Plato's Phaedrus argues that true rhetoric requires knowledge of the soul and philosophical truth, contrasting this with manipulative persuasion. This deck covers the dialogue's arguments on love, madness, the soul's charioteer allegory, recollection, and Socrates' critique of writing and rhetoric.
1 / 109
Chapter 1 · Question
According to the Introduction, what is the relationship between the Phaedrus and the Symposium?
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Chapter 1 · Answer
The Introduction states the Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium and may be regarded as either introducing or following it. Together the two dialogues contain the whole of Plato's philosophy on the nature of love, which elsewhere appears only playfully or as a figure of speech. In both, love and philosophy join hands, each being an aspect of the other.
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Arrow keys move between cards. Space or Enter flips.
All questions and answers
Every card in the deck, in reading order. Click a chapter to expand. The reviewer above uses the same content.
Section 14 cards
According to the Introduction, what is the relationship between the Phaedrus and the Symposium?
The Introduction states the Phaedrus is closely connected with the Symposium and may be regarded as either introducing or following it. Together the two dialogues contain the whole of Plato's philosophy on the nature of love, which elsewhere appears only playfully or as a figure of speech. In both, love and philosophy join hands, each being an aspect of the other.
Chapter 1
Why does Socrates refuse to interpret the myth of Boreas and Oreithyia?
Socrates satirizes the 'rationalizers' of his day and says he has no time for such 'nice' interpretations of mythology, pitying anyone who does. Once begun there is no end to them, and they spring from an uncritical philosophy. He holds that the proper study of mankind is man, a far more complex being than Typho, and he does not yet know himself.
Chapter 1
What is the 'foolish paradox' of Lysias's speech that Phaedrus reads?
The speech argues that the non-lover ought to be accepted rather than the lover, because the non-lover is more rational, more agreeable, more enduring, less suspicious, less hurtful, less boastful, less engrossing, and because there are more of them—along with many other reasons the Introduction calls equally unmeaning. Phaedrus is captivated by the beauty of the periods.
Chapter 1
What two principles does Socrates say exist in all of us, and what does he call their outcomes?
Socrates says there are in all of us two principles, a better and a worse—reason and desire—generally at war with one another. The victory of the rational is called temperance, and the victory of the irrational is intemperance or excess. The latter takes many forms with many bad names, such as gluttony and drunkenness; the greatest irrational desire is that drawn toward personal beauty, which he calls the master power of love.
Chapter 1
Section 24 cards
How does Socrates divide madness into four kinds?
Socrates glorifies madness and divides it into four kinds: first, the art of divination or prophecy, which he links to madness through an etymological explanation (mantike/manike); second, the art of purification by mysteries; third, poetry or the inspiration of the Muses, without which no man can enter their temple; and fourth, the madness of love, which cannot be explained without enquiring into the nature of the soul.
Chapter 2
What figure does Socrates use to describe the soul's nature?
Socrates describes the soul in a figure as a composite nature made up of a charioteer and a pair of winged steeds. The steeds of the gods are immortal, but human steeds are one mortal and one immortal. The immortal soul soars upwards into the heavens, but the mortal one drops her plumes and settles upon the earth.
Chapter 2
What happens to souls after death and in the thousand-year cycle?
After death comes judgment: the bad depart to houses of correction under the earth, the good to places of joy in heaven. When a thousand years have elapsed, souls meet together and choose the lives they will lead for another period. The soul that three times in succession chooses the life of a philosopher or a philosophical lover receives her wings at the close of the third millennium; the rest complete a cycle of ten thousand years.
Chapter 2
How does the philosopher's recollection of beauty differ from corrupted desire?
The philosopher, beholding visible beauty on earth, passes in thought to the sights of justice, wisdom, temperance, and truth once gazed upon in heaven; his soul flutters upward like a bird eager to quit its cage and is deemed mad. But corrupted nature, blindly excited by the vision of beauty, rushes on to enjoy and would wallow like a brute beast in sensual pleasures.
