Phaedrus Part 5: Rhetoric, Writing, and Friends

The semester is wrapping up, and finals have begun. I just got done with my sociology exam, and one of the questions was how did sociology relate to my major. Plato’s statements about what make a good rhetorician go hand in hand with my answer: he says, “a nature needs to be analysed,” reflecting the infamous phrase, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It is true though; my sociology textbook explained that sociologists try to examine things in a way that does not take the “natural” for granted as being “natural,” but instead makes the familiar strange. So it is in philosophy, an authentic person is someone who is aware of things and thoughtful, contemplative, and perhaps analytic– not just on autopilot, going through the motions. Because being thoughtful in this way makes people closer to truth, according to Plato, their natural skills as a rhetor are going to be more wholesome if coupled with the mindset of examining life.

Of course, for Plato, the nature that needs to be most examined is the nature of the soul as opposed to the body, but we can forgive him that. He says that it is the soul that must be convicted, and in my rhetoric class we certainly were taught to act with that mindset; we were taught to develop an emotional connection with the audience. But at the same time, the body is important, not just the words: we were graded on tone of voice, volume, the frequency of crutch words, hand motions, and all around physical presence. Socrates speaks about knowing the audience well, too, which is good– recognizing that different people will accept different methods of employing emotion.

Then, the dialogue ends with some criticisms of writing. I came across this before from a secondary soure (I believe it was Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman when he gives a brief history of media in the beginning of the book). Although Theuth, the Egyptian god who invented writing, wanted to improve the wisdom and memory of the people; Socrates’ assessment, however, is that writing in fact decreases the skill of memory and consequently wisdom; by relying on writing they do not rely on their own mind. It makes sense that Plato would have this understanding in terms of his ontology; the immaterial realm (the mind/soul) is the only real, whereas material things are more often than not hindrances to the world of the Forms. Also the recollection theory of education is recognized; the soul already has in it all the knowledge it needs– the best writing can do is remind it of that, but it is more proximate for the soul to be reminded by voice, which is mutable just like life, whereas writing is immutable and “dead.”

The ending of the Phaedrus is beautiful. Socrates offers a prayer, a wonderful prayer that displays the realm of all truth lies at the heart of the philosopher, the lover of wisdom. He asks Phaedrus if anything else needs to be asked for except for inner health, saying he thinks his words seem sufficient. Phaedrus says “Offer it for me too, Socrates; friends should share everything.” How wonderful! Socrates a good friend! Friends share everything, including speeches, which are hopefully not written, but spoken so that they can share in wisdom together. Friends share shade of a tree in a hot day so they can keep one another awake as they contemplate the real world. And friends journey through life together, as Socrates ends the dialogue, “Let us be going.” (Italics mine).