May 3, 2005.
Professor Griffith
I read the Phaedrus for a class once last year, and I found it to be very tough. After reading it again last night, I found it to be much more accessible, but I still had what I thought were some important questions. Upon my second reading, I still didn't have a comfortable grasp the Charioteer metaphor, the cicada metaphor, Plato's choice to break up the dialogue with long soliloquies by Socrates, or Plato's choice to make homosexual love the example of eros. Since it have studied Plato for Plato's sake, I wanted to ask Professor Griffith to compare this work to other Socratic dialogues. Finally, I hoped that we would discuss the role of nature and Socrates's tone toward Phaedrus in this work. This work always seemed unique to me, and also less analytical (I suppose by that I mean more Continental, though I'm not sure if anyone really knows the difference between these two branches of philosophy. To be sure, there appears to be much overlap. [I have begun to think of the difference between them to be about as significant and easy to articulate as the difference between Republicans and Democrats] But I digress).
We touched on these and other themes of the work. I would like to share some of the things I learned today that either gave me a great deal more clarity with respect to this work or that left me with more complicated considerations on which to deliberate.
1. This dialogue is unique in that it does not begin with at "frame conversation." Most Platonic dialogues begin with a retelling of recent events/conversations had by either Socrates or solicited by Socrates from his partner in conversation.
2. That the homosexual physical "love" which Socrates speaks of considerably is actually Pedernasty. I mean Pederasty. The most amusing part of today's discussion were the linguistic dances we performed around this topic.
3. We usually expect to arrive at a "reorienting insight" with a Platonic dialogue - exiting the cave, the turning around of the soul, etc. In the Phaedrus, Plato does not explicitly give us an example of "reorienting insight."
4. Socrates's long speeches are rare in dialogues, especially ones which wax poetic about nature and love. The Phaedrus gives us Socrates the artist, to some degree.
5. "nothing written will capture the Truth (whole, objective, all encompasing Truth), but that is not to say that Truth does not exist." If the Truth could be taught, suppose that anyone who wanted to learn it could. If everyone knew the Truth would we have any reason for language, since language/discussion the means by which we grasp for Truth? Also, can we think without language either before we are able to use language or after we are able to use language?
6. Plato asserts in this dialogue that philosophy is a process of collecting and discriminating things. This is how we classify examples of concepts appropriately. This kind of grouping is the way in which we learn language, and it is also the way we are able to make judgements about our environment in a somewhat crude way. But I am not sure that this is philosophy. There seems to be a bit more to it than conceptual taxonomy. What about the great system builders? Is this just very advanced collecting and discriminating? I think we are missing the move toward seeing and/or making similarities after we have completed "discrimination."
7. Techne is often translated as art, but this 'art' is a broader concept than our modern 'art.' It could also be translated as "creative mimesis."
8. The myth of the cicadas is meant as a bridge between Socrates's long soliloquy and the dialogue that follows.