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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2020
This article maps the complex and changing interrelation of madness (μανία) and truth (ἀλήθεια) in the erotic speeches of the Phaedrus. I try to show that μανία is not merely a secondary aspect but rather a fundamental element within the structure binding together the sequence of speeches. I will show how what starts as an apparently simple binary opposition between μανία and ἀλήθεια in Lysias’ speech and Socrates’ first speech suffers an important modification at the beginning of the palinode, and is finally turned upside down in the radical reappraisal caused by the focus on erotic μανία. The result is a different understanding of μανία, as well as a reassessment of the status and cognitive reliability of day-to-day human perspective.
1 See Rohde, E., Psyche. Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen (Tübingen, 1910), 2.4–22, 2.40–1Google Scholar; Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, G., ‘Greece and Rome’, in id., Madness in Society: Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness (London, 1968), 71–136Google Scholar; Simon, B. and Weiner, H., ‘Models of mind and mental illness in ancient Greece I: the Homeric model of the mind’, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 2 (1996), 303–143.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simon, B., Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece. The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry (Ithaca, N.Y., 1978)Google Scholar; Padel, R., In and Out of the Mind. Greek Images of the Tragic Self (Princeton, 1994)Google Scholar; Padel, R., Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness (Princeton, 1995)Google Scholar.
2 See e.g. Hippoc. Morb. sacr. 1; [Ep.] 19.1–15. Cf. Rosen (n. 1); Simon (n. 1); Pigeaud, J., Folie et cures de la folie chez les médecins de l'antiquité grécoromaine. La manie (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar; Pigeaud, J., La maladie de l’âme. Étude sur la relation de l’âme et du corps dans la tradition médico-philosophique antique (Paris, 1981)Google Scholar; Conesa, J.A. Martínez, ‘Las perturbaciones mentales en el corpus hippocraticum. El concepto de μανία’, Saitabi 41 (1991), 111–23Google Scholar; Corleto, L. Mellilo, ‘La manía nella letteratura medica e nella letteratura filosofica dei Greci’, Medicina nei secoli 4 (1992), 33–42Google Scholar; Jouanna, J., ‘The typology and aetiology of madness in ancient Greek medical and philosophical writing’, in Harris, W. (ed.), Mental Disorders in the Classical World (Leiden, 2013), 96–118Google Scholar; Thumiger, C., ‘The early Greek medical vocabulary of insanity’, in Harris, W. (ed.), Mental Disorders in the Classical World (Leiden, 2013), 61–95Google Scholar.
3 We should not, however, insist too much on the opposition between these two models. They can sometimes be used as complementary explanations for the same situation. Herodotus, for example, goes back and forth between one model and the other when explaining the mad behaviour of historical characters (3.29–38, 6.75, 6.84).
4 Pl. Phdr. 230e–234c and 237a–241d respectively. These two speeches share a common basic thesis: χαριστέον μὴ ἐρῶντι μᾶλλον ἢ ἐρῶντι (227c); ‘favours should be granted to a man who is not in love rather to one who is’ (transl. Rowe, C., Plato: Phaedrus [Oxford, 1986]Google Scholar, as are all translations of the Phaedrus in this article). This is presented as a paradoxical thesis requiring great skill to defend. However, the paradoxical nature of the speeches lies not in their negative presentation of ἔρως but rather in these being λόγοι ἐρωτικοί, wooing speeches, that reject and berate ἔρως.
5 See Phdr. 231d, 236a and 244a, where the connection between ἔρως and μανία is made explicit. The two speeches echo, albeit in different ways and making use of different rhetorical strategies, assumptions that can be found throughout the ancient Greek cultural tradition regarding the nature of ἔρως as a phenomenon of disturbance of lucidity. See, for example, Hom. Il. 14.216–17; Anac. fr. 398 PMG; Aesch. Supp. 104–10; Soph. Ant. 790–2, fr. 941 Radt lines 1–5; Eur. Hipp. 542–4, 1268–81, fr. 161 Kannicht; Prodicus, B7 DK; Lys. 3.4; Dem. 21.38. ἔρως is often portrayed using an exogenous model. It is depicted as an external invasive force that takes hold of an individual and causes havoc in his or her life. On the understanding of ἔρως as a destructive force in ancient Greek culture, see Lesky, A., Vom Eros der Hellenen (Göttingen, 1976), 41–59Google Scholar; Cyrino, M.S., In Pandora's Jar: Lovesickness in Early Greek Poetry (Lanham, 1995)Google Scholar; Thornton, S., Eros. The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality (Boulder, CO, 1997)Google Scholar.
