magistrate), he should bear in mind that “he represents the state and that it is his duty to uphold its honour and its dignity, to enforce the law, to dispense to all their constitutional rights” whereas the private citizen should “live on fair and equal terms with his fellow citizens, with a spirit neither servile or groveling nor yet domineering” . . . and he should work toward the good of the state.
• The non-citizen shouldn’t meddle in the Roman public. . . it’s not their business (127).
• The view of “Nature’s demands” here has changed a bit perhaps from the Greeks.  According to Cicero, the performance of these functions is nothing immoral; however, speaking about them in public is a problem. . . so we have our first reading that confronts issues of censorship.
• An interesting construction of Nature as a proprietous entity concerned with modesty.
• The public appearance – adornment, physical stature and dignity – are essential for the outward visible propriety of the Ciceronian public figure.  Interestingly, Cicero usually persuades toward the middle road in his recommendations of public presentation – not too boorish/crass and not too flamboyant/extreme.
• The distinction between oratory and conversation is a distinction between public and private speech.
• In the section “The Proper Home” we get a peek into what sort of private life Cicero advocates in his writing.  We get directives about how not to be the nuveau riche, and how a homeowner should bring honor on his house, not the converse.
• For Cicero, the most important lesson is to keep impulse subservient to reason.
• Though likely obvious, Cicero classes and renders silent the lower in his section on vulgarity and being liberal (153-5).

Cicero – excerpts from De Oratore

• Cicero believes eloquence comes from the “accomplishments of learned men” whereas his friend believes it’s a skill attributable to a kind of talent and practice.
• Historically, Romans have sought after eloquence in order to be good citizens (4).
• Assembly speech is considered first in this emulation of Phaedrus.  The distinction between man and beast rooted in the art of speech is noted on 7L.  This is almost verbatim from Aristotle’s section on men and beasts and the difference between the two.
• The art of eloquence is certainly an organ of the state to prevent conflict in this piece.  (15).
• Wisdom and truth make the orator – not mere ornamentation (17).
• A marriage between truthful speech (philosophy) and eloquent speech (rhetoric/oratory) is the ideal public speaker for Cicero (18).
• A comment on ornamentation without matter )sophism) at the top of 19.
• The proper concern of an orator is “language of power and elegance accommodated to the feeling and understandings of mankind” (20).  This view of the rhetor certainly has an obligation toward the public.
• The difference between speakers in this piece is two:  Crassus feels like rhetoric is what founded the state and what makes the state glorious.  S. feels that the state was founded on good laws and good decision making.  For S. oratory needs to stay in the courts, assemblies and public life – not the conversational private life of this fantastic Italian villa! (Sections 8 – 12)
  • Crassus states that oratory is one of the greatest accomplishments that a nation can have.
    He extols the power that oratory can give to a person- including the ability to maintain civil rights, words to defend oneself, and the ability to revenge oneself on a wicked person.
    The ability to converse is what gives mankind our advantage over other animals and nature. It is what creates civilization. Since speech is so important, why should we not use it to the benefit of oneself, other individuals, and even the entire State?
  • Scaevola agrees with Crassus’s points except for two.
    Scaevola does not feel that orators are what created social communities and he questions the superiority of the orator if there were no assemblies, courts, etc.
    It was good decision making and laws that formed society, not eloquence. Was Romulus an orator? Scaevola says that there are more examples of damage done by orators than good, and he could cite many instances.
    There are other factors of civilization that are more important than orator: ancient ordinances, traditions, augury, religious rites and laws, private individual laws.
    Had Scaevola not been in Crassus’s domain, Scaevola would take Crassus to court and argue over his assertions, a place where oratory belongs.
    Courts, assemblies and the Senate are where oratory should remain, and Crassus should not extend the scope of oratory beyond these places. That is too sweeping for the profession of oratory.
  • Crassus replies that he has heard Scaevola’s views before, in many works including Plato ‘s Gorgias. However, he does not agree with their viewpoint. In respects to Gorgias, Crassus reminds that, while Plato was making fun of orators, Plato himself was the ultimate orator. If the orator was nothing more than a speaker without the knowledge of oratory, how is it possible that the most revered people are skilled orators? The best speakers are those who have a certain “style”, which is lost, if the speaker does not comprehend the subject matter on which he is speaking.
• Antonius notes that the education that Crassus describes in the ideal orator is really difficult to discover because it’s a sort of polymathism. . .

Cape “Roman Women in the History of Rhetoric and Oratory”

• The beginning of this article addresses the reclamation of female Greek rhetoricians; however, it also acknowledges the difficulty in accepting the source materials from which revisionist histories of Arete, Aspasia, Diotima and other Greek female rhetoricians.
• The difficulty of recovering Greek women’s texts is their position as private individuals due to their exclusion from the public sphere of Greek life.
• Opportunities for participation in public life were open to Greek women of noble birth.
• Eloquence allowed for the feminine whereas classical Greek rhetorike did not.
• The Roman understanding of eloquence seemed to rely far more heavily on a kairotic quality.  As Cape notes, “Cato does not say dicendi doctus (“educated in speaking”) but rather peritus (“skilled through practical application and the observance of when to use proper elements at the proper time”)
• Women’s oratory is taken up by Cicero when he discusses the influence of a mother’s/women’s voice on a son’s speech.  Women’s speech is sermo or private conversation.  It is gained through exposure when the mother is a youth to an eloquent father/male figure.
• Private women’s speech: Sermo.  The rhetoric of sermo is closely tied with the concurrent development of letter writing or epistolae.  Interestingly, the rhetorical conventions of private speech carries over to the private messages between individuals.  This is in some tension or contradiction with dialectic and how rhetoric has been conceptualized unto this time: a two-or-more (but not too many!) person enterprise.
• To participate in the private genre of sermo – despite it’s being private – it is essential to sound as though you are a man. . . or at least to observe the same rhetorical conventions (120).
• The author notes that in this essay “part of my argument is that Roman rhetoric opens up a conceptual space in which women’s rhetoric has a part.  Further research on sermo as feminine speech would help us understand the limitations and opportunities of this expression.  The connection between women’s conversation and the epistolary genre suggests a link to the origin and development of women’s letter-writing practice and instruction in the West” (125).

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[1] Let me say that this piece has been worked over by about a million people – so when I don’t do justice here, I’m not trying. . . I’m reading a particular way for particular content. In this particular case, I’m reading Phaedrus to look for how rhetoric intervenes or is participatory in the formation of public and private life.  J