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Plato's Disappointment with his Phaedran Characters and its Impact on his Theory of Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Julius Tomin
Julius Tomin
Affiliation:
Prague
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Extract

In the Phaedrus scientific psychology is an integral part of Plato's outline of scientific rhetoric. An accomplished rhetorician must know all types of human souls (ψυχς γένη, 271b1–2), he must know what kind of soul is affected by what kind of speech, and he must be able to apply this theoretical knowledge in front of an audience, so as to achieve the intended persuasion with unfailing certainty. This knowledge is an essential qualification of a philosopher; it enables him to choose a soul of the right type (λαβῲν ψνχήν προσήκουσαν, 276e6) and plant in it words of wisdom. His words, that is the authentic logos, acquire new life in the soul of the recipient, who in his turn sows their progeny in other suitable souls (276e5–277a3). In the dialogue, Socrates implants the words of wisdom in the soul of Phaedrus, and wishes that Phaedrus may similarly influence Lysias (257ab).

Socrates’ work on Phaedrus permeates the whole dialogue, giving it its dramatic unity, and yet interpreters disagree on it. The late dating of the dialogue, which has been accepted as axiomatic throughout this century, stands in the way of seeing it clearly. Phaedrus in the Protagoras and in the Symposium does not appear like a man who would appropriate the exalted ideal raised before him in the Phaedrus. The majority of modern interpreters therefore cannot see Phaedrus’ conversion to philosophy in the Phaedrus as anything but ironic. I shall argue that Plato in the dialogue does enact his Phaedran ideal of the authentic communication of philosophy, and that this precludes the ironical reading of the dialogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 374 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 Thus, for example, Léon Robin says that Phaedrus is totally incapable of sharing Socrates’ thoughts (Platon, Phèdre, texte ètabli et traduit par Léon Robin [1933, repr. 1954], ‘Notice’, xiii.: ‘il [sc. Phaedrus] apparait… totalement incapable… de communier avec la pensée de Socrate’). R. Hackforth thinks that Robin goes ‘perhaps rather too far’ in his verdict on Phaedrus. He thinks that Robin's words ‘are true of the early pages of the work’, but that ‘they become less so later on’, for he is ‘inclined to think that Phaedrus is converted to philosophy in the end’ (R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedrus [Cambridge 1952, repr. 1972], ‘Introduction’, 13). C. J. Rowe believes that the signs concerning Socrates’ influence on Phaedrus ‘are distinctly ambiguous, and meant to be so’ (C. J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedrus [Warminster, 19882], 12).

2 For my pre-dating of the Phaedrus to all other dialogues of Plato, see Julius Tomin, ‘Dating of the Phaedrus and interpretation of Plato’, Antichthon 22 (1988), 26–41; id., ‘A preliminary to the study of Plato’, Symbolae Osloenses 67 (1992), 80–8; id., ‘Plato's first dialogue’, Ancient Philosophy 17 (1997), 31—45; id., ‘Joining the beginning to the end’, The Republic and the Laws of Plato, Proceedings of the First Symposium Platonicum Pragensae, ΟΙΚΟΥΜΕΝΗ (1998), 201–16.

3 See R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1952, repr. 1972), 162, n. 2.

4 Lysias’ earliest documented forensic speech was written in 403, or 402 at the latest, as can be seen from the following. Among the fragments of his lost forensic speeches there are the titles For Euthynus (fr. 38) and Against Nicias on the Deposit (fr. 70), which belong to one and the same speech as becomes clear from Isocrates’ first forensic speech Against Euthynus. In Against Euthynus we learn that Nicias, the plaintiff, deposited three talents with Euthynus during the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, in 404. When he wanted his money back, still during the reign of the oligarchs, fearing for his safety and wanting to leave Athens, Euthynus returned only two talents. Nicias sued him for the remaining deposit after the restoration of democracy. Comparing Isocrates' Against Euthynus with frs 38 and 70 of Lysias, it can be deduced that both Isocrates and Lysias turned to writing forensic speeches as their means of sustenance soon after the restoration of democracy, some four years before the death of Socrates.