6 Cf. Nussbaum, M., ‘Eros and ethical norms: philosophers respond to a cultural dilemma’, in Nussbaum, M. and Sihvola, J. (edd.), The Sleep of Reason (Chicago, 2002), 55–94, at 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘For it [sc. Lysias’ speech] persuasively drives a wedge between love's madness and its alleged educational benefits.’ On the didactic component of the self-presentation of παιδεραστία, see Dover, K., Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Foucault, M., Histoire de la sexualité II: L'usage des plaisirs (Paris, 1984), 254–6Google Scholar; Percy, W.A., Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece (Urbana and Chicago, 1996)Google Scholar.
7 εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἦν ἁπλοῦν τὸ μανίαν κακὸν εἶναι, καλῶς ἂν ἐλέγετο; ‘that would be rightly said, if it were a simple truth that madness is an evil’. The rhetorical strategy of producing an ἐγκώμιον of an ill-reputed phenomenon by introducing a note of complexity is also used in Pausanias’ speech in Pl. Symp. 180c–185c. Note the use of ἁπλῶς in the Symposium passage and of ἁπλοῦν in the Phaedrus passage. This rhetorical strategy echoes the literary tradition of the two kinds of X, e.g. ἔρις, αἰδώς, ἐλπίς, used by Hesiod (Op. 11–24; 317–18; Op. 96, 498–501). The motif of the two kinds of μανία is present also in Phdr. 265a and 265e–266a.
8 On the traditional connection between certain forms of divination and divinely inspired madness, see e.g. Dodds (n. 1); Pieper, J., Begeisterung und göttlicher Wahnsinn: Über den Platonischen Dialog Phaidros (Munich, 1962), 88–98Google Scholar; Vicaire, P., ‘Platon et la divination’, REG 83 (1970), 333–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also on this specific passage: Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1952), 58–9Google Scholar; Verdenius, W.J., ‘Der Begriff der mania in Platons Phaidros’, AGPh 44 (1962), 34–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Vries, G.J., A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato (Amsterdam, 1969)Google Scholar, ad loc.; Rowe (n. 4), ad loc.; Sala, E., Il Fedro di Platone: commento (Padua, 2007), 130–2Google Scholar; Yunis, H., Plato Phaedrus (Cambridge, 2011)Google Scholar, ad loc. Cf. Pl. Ti. 71e–72b.
9 This passage has caused perplexity in most critics. See e.g. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Platon (Berlin and Frankfurt a. M., 1920), 1.411 n. 1Google Scholar; Pfister, F., ‘Der Wahsinn des Weihepriesters’, in Meisinger, O. (ed.), Cimbria. Beiträge zur Geschichte, Altertumskunde, Kunst und Erziehungslehre (Dortmund, 1926), 55–62Google Scholar; Linforth, I.M., ‘Corybantic rites in Plato’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 13 (1946), 121–62Google Scholar; Linforth, I.M., ‘Telestic madness in Plato, Phaedrus 244de’, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 13 (1946), 163–72Google Scholar; Dodds (n. 1), 75–80; Hackforth (n. 8), 59–62; Pieper (n. 8), 98–114; Padel (n. 1 [1995]), 83–4; Sala (n. 8), 132–4; Ballériaux, O., ‘Mantique et télestique dans le Phèdre de Platon’, Kernos 3 (1990), 35–43Google Scholar.
10 Cf. Pl. Meno 99b–c, Ion 533c–539d, Ap. 22a–c. It has been noted by scholars such as Delatte, A., ‘Les conceptions de l'enthousiasme chez les philosophes présocratiques’, AC 3 (1934), 5–79Google Scholar, Dodds (n. 1), 89 and Tigerstedt, E.N., Plato's Idea of Poetical Inspiration (Helsinki, 1969)Google Scholar that this idea is not as traditional as one might expect from reading Plato. The oldest (and only extant pre-Platonic) mention of this understanding is found in Democritus (B18 DK; B21 DK). Contra, Verdenius (n. 8), 35–6. See also Hackforth (n. 8), 60–2; Pieper (n. 8), 105–14; Vicaire, P., ‘Les grecs et le mystère de l'inspiration poétique’, BAGB 22 (1963), 68–85Google Scholar; De Vries (n. 8), ad loc.; Tigerstedt, E.N., ‘Furor poeticus: poetic inspiration in Greek literature before Democritus and Plato’, JHI 31 (1970), 163–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martínez, J.L. Calvo, ‘Sobre la mania y el entusiasmo’, Emerita 41 (1973), 157–82Google Scholar; Murray, P., ‘Poetic inspiration in early Greece’, JHS 101 (1981), 87–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Billaut, A., ‘La folie poétique: remarques sur les conceptions grecques de l'inspiration’, BAGB 61 (2002), 18–35Google Scholar; Yunis (n. 8), ad loc.
