Episode 142: Plato’s “Phaedrus” on Love and Speechmaking
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
00:00
Rhetoric and the Loved One
The first half of the dialogue consists of three specimen instances of rhetoric. The idea is he can use all that to support the idea that the beloved is actually improved by the lover rather than harmed. So you've got three specimen pieces of rhetoric in part one that then serve as examples to be analyzed dialectically in the second part of the dialogue. There's some slamming of lysius. You would characterize the entire dialogue as being just a debunking of a popular orator and this whole mode of composing speeches as being really unprincipled and disorganized.
Transcript
Play full episode