Chapter 2
Section 34 cards
In the charioteer allegory, how is the evil steed finally tamed?
The charioteer, beholding the beloved with awe, falls back in adoration and forces both steeds onto their haunches. When the evil steed rushes forward shamelessly, the charioteer jerks the bit from its clenched teeth, pulls harder on the reins, covers its tongue and jaws with blood, and forces it painfully to the ground. After this happens several times, the villain is tamed and humbled.
Chapter 3
What two principles does Socrates say his own playful speech embodies?
Socrates claims his speech, though playful and inspired by local deities, embodies two principles: synthesis, the comprehension of parts in a whole, and analysis, the resolution of the whole into parts. These are division and generalization, processes dear to the dialectician and effected by dialectic rather than rhetoric, of which only scanty remains are left once order and arrangement are subtracted.
Chapter 3
According to Socrates, what is the first rule of good speaking, and what is rhetoric?
The first rule of good speaking is to know and speak the truth, echoing the Spartan proverb that true art is truth. Rhetoric, by contrast, is an art of enchantment that makes things appear good or evil, like or unlike, as the speaker pleases. Yet Socrates says rhetoric is not wholly devoid of truth, since without knowing the truth one can neither deceive by resemblances nor guard against deception.
Chapter 3
What does Socrates say true rhetoric resembles, and who exemplifies it?
Socrates says true rhetoric is like medicine: the rhetorician must consider the natures of men's souls as the physician considers bodies, knowing which persons to affect how and the times for saying this or that. He argues Pericles, the most accomplished speaker, derived his eloquence not from rhetoric but from the philosophy of nature he learned from Anaxagoras.
Chapter 3
Section 43 cards
In the Egyptian tale, what did Thamus say writing would do to men?
Theuth presented writing as an invention, but the god Thamus warned that it would spoil men's memories and take away their understandings. The chapter draws from this tale the lesson that writing is inferior to speech, since it weakens the memory rather than strengthening it.
Chapter 4
Why does the chapter compare writing to a picture?
Writing is like a picture because it can give no answer to a question and offers only a deceitful likeness of a living creature. It has no power of adaptation but uses the same words for all. It is not a legitimate son of knowledge but a bastard, with no parent present to defend it when attacked.
Chapter 4
According to the chapter, what must a good orator know?
The chapter concludes that until a man knows the truth and the manner of adapting the truth to the natures of other men, he cannot be a good orator. It also holds that the living spoken word is better than the written, and that justice and truth delivered by word of mouth are the legitimate offspring of a man's own bosom.
Chapter 4
Section 54 cards
What does the chapter claim about the authorship of the first speech in the Phaedrus?
The chapter argues it is improbable that Lysias really wrote the first speech. Like Solon's poem, the Thamus and Theuth story, or Aspasia's funeral oration, the invention is due to Plato's imagination, comparable to the Sophist parodies in the Protagoras. The chapter notes such fictions recur in the Dialogues and have sometimes fooled commentators, and that inserting another's lengthy writing seems out of keeping with a great work of art.
Chapter 5
According to the chapter, how does Socrates' second speech surpass the rhetoricians?
Socrates is shown beating the rhetoricians at their own weapons despite calling himself unpractised. As a rhetorical exercise, his speech's superiority consists chiefly in better arrangement of topics: he begins with a definition of love and lends weight through general maxims. A lesser merit is his greater liveliness, which carries him into verse and relieves the monotony of the style. True to character, he professes the speech is not his own.
Chapter 5
What higher purpose does the chapter say Plato had beyond showing Socrates as rival to the rhetoricians?
The chapter argues Plato aimed to develop the germ of truth in Lysias's speech through Socrates' parallel oration: passionate love is first overthrown by the sophistical or interested, then both yield to a higher view of love revealed later. The extreme of commonplace is contrasted with the most ideal speculation. Socrates half-jests in Lysias's disguise yet is profoundly earnest, condemning both speeches without the condemnation being fully serious.
Chapter 5
How does the chapter treat Plato's discussion of love between men?