11 See 247c3. Cf. Hackforth (n. 8), 80–2; Sinaiko, H.L., Love, Knowledge, and Discourse in Plato. Dialogue and Dialectic in Phaedrus, Republic, Parmenides (Chicago, 1965), 63–72Google Scholar; De Vries (n. 8), ad loc.; Rowe (n. 4), ad loc.; Nicholson, G., Plato's Phaedrus: The Philosophy of Love (West Lafayette, IN, 1999), 180–95Google Scholar; Yunis (n. 8), ad loc. The palinode displays a great degree of terminological variation. So the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος is also called τὰ ἔξω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (247c), τὸ εἴσω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (247e), ὁ ἔξω τόπος (248a) and τὸ ἀληθείας πεδίον (248b).
12 For analogous three-tiered cosmologies, see Pl. Resp. Book 9, 584d–e and Phd. 108–110b.
13 See Ferrari, G., Listening to the Cicadas: A Study in Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1990), 125–32Google Scholar; Griswold, C., Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus (University Park, PA, 1978), 92–9Google Scholar.
14 This idea is expressed through the image of feeding or nourishment: 246e, 247d, 248b, 248c. In other passages, the language of desire, yearning or longing is used, for example, γλίχομαι and σπουδή (248b), πόθος (250c, 251e, 252a, 253e), ἵμερος (251c, 251d, 251e), προθυμία (249d, 253c). The term ἔρως also describes the relationship between the souls and the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος (250d).
15 This is designated at first as οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα (247c), but is later referred to under a number of other terms: τὰ ὄντα ὄντως (247e, 249c), τἀληθῆ (247d), τὸ ὄν (248b), τὰ ἀληθά (248c), ἡ ἀλήθεια (249b), τὰ ὄντα (248a, 249e), ἱερά (250a), τιμιά (250b), ἐραστά (250d). All these terms emphasize the ontological perfection of the entities at stake (οὐσία ὄντως οὖσα, τὰ ὄντα ὄντως, τὸ ὄν, τὰ ὄντα), or their connection with truth (τἀληθῆ, τὰ ἀληθά, ἡ ἀλήθεια) or yet the superlative degree of attachment they are the object of (ἱερά, τιμιά, ἐραστά).
16 See Hackforth (n. 8), 80–4; De Vries (n. 8), ad loc.; Rowe (n. 4), ad loc.
17 See note 14 above.
18 See θεωρέω (247c, 247d), εἶδον (247d, 248a, 248b, 248c, 248d, 249b, 249c, 250a), καθοράω (247d, 248a), κατεῖδον (248c), θεάομαι (247e, 249e). See also νοῦς (247c, 247d), ἐπιστήμη (247c, 247d, 247e).
19 The non-divine souls need to see what is in the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος to remain winged (248c). Not even the most successful non-divine souls can enter the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος and have a clear and undisturbed view. In contrast, the divine souls are the model of unhindered access to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος. They alone are capable of achieving with perfect ease the ontological and cognitive ideals. The situation of the non-divine souls (both before and after the fall) should be understood against the standard of perfection embodied in the situation of the divine souls. Non-divine souls are imperfect and limited versions of the divine souls, and, correlatively, their access to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος is also imperfect and limited.
20 ἥτις ἂν ψυχὴ θεῷ συνοπαδὸς γενομένη κατίδῃ τι τῶν ἀληθῶν, μέχρι τε τῆς ἑτέρας περιόδου εἶναι ἀπήμονα, κἂν ἀεὶ τοῦτο δύνηται ποιεῖν, ἀεὶ ἀβλαβῆ εἶναι; ‘that whichever soul follows in the train of a god and catches sight of part of what is true shall remain free from sorrow until the next circuit, and if it is always able to do this, it shall always remain free from harm’.
