Phaedrus
Phaidros
Written speech is a lesser, more rigid substitute for living dialogue, since a text cannot answer questions, defend itself, or adapt to its particular listener, and true rhetoric must be grounded in knowledge of the soul rather than mere technique.
- divine madness and philosophical love
- critique of writing versus living dialogue
- true rhetoric requires knowledge of the soul
- the myth of Theuth and King Thamus
- adapting argument to the particular listener
Set outdoors along a river, the Phaedrus moves from a playful competition of speeches on love into a sustained meditation on rhetoric and writing. Socrates argues that genuine rhetoric, unlike the technical tricks taught by contemporary speechwriters, requires real knowledge of the truth about its subject and of the different types of souls being addressed. In the dialogue's famous closing myth, the Egyptian god Theuth offers writing to King Thamus as a gift for memory, but Thamus rejects it as a recipe for forgetfulness, since those who rely on written reminders will stop exercising their own memory, and Socrates extends the point to argue that a written text, unable to answer questions or defend itself, is at best a reminder for those who already know. As with Plato's other dialogues, its date rests on stylometric inference rather than direct record.
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