Episode 142: Plato’s “Phaedrus” on Love and Speechmaking
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
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Plato's Dialogue on Rhetoric
The implication is that his speech is in touch with the truth, right? That's going to be the distinction characteristic between rhetoric and the pejorative sense and rhetoric. If there is a non-retoric sense of rhetoric it involves not just persuasive techniques, but also the use of those persuasive techniques to communicate the truth. The whole dialogue in some ways geared towards showing the possibility and perhaps even necessity of a genuinely what you might call science or art of rhetoric - which perhaps Plato thinks is not being practiced by anybody prior to his time.
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