21 οὐ γὰρ ἥ γε μήποτε ἰδοῦσα τὴν ἀλήθειαν εἰς τόδε ἥξει τὸ σχῆμα. δεῖ γὰρ ἄνθρωπον συνιέναι κατ᾽ εἶδος λεγόμενον, ἐκ πολλῶν ἰὸν αἰσθήσεων εἰς ἓν λογισμῷ συναιρούμενον; ‘for a soul which has never seen the truth will not enter this shape. A man must comprehend what is said universally, arising from many sensations and being collected together into one through reasoning’. For the discussion regarding the interpretation of this passage, see Robin, L., Platon: Œuvres complètes, vol. 4, part 3, Phèdre (Paris, 1933), XCIVGoogle Scholar; Hackforth (n. 8), 86 n. 1; Verdenius, W.J., ‘Notes on Plato's Phaedrus’, Mnemosyne 8 (1955), 265–89, at 280CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Vries (n. 8), ad loc.; Heitsch, E., Platon: Phaidros. Übersetzung und Kommentar (Göttingen, 1993), 110–14Google Scholar; Sala (n. 8), 249; Yunis (n. 8), ad loc. Cf. 249e–250a: καθάπερ γὰρ εἴρηται, πᾶσα μὲν ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ φύσει τεθέαται τὰ ὄντα, ἢ οὐκ ἂν ἦλθεν εἰς τόδε τὸ ζῷον; ‘for, as has been said, every human soul has by the law of its nature observed the things that are, or else it would not have entered this creature, man’.
22 The causes of the fall are stated to be λήθη and κακία. 248c: ὅταν δὲ ἀδυνατήσασα ἐπισπέσθαι μὴ ἴδῃ, καί τινι συντυχίᾳ χρησαμένη λήθης τε καὶ κακίας πλησθεῖσα βαρυνθῇ, βαρυνθεῖσα δὲ πτερορρυήσῃ τε καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν πέσῃ; ‘but whenever through inability to follow it fails to see, and through some mischance is weighed down by being filled with forgetfulness (λήθη) and incompetence (κακία), and because of the weight loses its wings and falls to the earth’. Critics and translators are divided on how to interpret the meaning of κακία in this context: some see some kind of moral connotation (see Ritter, C., Platons Dialog Phaidros [Leipzig, 1914], 61Google Scholar; Hackforth [n. 8], 79; Robin [n. 21], ad loc.), whereas others understand it as incompetence or lack of skill (see Verdenius [n. 21], ad loc.; De Vries [n. 8], ad loc.; Heitsch [n. 21], ad loc.; Rowe [n. 4], ad loc.). Yunis (n. 8), ad loc. chooses both. Cf. 248b–c.
23 Each soul is under a pressure that leads upwards to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος. This constitutes a kind of ‘reverse gravity’ (a force that pulls up, not down), symbolized by the wings. The presence of the wings allows each soul both to remain airborne and to fly upwards towards the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος. The fact that every soul is constitutively winged indicates that their natural place is as high as possible. See 246d and 248c. The upwards pressure, however, is always accompanied by a counterbalancing downwards tension, symbolized by τὸ ἐμβριθές, the weight.
24 See 250a: ἀναμιμνῄσκεσθαι δὲ ἐκ τῶνδε ἐκεῖνα οὐ ῥᾴδιον ἁπάσῃ, οὔτε ὅσαι βραχέως εἶδον τότε τἀκεῖ, οὔθ᾽ αἳ δεῦρο πεσοῦσαι ἐδυστύχησαν, ὥστε ὑπό τινων ὁμιλιῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄδικον τραπόμεναι λήθην ὧν τότε εἶδον ἱερῶν ἔχειν; ‘but it is not easy for every soul to gain from things here a recollection of those other things, either for those which only briefly saw the things there at that earlier time, or for those which fall to earth and have the misfortune to be turned to injustice by keeping certain kinds of company, and to forget the holy things they saw then᾽.
