Reason Rhetoric And The Philosophical Life In Plato S Phaedrus

Plato is a well-known critic of rhetoric, but in the Phaedrus, he defends the art of rhetoric, arguing that it can be perfected with the aid of philosophy. In Reason, Rhetoric, and the Philosophical Life in Plato’s Phaedrus, Tiago Lier provides a new and comprehensive interpretation of this important dialogue. He argues that Plato’s defense of rhetoric is based on philosophy’s ethical nature, and that philosophy is a way of life rather than a body of knowledge. For Plato, an essential element of both rhetoric and the philosophical life is that every use of speech, whether to persuade or to learn, depends upon the psychology of the speaker and the audience. Lier shows how Socrates develops a dynamic account of this psychology over the course of the dialogue in order to help Phaedrus understand how he is personally engaged in, and shaped by, every act of communication. Only when we grasp the tension between eros and logos will we discover the limitations of the art of rhetoric and that rhetoric alone cannot show us what we truly desire. Instead, Lier concludes, the greatest power of speech is to reveal to ourselves our own desires and understanding of our place in the world. This continual self-reflection is the philosophical life around which Socrates and Plato fashion their distinctive forms of rhetoric. The insights developed in this book will be of particular relevance to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, classics, and rhetorical theory, but it will also be of interest to those working in political science, literary studies, and communication studies.

This is an English translation of one of Plato's least political dialogues of Socrates and Phaedrus discussing many themes: the art and practice of rhetoric, love, reincarnation, and the soul. It includes an introduction, notes, glossary, appendices, and an interpretive essay and introduction. Also included are rarely seen illustrations, stone carvings, and vase paintings. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate audience.

Examines the role of myth in Plato's Phaedrus, arguing that it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in self-examination.

This book explores Plato's views on what an 'art of argument' should look like, investigating the relationship between psychology and rhetoric.

The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, about the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium.

This full-length study of Plato's dialogue Phaedrus, now in paperback, is written in the belief that such concerted scrutiny of a single dialogue is an important part of the project of understanding Plato so far as possible 'from the inside' - of gaining a feel for the man's philosophy. The focus of this account is on how the resources both of persuasive myth and of formal argument, for all that Plato sets them in strong contrast, nevertheless complement and reinforce each other in his philosophy. Not only is the dialogue in its formal structure a dovetail of myth and argument, but the philosophic life that it praises is also shaped by an acknowledgement of the limitations of argument and the importance of mythical understanding. By means of this correlation of form and content Plato invites his readers, through the very act of reading, to take a first step along the path of the philosophical life.

With a masterful sense of the place of rhetoric in both thought and practice and an ear attuned to the clarity, natural simplicity, and charm of Plato's Greek prose, James H. Nichols Jr., offers precise yet unusually readable translations of two great Platonic dialogues on rhetoric. The Gorgias presents an intransigent argument that justice is superior to injustice: To the extent that suffering an injustice is preferable to committing an unjust act. The dialogue contains some of Plato's most significant and famous discussions of major political themes, and focuses dramatically and with unrivaled intensity on Socrates as a political thinker and actor. Featuring some of Plato's most soaringly lyrical passages, the Phaedrus investigates the soul's erotic longing and its relationship to the whole cosmos, as well as inquiring into the nature of rhetoric and the problem of writing. Nichols's attention to dramatic detail brings the dialogues to life. Plato's striking variety in conversational address (names and various terms of relative warmth and coolness) is carefully reproduced, as is alteration in tone and implication even in the short responses. The translations render references to the gods accurately and non-monotheistically for the first time, and include a fascinating variety of oaths and invocations. A general introduction on rhetoric from the Greeks to the present shows the problematic relation of rhetoric to philosophy and politics, states the themes that unite the two dialogues, and outlines interpretive suggestions that are then developed more fully for each dialogue. The twin dialogues reveal both the private and the political rhetoric emphatic in Plato's philosophy, yet often ignored in commentaries on it. Nichols believes that Plato's thought on rhetoric has been largely misunderstood, and he uses his translations as an opportunity to reconstruct the classical position on right relations between thought and public activity.

The Phaedrus is well-known for the splendid mythical panorama Socrates develops in his second speech, and for its graphic descriptions of erotic behavior. This book shows how the details of the myth and the accounts of interaction between lovers are based on a carefully articulated metaphysical structure. It follows the dialogue as narrated, showing how passages that may not appear relevant to metaphysics have been deployed to heighten the vision of reality that Socrates develops in his second speech and concludes with an Epilogue in which the metaphysical principles adumbrated in the dialogue are ordered and briefly developed. This Epilogue helps illustrate the continuity between the Phaedrus and subsequent dialogues, such as the Parmenides, Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus, in which methodological and metaphysical concerns are dominant for Plato. As a result, new connections emerge between the metaphysical domain in Plato's thought and the more visible and vibrant areas of the psychology of eros and practical rhetoric. -- Back cover.