The chapter argues that to understand Plato we must abstract from morality and the Greek view of the sexes; what he says of the loves of men must be transferred to the loves of women for serious meaning. It claims that had Plato lived later he would have made this transposition himself, since in his age women could rarely be intellectual helpmates, excepting a Diotima or Aspasia.
Chapter 5
Section 64 cards
How does the chapter describe the soul in the Phaedrus myth?
The chapter says the soul is described in magnificent language as the self-moved and the source of motion in all other things, which is the philosophical theme or proem of the whole. Because realizing the true nature of the soul would be tedious and impossible, the account moves to the figure of two winged steeds and a charioteer for the souls of gods and men.
Chapter 6
What do the charioteer and two horses symbolize in the myth?
The chapter explains that the charioteer represents reason, the black horse the sensual or concupiscent element of human nature, and the white horse rational impulse, described as a lover of honour, modesty, temperance, and true glory. The two steeds correspond more nearly to Aristotle's appetitive and moral or semi-rational soul, giving perhaps the first representation of the threefold division of psychology.
Chapter 6
How does the chapter compare Plato's chariot image with Parmenides' horses?
The chapter notes that the image of the charioteer and steeds has been compared with a similar image in the verses of Parmenides. It stresses, however, that Parmenides' horses have no allegorical meaning: the poet is only describing his own approach in a chariot to the regions of light and the house of the goddess of truth.
Chapter 6
Why does Socrates condemn the two speeches, and what love does he contrast with them?
Socrates condemns both speeches as sinful and blasphemous toward the god Love, worthy only of a haunt of sailors, because they assume love is and ought to be interested and that no real, disinterested, lasting passion exists. He contrasts this 'love of the world' with another kingdom of love, divine and eternal, not of this world, which he promises to reveal in a mystery.
Chapter 6
Section 74 cards
In the Phaedrus myth, what must be subjected before the vision of the beloved is finally enjoyed?
The soul's animal desires, represented by the inferior or concupiscent steed, must be subjected before the flashing beauty of the beloved can be finally enjoyed. The immortal steed, like thumos in the Republic, always sides with reason, but both are dragged off course by furious impulses of desire until those desires are humbled and overpowered.
Chapter 7
According to the chapter, what is the way of philosophy or perfect love of the unseen?
The chapter states that the way of philosophy, or perfect love of the unseen, is total abstinence from bodily delights. But it adds that 'all men cannot receive this saying': those in the lower life of ambition may be taken off guard and stoop to folly unawares, and though they do not attain the highest bliss, if they have once conquered they may be happy enough.
Chapter 7
Why does the chapter suggest Plato found no difficulty in the eternal existence of ideas and minds?
The chapter argues Plato's mission was to realize the abstract, and to him abstractions were an inner, unseen world more real than fleeting objects of sense. Once we grasp the intense power abstract ideas held over his mind, the difficulty was not how such things could exist but how they could fail to exist, past, present, or future.
Chapter 7
Which elements of the myth does the chapter consider Plato probably not serious about?
The chapter suggests Plato probably was not serious about attributing the tripartite division of the soul to the gods; it is more likely assigned to them by parallelism with men, since the gods' horses are both white and their dualism only carries out the chariot figure. It also questions how serious he is about love as 'madness' and the absurd etymological derivations.
Chapter 7
Section 84 cards
According to the chapter, how should Plato's allegory of the charioteer and steeds be interpreted?
The chapter argues the whole second discourse of Socrates is only an allegory or figure of speech, a picture rather than a system. It says we must not attribute a meaning to every fanciful detail, and that the first impression of such a passage is truer than elaborate philosophical analysis. The charioteer image sits beside abstract ideas of justice and temperance seen by the soul.
Chapter 8
What two kinds of love does the chapter say appear in the Phaedrus and Symposium?
The chapter describes a lower and a higher love: the one answering to the natural wants of the animal, the other rising above them and contemplating with religious awe the forms of justice, temperance, and holiness. It compares this opposition to the flesh versus spirit in St. Paul's Epistles, and says the two, though opposed, are not absolutely separated and easily transform into one another.
