Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:36:32.353Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Love and Rhetoric in Plato's Phaedrus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2009

Marina McCoy
Affiliation:
Boston College, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

Plato's Phaedrus contains Plato's most explicit and well-developed account of rhetoric. The dialogue provides an account of good rhetoric as philosophical psychagôgia, the leading of souls toward the forms. For the first time in the dialogues, we have a clearly articulated account of rhetoric in its positive sense. Socrates' account of good rhetoric describes good speech as an organic unity of collection and division. However, the dialogue's account of philosophical rhetoric in distinction from sophistical rhetoric is complicated when one considers the dialogue as a whole. Socrates' use of rhetoric in the Palinode shows that there is more to rhetoric than a technical method of organizing material according to kinds. In addition, Socrates' technical account of rhetoric is itself rhetorical in how it seeks to persuade Phaedrus to care about philosophy. Both Socrates' Palinode and his general description of rhetoric are rhetorical. Both are designed to lead Phaedrus' soul away from sophistical rhetoric and toward love of the forms. While my focus in this chapter is primarily on the contrast between Socratic and sophistical rhetoric, I also briefly address the issue of the dialogue form and its rhetoric of leading souls. The Phaedrus helps to tie up many of the concerns in the previous chapters insofar as the unifying feature of good, philosophical rhetoric is love: love of the forms and love of those to whom the rhetorician speaks.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×