25 See note 21 above.
26 See 249c: τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἀνάμνησις ἐκείνων ἅ ποτ᾽ εἶδεν ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ συμπορευθεῖσα θεῷ καὶ ὑπεριδοῦσα ἃ νῦν εἶναί φαμεν, καὶ ἀνακύψασα εἰς τὸ ὂν ὄντως; ‘and this is a recollection of those things which our soul once saw when it travelled in company with a god and treated with contempt the things that we say are, and when it rose up into what really is’. This passage is explicitly linked with 249b, quoted above (see note 21). See also 250a–b. This is a basic kind of ἀνάμνησις that is at the foundation of any form of human consciousness or awareness. This kind of ἀνάμνησις can be distinguished from the kind of ἀνάμνησις explicitly associated with the philosopher and the lover. The ἀνάμνησις of the philosopher and the lover is, as we shall see, a kindled ἀνάμνησις, i.e. a more intense and clearer contact with ἀλήθεια than the one forming the basis of human awareness, which would, however, be impossible without it. Cf. Meno 80d–81e and Phd. 72e–77a. See e.g. Gulley, N., ‘Plato's theory of recollection’, CQ 48 (1954), 194–213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allen, R.E., ‘Anamnesis in Plato's Meno and Phaedo’, RMeta 13 (1959–1960), 165–74Google Scholar; Bedu-Addo, J.T., ‘Sense-experience and recollection in Plato's Meno’, AJPh 94 (1983), 228–48Google Scholar; Griswold (n. 13), 111–21; Scott, D., ‘Platonic anamnesis revisited’, CQ 37 (1987), 346–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bedu-Addo, J.T., ‘Sense-experience and the argument for recollection in Plato's Phaedo’, Phronesis 36 (1991), 27–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gerson, L.P., ‘The recollection argument revisited’, Apeiron 32 (1999), 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Osei, R.N., ‘The argument for recollection in the Phaedo: a defence of the standard interpretation’, Scholia 10 (2001), 22–37Google Scholar; Kahn, C.H., ‘Plato on recollection’, in Benson, H.H. (ed.), A Companion to Plato (Malden, Mass., 2006), 119–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; González, F.J., ‘How is the truth of beings in the soul?: interpreting “anamnesis” in Plato’, Elenchos 28 (2007), 275–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 The situations of the philosopher and the lover, detailed below, are examples of this.
28 Compound λήθη can be understood as a version of the phenomenon repeatedly referred to in the corpus Platonicum as οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι (or οἴεσθαι συνιέναι, δοκεῖν εἰδέναι, etc.), i.e. an ignorance that ignores itself and therefore assumes the guise of knowledge, thereby becoming one of the main obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge. Compound λήθη corresponds to an intrinsic and global modality of οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι, the condition of a perspective that is by default in the mode of οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι. See, for example, Ap. 21b–22a, 23a–e, 29a–b; Soph. 229c, 230a–b, 231b, 243b9, 268a; Leg. 732a, 863a; Alc. mai. 117b–118b; Symp. 204a; Tht. 210c; Plt. 302a–b; Phlb. 48d–49b.
29 See 250a–b: ὀλίγαι δὴ λείπονται αἷς τὸ τῆς μνήμης ἱκανῶς πάρεστιν⋅ αὗται δέ, ὅταν τι τῶν ἐκεῖ ὁμοίωμα ἴδωσιν, ἐκπλήττονται καὶ οὐκέτ᾽ ἐν αὑτῶν γίγνονται, ὃ δ᾽ ἔστι τὸ πάθος ἀγνοοῦσι διὰ τὸ μὴ ἱκανῶς διαισθάνεσθαι; ‘few souls are left who have sufficient memory; and these, when they see some likeness of the things there, are driven out of their wits with amazement and lose control of themselves, though they do not know what has happened to them for lack of clear perception’.
30 This contrast between the truth about human nature revealed by the palinode and the ordinary assessment by human beings of their own situation is emphasized repeatedly throughout the speech, contributing to the overall impression that the truth communicated in the palinode is novel and revolutionary. See 244a, 245b, 245c, 246a, 246c–d, 247c, 252b–c, 256e–257a.
31 See 250b: δικαιοσύνης μὲν οὖν καὶ σωφροσύνης καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τίμια ψυχαῖς οὐκ ἔνεστι φέγγος οὐδὲν ἐν τοῖς τῇδε ὁμοιώμασιν, ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἀμυδρῶν ὀργάνων μόγις αὐτῶν καὶ ὀλίγοι ἐπὶ τὰς εἰκόνας ἰόντες θεῶνται τὸ τοῦ εἰκασθέντος γένος⋅ κάλλος δὲ τότ᾽ ἦν ἰδεῖν λαμπρόν, ὅτε σὺν εὐδαίμονι χορῷ μακαρίαν ὄψιν τε καὶ θέαν; ‘now in the earthly likenesses of justice and self-control and the other things which are of value to souls, there is no illumination, but through dulled organs just a few approach their images and with difficulty observe the nature of what is imagined in them’.