Chapter 8
On what grounds does the chapter say rhetoric is assailed in the second part of the Dialogue?
Rhetoric is attacked first for desiring to persuade without knowledge of the truth, and second for ignoring the distinction between certain and probable matter. The chapter adds that Plato identifies the real error as confusing preliminary knowledge with creative power: no attainments provide genius, and only higher philosophy and psychological analysis through dialectic are valuable, not the rules of the rhetoricians.
Chapter 8
What does the chapter say about the intermediate sentimentalism of modern Europe compared with classical Greece?
The chapter states that the intermediate sentimentalism which exercised great influence on modern European literature had no place in classical times of Hellas. The higher love Plato speaks of is the subject not of poetry or fiction but of philosophy. It also notes that love here is one of the great powers of nature, taking two principal forms with predominant influence over men's lives.
Chapter 8
Section 92 cards
Why does Plato claim speech is superior to writing, and how does the chapter critique this?
Plato suggests speech is superior because what is truly written is written in the soul, and true teaching grows from within rather than being forced from without. The chapter argues the two cannot be fairly compared: speech is more transitory, diffuse, and adaptable to moods, while writing is more permanent and concentrated, addressed to all the world rather than one audience.
Chapter 9
What criteria does the chapter give for dating the Phaedrus?
The chapter states the chief criteria for dating the Dialogue are the ages of Lysias and Isocrates, and the character of the work. Lysias was born in 458 and Isocrates in 436, about seven years before Plato. Since Isocrates is described as young and full of promise, the chapter argues the Dialogue must date no later than 406, when Isocrates was thirty and Plato twenty-three, while Socrates was still alive.
Chapter 9
Section 104 cards
Why does the author reject dating Phaedrus by its Egyptian tale or love theme?
The author argues that a love dialogue need not be youthful, and that there is no real proof Plato ever visited Egypt; even if he did, he might have known or invented Egyptian traditions beforehand. Instead, the maturity of thought, perfection of style, insight, and relation to other dialogues contradict authorship by a youth of twenty or twenty-three.
Chapter 10
Where does the author place Phaedrus in Plato's career?
The author concludes it was written at a comparatively late but unknown period, after Plato deserted the purely Socratic point of view but before the abstract speculations of the Sophist or Philebus. Considering the divisions of the soul, transmigration, the contemplative philosophic life, and the style, he places it near the Republic, allowing for its poetical element.
Chapter 10
How does Plato treat allegorical interpretation of mythology, according to the author?
The author argues Plato was free from the Euhemerism of his age. Early philosophers like Anaxagoras and Metrodorus found hidden meanings in Homer, but Plato rejects these interpretations as 'unfortunate,' since they draw a man off from self-knowledge. He acknowledges such readings are 'very nice' but holds they cannot be tested by any criterion of truth or add to human knowledge.
Chapter 10
What does the tale of the grasshoppers represent, and why is it introduced?
The grasshoppers are representatives of the Athenians as children of the soil. Under the image of chirruping grasshoppers informing the Muses in heaven about those who honour them on earth, Plato represents an Athenian audience. The story is introduced apparently to mark a change of subject and to preserve the scene in the reader's recollection.
Chapter 10
Section 113 cards
What does the author say separated Plato from the Sophists and rhetoricians?
The author argues Plato esteemed genius far above art and was sensible of the interval between them. This is the same interval separating Sophists and rhetoricians from famous ancients like Homer, Hesiod, Anacreon, Sappho, Aeschylus, and Sophocles; the Platonic Socrates fears that approving the former would mean being disowned by the latter.
Chapter 11
What literary decline does the author describe after the flowering of Greek genius?
The author argues that after about one hundred, or at most two hundred years excluding Homer, the genius of Hellas ceased to flower. A dreary waste followed, beginning with the Alexandrian writers and the platitudes of Isocrates and his school, spreading over more than a thousand years. Unlike Latin, Greek language and literature never recovered from this decline.
