From Plato's PHAEDRUS, On Love and Knowledge
From the Introduction
THIS IS THE THIRD in a series of new translations from Plato. The first two were taken from Plato's Politeia, or 'Republic', and for the third I have chosen a passage from the Phaedrus. Socrates' young friend Phaedrus has just recited a speech by Lysias which attempts to make a case against love, or eros. Now Socrates is asked, or rather forced, by Phaedrus first to make a better speech against love, and then to challenge Lysias with a second one in favour of it.
All Plato's dialogues talk about the soul, but in the Phaedrus Plato writes particularly about the power of love, and about love leading the soul on towards knowledge through its desire for beauty. What is said in the Phaedrus questions and amplifies what Plato discusses elsewhere. His dialogues take up similar themes and refer back and across to one another in a way that can appear contradictory but is in fact stimulating to the mind. The effect is additive, but not repetitive, and to take short extracts and study them separately is less confusing than it may seem.
The Phaedrus is about language and discourse, about truth and its clusiveness. It accepts the limits and contingency of language, and it acknowledges that sexual love, or eros, is a motivating force in human endeavour. That may be why the dialogue appears now to be very much of our time, but the beauty and interest it holds lies far beyond those particular qualities.
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Introduction and translation
© Irene Noel-Baker 2008
2008, 58 pages
ISBN 9780953100446
£8.95