Like many devoted readers of Plato, I think this is his best dialogue. Here in this dialogue, we see Plato at his rhetorical best, as well as his enigmatic prime. This dialogue is the one in which Plato seems to be stepping clearly out of the shadow of Socrates. Socrates becomes more human with more obvious flaws than in prior dialogues.
Perhaps what intrigues me most in this dialogue is that Socrates is shown as wise but subject to human weaknesses. Socrates is clearly out of control in the first part of the dialogue (He's mad with love). First, he follows Phaedrus out of the city because he is sexually attracted to the young man. Socrates allows himself to be enticed out of the city as a “lover of speeches.” Then, after hearing Lysias’ speech from Phaedrus, Socrates is compelled (after being threatened sexually by Phaedrus) to make a speech of his own, which is quite out of character for Socrates. Socrates makes a speech attacking the lover that is base and ignoble. It’s a good speech, but it is an attack on something noble, love. Socrates is behaving like the people who he condemns.
I always wonder what Plato is doing here. Socrates is shown as being uncharacteristically out of control. It’s almost as though Socrates loses his senses momentarily, intoxicated by the attractiveness of Phaedrus and the songs of the cicadas, who are like the sirens in the Odyssey. His bad horse takes over and runs with his soul for a little while. Of course, Socrates regains control in his second speech and follows the noble path once again.
In this way, Socrates becomes a much less noble character for little while. Unlike earlier dialogues, where he is the interrogator and the truth-finder, here he is shown to be vulnerable to human weaknesses. Plato allows him to redeem himself, but in a way Plato is behaving much like a puppetmaster playing with his favorite puppet. Is he showing Socrates’ weakness, so he himself can be seen as the stronger philosopher? I’m not sure.
The discussions of rhetoric and writing add more confusion. Plato clearly has Socrates reverse himself here in his opinions about rhetoric, which were expressed in the Gorgias. I’m guessing the dialogue with Gorgias probably represented something close to Socrates’ real view of rhetoric. In the Phaedrus, Plato seems to reverse that direction. Why? Did Plato realize that he had gone too far in the earlier dialogue? Did he realize that his school needed to address rhetoric or it would never survive?
As for writing, how can this part of the dialogue be seen as anything less than a critique of Plato himself? Above all, Plato is a writer. And yet, he has Socrates say some rather nasty things about writing and people who write. People who write cannot truly be philosophers. Does Plato believe this himself? Or, does he not classify dialogues as a form of writing?
Perhaps this dialogue more than others makes me wonder what Plato is saying about himself and his view of philosophy and education. Commentators are often quick to take Socrates' statements in this dialogue at face value. I find myself paying attention to what Plato is doing, not what he is saying. Is he separating himself from Socrates here? I think he is.
Rick J-S
I was thinking the exact same thing about Plato's criticism of writing being a criticism of himself. I wonder if the doubled layer of written oratory, as you said, is what absolves him of his own critique. But as you've brought up in class--the written dialogues really do not lend themselves to being "performed." Do you think the initial attempts to perform them grew out of some attempt to stay true to Plato's love of oration versus written discourse?