Chapter 11
What symptoms of decline does the author list, and which writers show traces of originality?
Symptoms include want of method in physical science, want of criticism in history, want of simplicity in poetry, and want of political freedom in oratory. The author says only Plutarch, Lucian, Longinus, Marcus Aurelius, Julian, and some Christian fathers show traces of good sense or originality, and that no first- or second-rate Greek writer appears for over a thousand years.
Chapter 11
Section 124 cards
According to the chapter, why did so many classical works perish?
The chapter attributes the loss to the decline of later Greek literature into compilations, scholia, extracts, and commentaries. Commentators lacked a conception of their author as a whole, preferred the least things to the greatest, and had no sense of an author's beauties. The greatest writers were least appreciated, which the chapter says explains why the lyric poets almost wholly disappeared and only seven tragedies each of Aeschylus and Sophocles survived.
Chapter 12
What hope does the chapter place in the extension of education?
The chapter argues that extending knowledge to more people under new conditions may yield new combinations of thought and language, though it admits present experience does not yet favor this hope. It notes current teacher training and methods are imperfect, so the future cannot be judged by the present. With more youth trained in the best literatures, minds may grow larger, and among every thousand persons at least one far above average may otherwise die uncultivated.
Chapter 12
What additional hope does the chapter derive from education continuing over generations?
Beyond spreading education over a wider area, the chapter hopes for its continuance across many generations. Educated parents will have children fit to receive education, and these children will grow up under circumstances more favorable to intelligence than any in the present or former ages. The chapter presents this as a boundless hope in the multitude of intelligences, who may bring gifts the world has never received.
Chapter 12
What does the chapter say about the fear that literature will die out?
The chapter argues the fear is groundless. Even without new men of genius, ancient and modern great writers remain as materials of education. Nations now communicate, so East and West exchange culture, religions and literatures become open books, and greater leisure may allow improvement of the mind. The recollection of the past contains seeds of revival, so the world is far from exhausted.
Chapter 12
Section 134 cards
What was the point of Lysias's speech that Phaedrus recounts?
Phaedrus says Lysias wrote about a fair youth being tempted, but not by a lover; Lysias ingeniously proved that the non-lover should be accepted rather than the lover. Socrates responds playfully that he wishes Lysias had argued for the poor man over the rich and the old over the young, which would suit Socrates and many others.
Chapter 13
How does Socrates claim to know that Phaedrus learned Lysias's speech?
Socrates says he knows Phaedrus well: the speech was repeated to him many times, and Phaedrus finally got the book and spent the morning reading it. Socrates suspects he learned it by heart and went outside the wall to practice, then pretended he could not recite it. He tells Phaedrus to do at once what he will soon do anyway.
Chapter 13
Why does Socrates decline to give a rational explanation of the Boreas and Orithyia myth?
Socrates says the wise are doubtful and he would not be singular in doubting. He offers a rational version — Orithyia was blown over rocks while playing and died, hence 'carried away by Boreas' — but says allegorists face endless labor rehabilitating Hippocentaurs, chimeras, and Gorgons. He has no leisure for such inquiries because he must first know himself, as the Delphian inscription says.
Chapter 13
What does Socrates say he wants to know about himself instead of explaining myths?
Socrates says he bids farewell to such enquiries because he must first know himself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about what is not his concern while ignorant of himself would be ridiculous. He wants to know whether he is a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a gentler, simpler creature with a diviner and lowlier destiny.
Chapter 13
Section 144 cards
Why does Socrates say he never leaves the city?
Socrates tells Phaedrus he is a lover of knowledge and that the men who dwell in the city are his teachers, not the trees or the country. He jokes that Phaedrus could lead him all round Attica and over the wide world simply by holding up a book before him, like a bough waved before a hungry cow.
Chapter 14
What is Phaedrus's main argument for favoring the non-lover?