5 See especially Socrates’ definition of rhetoric at 261a7–9: ‘Must not the art of rhetoric, taken as a whole, be a kind of influencing of the mind by means of words, not only in courts of law and other public gatherings, but in private places also?’ (trans. Hackforth). The addition ‘in private places also’ is Plato's addition to the commonly accepted view of rhetoric, by which he opens the door to his introduction of dialectic as the only foundation upon which scientific rhetoric can be built. Plato emphasizes the importance of this addition. For when Socrates asks Phaedrus whether he ever heard rhetoric defined in this manner, Phaedrus answers: ‘No indeed, not exactly that: it is principally, I should say, to lawsuits that an art of speaking and writing is applied—and of course to public harangues also. I know of no wider application’ (261b3–5, trans. Hackforth). Socrates then goes on to prove to Phaedrus that the inclusion of private discourse within the domain of rhetoric is essential, if it is to become science.

6 In the Republic Socrates does show to his friends the road to virtue and happiness in the presence of both Cleitophon and Lysias. The link between the Cleitophon and the first book of the Republic is emphasized by the following: Lysias in the former is reported as saying that Cleitophon speaks of Thrasymachus’ wisdom in superlatives, while in the latter a philosophic contest between Socrates and Thrasymachus takes place from which Socrates emerges as an uncontestable victor. In the Republic Thrasymachus denigrates justice as a weakness of character that suits only simple-minded fools, and extols consummate injustice as the real virtue, which he finds embodied in a successful tyrant (336b–344c). In accordance with his admiration of Thrasymachus on which Socrates remarked in the Cleitophon, Cleitophon in the Republic attempts to assist Thrasymachus, when Socrates shows inconsistencies in Thrasymachus’ account (340ab). Thrasymachus rejects Cleitophon's attempt to assist him (340c6–7), but this does not help him much for he gets entangled in deeper and deeper contradictions, until he is forced to give in to Socrates’ arguments.

7 E. B. England in his commentary The Laws of Plato (Manchester, 1921) says aptly ad loc: ‘This restriction of the property of ξνοι and freedmen seems to have been Plato's own [as opposed to other laws that Plato in England's view derived from Athenian law]. He apparently disapproved of the generous treatment accorded to μτοικοι by the Athenians. In this his relatives Critias and Charmides would have agreed with him.’

8 Cf. J. C. Morrison, ‘The place of Protagoras in Athenian public life’, CQ, 35 (1941), 2–3.

9 See K. J. Dover, Plato's Symposium (Cambridge, 1980), 9 (introduction).

10 Ibid., 43.

11 It should be noted that modern interpreters have deduced from Plato's Symposium an argument for dating its composition prior to the Phaedrus. Hackforth argues that Plato would not have made Phaedrus complain in the Symposium that ‘nobody to this day has had the courage to praise Eros in such terms as he deserves’ (177c), if he had already composed the Phaedrus in which he makes Socrates, in the hearing of Phaedrus, glorify Eros as he does: ‘Thus then dear God of Love, I have offered the fairest recantation and fullest atonement that my powers could compass’ (257a) (Hackforth [n. 1], 7, n. 14). This argument presupposes that the dramatic date of the Phaedrus is set by Plato at a later date than that of the Symposium. Robin says: ‘perhaps it is not necessary to date the scene of the Phaedrus; is it not enough that we… say that Plato wished that we consider the scene of the Phaedrus to be later than that of the Symposium?' Since the scene of the Symposium is dated at 416, and Lysias is supposed to have returned to Athens from Italy in 412, Robin would date the scene of the Phaedrus shortly after that (L. Robin, Notice to Phèdre [1954], ed. Budé, ix, x). It is this point which proved fatal to Robin's argument already at the time that Hackforth espoused it. For in 1939 Meritt published an ancient stone inscription excavated on the Agora which records the sale of property of Phaedrus, the son of Pythocles, from the deme of Myrrinous (B. D. Meritt, ‘Greek inscriptions’, Hesperia 8 [1939], 76). In Plato's Phaedrus, Phaedrus is addressed with these same names. This further enables us to identify the Phaedrus of the inscription and of Plato's dialogues with Phaedrus of Myrrinous about whom Lysias says ‘that he was reduced to poverty by no misdemeanor’ (19.15), and with Phaedrus whom Andocides names among those who were denounced for taking part in the defamation of the Mysteries and fled from Athens in 415.

12 Dover (n. 9), 32.

13 The pre-dating of the Phaedrus to all other works of Plato has a profound impact on our view of the life-long rivalry between Isocrates and Plato, which can be mentioned here only in passing. I have devoted to this problem a paper ‘Isocrates versus Plato’ for which I am seeking a publisher.

14 Cf. Diog. Laert. 3.35.

15 I should like to thank Doina Cornell for all her invaluable help in preparing this text.