32 See note 29 above. This passage simultaneously emphasizes the superiority of the philosopher's ἀνάμνησις over the ordinary perspective of the fallen souls and its intrinsic limitations.
33 See 248c–e. In the scale of βίοι, the souls that have seen more will become philosophers and lovers, with the implication that the souls placed lower saw less. The balance between ἀλήθεια and λήθη is a fundamental determining factor for the kind of life the fallen souls will live on earth.
34 See notes 20–1 above. The basic requirement, as expressed in the decree of Adrasteia, is to catch a glimpse of τι τῶν ἀληθῶν, ‘part of what is true’. No full and unimpeded vision is required, but just a partial view.
35 249d: ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῷ θείῳ γιγνόμενος, νουθετεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν ὡς παρακινῶν, ἐνθουσιάζων δὲ λέληθεν τοὺς πολλούς; ‘and standing aside from human concerns, and coming close to the divine, he is admonished by the many for being disturbed, when his real state is one of possession, which goes unrecognised by the many’. See also 250a–b. Cf. Resp. Book 7, 515c–d; Tht. 174a–b. Cf. Rowe (n. 4), ad loc.
36 Ordinary human beings will interpret their situation as one of madness (in the negative sense), as in Lysias’ speech and in Socrates’ first speech. This is also the assessment of the mainstream negative opinion of ἔρως the palinode argues against. See 249d: the philosopher's divine possession (ἐνθουσιασμός) is ignored (λέληθεν) by the many and is misinterpreted as madness (in the negative sense). As every human being once had access to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος and the condition of the philosopher is one of (partial and limited) re-establishment of this access, by misinterpreting the condition of the philosopher as madness, the many are exhibiting their λήθη regarding the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος. Their inability to recognize their judgement of the philosopher as erroneous is an instance of compound λήθη: they are unable to recognize that the truth is subtracted from them, and therefore misjudge those who recognize their own ignorance.
37 See 249d and 254b.
38 See 250b. Cf. Hackforth (n. 8), 94–5; De Vries (n. 8), ad loc.; Sala (n. 8), 176; Yunis (n. 8), ad loc. See also 250d–e. Cf. 250d and the δεινοί ἔρωτες that would be caused by the sight of φρόνησις.
39 Cf. Carvalho, M.J., ‘Ἔρως and Πτέρως’, in Carvalho, M.J., Caeiro, A., Telo, H. (edd.), In the Mirror of the Phaedrus (Sankt Augustin, 2013), 167–244, especially 230–44Google Scholar.
40 See 250b and 250d–e, where the ἀνάμνησις of beauty is contrasted with the ἀνάμνησις of other beings.
41 See 252a–253c. This passage is a summary of the odd behaviour the lover engages in owing to the change of perspective caused by ἔρως. The resemblance with most of the descriptive content of Lysias’ speech and Socrates’ first speech is clear. See also 249d–e.
42 See 251d–e. Cf. the even greater degree of obscurity and confusion associated with the ἀντέρως of the ἐρώμενος in 255d–256a.
43 One needs the right conditions for this to happen. In the palinode, not all humans are born equal, owing to different experiences before the fall, and to subsequent position within the scale of βίοι (248c–e) and of having followed different gods in their journey to the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος (246e–247a, 252c–253c). So, human beings will be conditioned differently when they face beauty embodied in the beloved. For this reason, the intimation of the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος in that beauty will be dealt with differently by different types. Another important factor is the heterogeneous composite nature of the human souls. Even those who are more inclined to pursue the intimation of the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος will need to deal with competing urges and may therefore fail (253d–e).
44 See 250b.
45 Griswold (n. 13), 218. See also Werner, D., ‘Plato's Phaedrus and the problem of unity’, OSAPh 32 (2007), 91–137, at 122Google Scholar: ‘the Phaedrus has a kind of outward movement or progression, as a series of retrospective and self-referential analyses broaden our awareness of the limitations of what has come before.’
46 I discuss this point in greater detail in F. Serranito, ‘Lovers and madmen. The μανία–φρονεῖν opposition in Plato's Phaedrus’ (Diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2015), 328–91.