Phaedrus argues that lovers repent of kindnesses once passion ceases, while non-lovers act freely and never come to regret their benefits. Lovers tally neglected affairs and troubles as repayment, but the non-lover has no such tormenting recollections. He also claims non-lovers are more numerous, so a worthy friend is easier to find among them.
Chapter 14
How does Phaedrus describe the lover's effect on the beloved's other relationships?
Phaedrus says the jealous lover debars the beloved from society, fearing wealthy, educated, or otherwise superior companions. If the beloved breaks with them, he is left friendless; if he refuses, he must quarrel with the lover. Non-lovers, by contrast, are not jealous of the beloved's companions and even dislike those who refuse association.
Chapter 14
According to Phaedrus, how do lovers and non-lovers differ in praising the beloved?
Phaedrus claims the lover will spoil the beloved, praising words and actions wrongly out of fear of offending and because passion weakens judgment. He says love makes things painful to the disappointed that pain others not at all, and compels the successful lover to praise what should not please. The non-lover, master of himself, weighs future advantage and forgives unintentional offences.
Chapter 14
Section 164 cards
How does the speech define love before judging lover vs. non-lover?
The speaker insists good counsel begins with knowing what one advises about, so he first defines love. He says two ruling principles exist in us: natural desire for pleasure and acquired opinion aspiring to the best. When reason-led opinion conquers, it is temperance; when irrational desire rules and drags us to pleasure, it is excess. Irrational desire overcome by passion for beauty, especially personal beauty, is called love.
Chapter 16
Why does the lover wish to keep his beloved inferior and ignorant?
The lover, being a slave of pleasure, wants his beloved as agreeable as possible. Anything equal or superior is hateful to a diseased mind, so the lover works to reduce the beloved to inferiority: ignorant, cowardly, dull. He grows jealous and bars the beloved from society that would make him a man, especially from philosophy, so the beloved looks only to him.
Chapter 16
What oath does Phaedrus swear to force Socrates to speak?
Phaedrus, knowing Socrates' passion for discourse, swears by the plane-tree that unless Socrates delivers the speech there in the face of that very plane-tree, he will never tell Socrates another discourse. Socrates calls him a villain and admits he is conquered, since as a lover of discourse he cannot allow himself to be starved.
Chapter 16
How does Socrates deliver the speech, and what does he ask the Muses?
Socrates says he will veil his face and gallop through the discourse, since seeing Phaedrus would make him ashamed. He invokes the melodious Muses, whether named for their strains or because the Melians are musical, asking help so that his friend's friend, always deemed wise, may seem wiser than ever. He warns he may fall into a divine fury, and says the responsibility rests with Phaedrus.
Chapter 16
Section 174 cards
How does Socrates say the lover harms the beloved's property and family ties?
Socrates argues the lover wants to strip the beloved of his dearest possessions: father, mother, kindred, and friends, since they might reprove the affair. He is jealous of gold and silver because wealth makes the beloved less easy prey, and would prefer him wifeless, childless, and homeless—the longer the better, so he may enjoy him longer.
Chapter 17
What does Socrates say the beloved endures from the lover while the love lasts?
Socrates says the beloved feels disgust at an old, shrivelled face and the rest to match, detestable under daily contact. He is jealously watched and guarded against everyone, hears misplaced, exaggerated praises and equally inappropriate censures—intolerable when the man is sober, and worse when drunk, since they are then published worldwide.
Chapter 17
What happens when the lover's passion ends, according to Socrates?
Socrates argues the lover becomes a perfidious enemy, defaulting on his oaths and promises. Having grown wise and temperate, he no longer wants to do or be as he was, but lacks courage to confess the change. The beloved, still expecting a return, is forced to follow him with passion and imprecation—the oyster-shell has fallen the other side up.
Chapter 17
What final image does Socrates use for the lover's friendship, and what does Phaedrus then request?
Socrates concludes that in the lover's friendship there is no real kindness: he has an appetite and wants to feed on the beloved—'As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.' Phaedrus protests that Socrates is only halfway and asks him to add a similar speech on the advantages of accepting the non-lover.
