Love And Rhetoric In Plato free essay sample

# 8217 ; s Phaedrus Essay, Research Paper In Phaedrus, Plato discusses different facets and grades of love and rhetoric. The work is centered on three addresss and a concluding treatment of truth. Phaedrus reads the first address, written by Lysias, to Socrates. It suggests that a individual should non fall in love, or give favours to those that love them. Lysias defends his place by proclaiming that the lover is huffy. He besides says that by falling in love, one loses all sense of logic and ground. Socrates takes the place of Lysias in the 2nd address. He poetically gives love a definition and describes several negative effects that it can hold on the beloved. Socrates decides that his first address does non incorporate truth and rectifies it with a 2nd 1. In this address, he says that love is a signifier of lunacy, nevertheless it is good and non evil. Socrates so moves into a treatment about truth and rhetoric. He states that one must be supplying the truth in order to achieve pleasance from talking or composing. From the three addresss and the treatment of truth, analogues can be drawn between the lover and the philosopher, the improper lover and the poet. The morality of each is based upon truth. The lover and philosopher withhold high ethical motives because their pleasance is justified by truth. In contrast, the improper lover and poet can non warrant their pleasances with truth and are immoral.The non-lover, although claiming to be sensible, in fact proves himself to be unreasonable and immoral by prosecuting pleasance without seeking truth. His description of himself as a non-lover is a misrepresentation. He is non the antonym of the lover, but a lover that that manipulates ground in order to fulfill his appetency for pleasance and merely pleasance. Lysias attempts to convert his audience that the manner of the non-lover is the true and sensible 1. Knowing that his manner of life is non moral and looked down upon by society, Lysias begins his use of ground, # 8220 ; Whereas the adult male non in love, holding better control over himself, will likely subordinate repute to what is in fact the best coarse # 8221 ; ( 232 ) . Lysias claims that he is in control of himself. In world, he merely controls his ain logical thinking and allows himself to be directed by the appetency for pleasance. In this manner, he shows himself to be unreasonable and immoral. In Socrates # 8217 ; first address, while feigning to hold with Lysias, he argues that the non-lover is rational and that a lover can merely be rational one time he has abandoned his beloved. Upon go forthing the beloved, the non-lover can non maintain the promises that he one time made. Socrates provinces: When the clip comes to pay his debts he is under the sway of a new influence ; rational self-denial has replaced the lunacy of love, he is a different adult male and has forgotten is darling he is ashamed to s tate that he has changed, but does non cognize how to carry through the curses and promises which he made when he was the slave of irrational passion. ( 241 ) Assuming that the lover and non-lover are antonyms, Socrates infers that the non-lover is rational by claiming that the lover is a # 8220 ; slave of irrational passion # 8221 ; . Socrates does non intend for this statement to be taken earnestly, as he will subsequently explicate. His motivation is to demo Phaedrus the false logic behind the non-lovers line of concluding and make up ones minding what is and what is non rational. The proper lover is inspired by a Godhead lunacy and seeks the truth through his love, warranting any pleasances that he may have from his beloved. The lover is non the antonym of the non-lover but instead a moral lover who attains truth through the beauty of his beloved. When the lover looks into the eyes of his compulsion, he stares with awe and regard because he is seeing something Godhead. Harmoni zing to Socrates, the psyche is immortal. If the psyche does non follow the Gods in a proper manner, it loses its wings and falls to the Earth. Here the psyche must wait until it can one time once more grow wings. While the psyche is on Earth in the signifier of a human being, it on occasion sees a glance of the godly topographic point from which it has come: This so is the 4th type of lunacy, which befalls when a adult male, reminded by the sight of beauty on Earth of the true beauty he fixes his regard on the highs to the disregard of things below this is the best of all signifiers of Godhead inspiration it is when he is touched with this lunacy that the adult male whose love is aroused by beauty in others is called a lover. ( 250 ) Socrates explains that although love is a signifier of lunacy, it is from Eden and is inspired. Those that fall in love should be seen as though they have received a gift from the Gods. Unlike the non-lover, the lover seeks the truth with his spouse and is in that manner sensible. The Sophist is much like the improper lover because he does non seek the truth but instead deceives with the usage of address and authorship in order to acquire the reaction that he desires. Just as the non-lover manipulates ground in order to fulfill his appetency, the Sophist manipulates words. Socrates speaks to Phaedrus about d ifferent devices used in modern-day addresss. As he describes these methods, Socrates condemns and ridicules the Sophists for their deficiency of regard for the truth: Shall we leave buried in limbo work forces who saw that chance is to be rated higher than truth, and who could do fiddling affairs appear great and great affairs fiddling merely by the strength of their address Once, nevertheless, when Prodicus heard me speaking of this last achievement, he burst out laughing, and declared that he entirely had found the secret of artistic oratory, which is that addresss should be neither long nor short but of suited compass. ( 267 ) Socrates is depicting the manner that a Sophist can command an audience and do them believe what he wants, whether it is true or non. The words from Prodicus farther describe the use of the Sophist. He conveys the same thought utilizing many words or utilizing few words, depending on what is appropriate for a certain audience. This is another mark of the S ophist # 8217 ; s power to pull strings words and deceive like the improper lover. The philosopher is like the proper lover in that he seeks truth and for this ground can warrant the pleasance that he receives from the usage of words. Socrates himself gave into the enticement of words through his metaphors and poetic first address. He is, nevertheless justified in his pleasance, unlike the Sophist, because he uses these techniques to show the truth to Phaedrus. Unlike the improper lover and the Sophist, the philosopher receives pleasance in the chase of truth. Socrates explains that it is hard to get the better of the enticements of the Sophist, # 8220 ; This, nevertheless, is a end that can non be reached without great strivings, which the wise work forces will undergo non with the object of turn toing and covering with human existences but in order to be able to the best of his power to state and make what is acceptable in the sight of heaven # 8221 ; ( 274 ) .Socrates describe s the purpose of the philosopher to show the truth without any effort to lead on. Like the proper lover, the philosopher sees a glance of the truth and respects it with awe and regard. Harmonizing to Socrates, in the last pages of the duologue, the power of the written word does non hold the same authorization as that of the spoken word. Plato warns that this duologue is non to be taken as absolute truth, but merely as an illustration of what may be true. It is up to the person to make up ones mind what is truth, like love and doctrine, and what is merely a misrepresentation, like the non-lover and the Sophist.