In the Phaedrus , the readers are fascinated with a colorful conversation between Phaedrus and Socrates. Phaedrus reads the speech written by Lysias on the failure of men in love, which leads the two men into a dialogue in regard to the soundness of the speech. Socrates later recounts the speech given by Lysias, but after speaking, he is compelled to renounce his argument and present his case on love. His discussion characterizes the famous horse-drawn chariot metaphor. He implies to the two horses, one pure and the other irrational and carnal to demonstrate the conflict between good and evil within humans. After the speech, Plato and Phaedrus start a conversation on rhetoric, speech, and writing. Socrates states that rhetors ought to be armed with more knowledge, especially when it comes to understanding their audience and handling the subject at hand. Socrates refers to the myth of Theuth to argue against the essence of writing, where he argues that words are less likely to impress the audience like oratory. In this case, the article will respond to the two major issues highlighted in the Phaedrus , which is the form of love and essence of writing over oratory.
Response on Love and Evil
Phaedrus advocates for a form of love that depicts the concept of love as a sequence of choices, a willing verdict that is motivated by self-improvements. He differentiates these choices into two, which are honorable and dishonorable. By establishing a variation between the actions and arguing that such a decision is made out of one’s willingness, Phaedrus establishes a unique definition of love that fails to discriminate between gender. Generally, decisions are universal and both men and women take part in decision making. Therefore, if the readers are to go by the arguments of Phaedrus’ concept of love, then one cannot limit a social definition of ‘true’ love among heterosexual relationships. Besides the discussions of Phaedrus on the definition of love, love does not only involve hetero and homosexual relationships but also ensures that all class and race are involved in the debate of what is meant by ‘true love.’ He finds the true definition of love by looking at the process rather than the product of love itself. The concept of love through actions involves love as a process that if one can deduce that to be honorable in the name of love for self-actualization, one can argue that an individual will always strive to be better. The continuation of striving to be a better person is a process that does not end, and therefore it subtracts the chances of landing in one place or producing a product.
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Phaedrus tries to explain the meaning of true love and what is fake love by stating that there is dishonor in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honor in yielding to the good” (Plato, 2009, p. 11). There is a small explanation of what evil entails and that love motivated for physical courses are bad, while those motivated by the soul are for pure reasons. From an outward overview of it, it can be interpreted that the earthly love among humans is fake, but the heavenly love that emancipates from the soul is the purest form of love. However, such an argument is contrary to the philosophical thoughts of love, which states that love can be attained via honorable actions. Primarily, through the entitlement of choices as an essential feature in love, there is an implication that love is an earthly affair. The denotation attempts to understand love as a combination of passion and knowledge. Knowledge is needed for one to conclude on what verdict they would follow in a relationship, while passion is a driving factor for one to conduct themselves in an honorable manner in the eyes of their beloved ones. However, there is a difference from the claim that Phaedrus' argument of action forced by physical or soul purposes as evil and good respectively depict a heavenly or unearthly component of love. Such a term creates an indistinct definition of love , according to Phaedrus’ definition, love is rooted by the assumption that it is a choice that is either earthly or unearthly and innate in nature.
Response on the essence of Oratory over Writing
Plato speaks about the essence of audience awareness, while he forgets to talk about non-verbal communication and visual rhetoric. When talking about rhetoric, people must put all facets of communication into consideration, which also involves the use of body language. Rhetoric does not end at the use of language instead; language is used as a subjective feature for something human and concrete.
Plato also forgets the assortment of human communication. The use of writing helps humans to read words from the past, and when one writes they take a risk of understanding that their risk could be interpreted differently by other readers as opposed to what the writer of the text would have interpreted. The major problem with writing is that it fails to reach a universal audience. For a group that mostly relies on body language for communication, words hold less meaning. For a group that is conversant with words, images that words can produce could not have full effect. As much as Plato prefers oratory, even the best speech could not be understood by a non-hearing group without being interpreted.
References
Plato (2009). Phaedrus . Trans. Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive.
