Phaedrus (dialogue)
This is in contrast to dialogues such as the Symposium, in which Plato sets up multiple layers between the day's events and our hearing of it, explicitly giving us an incomplete, fifth-hand account.
The dialogue consists of a series of three speeches on the topic of love that serves as the subject to construct a discussion on the proper use of rhetoric.
A hungry animal can be driven by dangling a carrot or a bit of greenstuff in front of it; similarly if you proffer me speeches bound in books I don't doubt you can cart me all around Attica, and anywhere else you please.
Beginning with "You understand, then, my situation: I've told you how good it would be for us in my opinion, if this worked out",[Note 3] the speech proceeds to explain all the reasons why it is better to give your favor to a non-lover rather than a true lover.
[Note 7] Socrates, rather than simply listing reasons as Lysias had done, begins by explaining that while all men desire beauty, some are in love and some are not.
At some point, "right-minded reason" will take the place of "the madness of love",[Note 14] and the lover's oaths and promises to his boy will be broken.
Socrates, fearing that the nymphs will take complete control of him if he continues, states that he is going to leave before Phaedrus makes him "do something even worse".
Socrates then admits that he thought both of the preceding speeches were terrible, saying Lysias' repeated itself numerous times, seemed uninterested in its subject, and seemed to be showing off.
[Note 16] Socrates, baring his head, vows to undergo a rite of purification as a follower of the Muses, and proceeds to give a speech praising the lover.
[Note 22] These wings lift up heavy things to where the gods dwell and are nourished and grow in the presence of the wisdom, goodness, and beauty of the divine.
[Note 25] What is outside of heaven, says Socrates, is quite difficult to describe, lacking color, shape, or solidity, as it is the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence.
[Note 27] The immortal souls that follow the gods most closely are able to just barely raise their chariots up to the rim and look out on reality.
Those that have been initiated are put into varying human incarnations, depending on how much they have seen; those made into philosophers and artists have seen the most, while kings, statesmen, doctors, prophets, poets, manual laborers, sophists, and tyrants follow respectively.
When reminded, the wings begin to grow back, but as they are not yet able to rise, the afflicted gaze aloft and pay no attention to what goes on below, bringing on the charge of madness.
[Note 31] Beauty, he states, was among the most radiant things to see beyond heaven, and on earth it sparkles through vision, the clearest of our senses.
The recent initiates, on the other hand, are overcome when they see a bodily form that has captured true beauty well, and their wings begin to grow.
If the lover and beloved surpass this desire they have won the "true Olympic Contests"; it is the perfect combination of human self-control and divine madness, and after death, their souls return to heaven.
[Note 34] Those who give in do not become weightless, but they are spared any punishment after their death, and will eventually grow wings together when the time comes.
[Note 35] A lover's friendship is divine, Socrates concludes, while that of a non-lover offers only cheap, human dividends, and tosses the soul about on earth for 9,000 years.
Socrates first objects that an orator who does not know bad from good will, in Phaedrus's words, harvest "a crop of really poor quality".
[Note 49] No written instructions for an art can yield results clear or certain, Socrates states, but rather can only remind those that already know what writing is about.
[Note 51] Accordingly, the legitimate sister of this is, in fact, dialectic; it is the living, breathing discourse of one who knows, of which the written word can only be called an image.
In order of decreasing levels of truth seen, the categories are: (1) philosophers, lovers of beauty, or someone musical and erotic; (2) law-abiding kings or civic leaders; (3) politicians, estate-managers or businessmen; (4) ones who specialize in bodily health; (5) prophets or mystery cult participants; (6) poets or imitative artists; (7) craftsmen or farmers; (8) sophists or demagogues; and (9) tyrants.
[6] Plato does not see the human soul as a sort of patchwork of emotions and concepts; this differs from the views of many philosophers of his time.
It was believed that spirits and nymphs inhabited the country, and Socrates specifically points this out after the long palinode with his comment about listening to the cicadas.
In addition to theme of love discussed in the speeches, seeming double entendres and sexual innuendo are abundant; we see the flirtation between Phaedrus and Socrates.
The discussion of rhetoric, the proper practice of which is found to actually be philosophy, has many similarities with Socrates's role as a "midwife of the soul" in the Theaetetus; the dialectician, as described, is particularly resonant.
Unlike dialectic and rhetoric, writing cannot be tailored to specific situations or students; the writer does not have the luxury of examining his reader's soul in order to determine the proper way to persuade.
There is an echo of this point of view in the Seventh Letter, wherein Plato (or the pseudo-Platonic author) says not to write down things of importance.
Socrates' great myth illustrates this motif most clearly when the soul is depicted as a charioteer and its horses, being led around a heavenly circuit.