Chapter 17
Section 183 cards
What was the error Socrates identifies in both speeches about love?
Socrates says both his speech and the one Phaedrus recited failed to acknowledge that Eros is the son of Aphrodite and a god. If love is a divinity, he argues, it cannot be evil. He adds that the speeches had no truth or honesty in them yet pretended to be something, hoping to deceive the "manikins of earth."
Chapter 18
How does Stesichorus's story serve as a model for Socrates' recantation?
Socrates recalls that Stesichorus, blinded for reviling Helen, composed a recantation denying she ever sailed to Troy, and his sight returned when the poem was finished. Socrates says he will be wiser than Stesichorus or Homer by recanting before he suffers, and boldly rather than veiled and ashamed.
Chapter 18
What does Socrates argue about divine madness versus a sane mind?
Socrates argues there is a madness that is a divine gift and source of the chiefest blessings. He cites prophecy: the prophetess at Delphi and priestesses at Dodona benefited Hellas greatly when out of their senses, few or none when sane. He links mantike and manike as the same word, and calls madness superior to a sane mind because it is of divine origin.
Chapter 18
Section 194 cards
Why does Plato argue the soul is immortal?
The author argues the soul is immortal because it is self-moving: what is ever in motion is immortal, while what moves others and is moved by them ceases to live when it stops. The self-moving never leaves itself and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all else. Being a beginning, it is unbegotten and therefore indestructible.
Chapter 19
What does the winged chariot figure represent in the soul?
The author offers a composite figure: a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. In gods both horses and charioteer are noble; in humans the charioteer drives two horses, one noble and one ignoble, so driving is full of trouble. The soul in her totality cares for inanimate being and traverses heaven in various forms.
Chapter 19
What nourishes the soul's wings, and what makes them waste away?
The wing is the corporeal element most akin to the divine, tending to soar and carry what gravitates downward into the upper region. The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness and the like; by these the wing is nourished and grows. Fed on evil, foulness and the opposite of good, it wastes and falls away.
Chapter 19
According to the law of Destiny, what happens to souls that fail to behold truth?
The author states that a soul which attains any vision of truth with a god is preserved from harm until the next period, and always if always attaining. But a soul unable to follow, sinking through forgetfulness and vice, loses her wings and drops; the law ordains her first birth be only into man, ranked by how much truth she saw, from philosopher down to tyrant.
Chapter 19
Section 204 cards
How long must most souls wait to regain wings, and who is exempt?
The text says ten thousand years must elapse before each soul can return to its source, since wings cannot grow sooner. The exceptions: a philosopher, guileless and true, or a lover not devoid of philosophy, may gain wings in the third thousand-year period; the ordinary good man takes three thousand years, and those choosing this life three times in succession receive wings at the end of three thousand years.
Chapter 20
What happens to souls at the end of the first thousand years?
After the first life, souls receive judgment: some go to houses of correction under the earth and are punished, others to a place in heaven where they live as their earthly life deserved. At the end of the first thousand years, good and evil souls alike draw lots and choose their second life, and a human soul may pass into a beast's life or a beast's back into a man.
Chapter 20
Why can a soul that has never seen truth not enter human form?
The text states that a man must have intelligence of universals and be able to proceed from many particulars of sense to one conception of reason; this is recollection of what the soul once saw while following God. Therefore the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form, and the mind of the philosopher alone has wings.
Chapter 20
How does the chapter describe the fourth kind of madness and its rank?
The fourth and last kind of madness is imputed to one who, seeing earthly beauty, is transported by recollection of true beauty; he wishes to fly away but cannot, fluttering like a bird and careless of the world below, and is thought mad. The author argues this is the noblest and highest of all inspirations, and that the lover of the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it.
Chapter 20
Section 214 cards
How does the soul's wing-growth feel, and to what is it compared?
The chapter describes the whole soul as boiling and effervescing as the wing grows, with a feeling of uneasiness and tickling. The author compares this irritation to the discomfort of gums when teeth are cutting. When the beloved's beauty meets the eye, the soul is warmed and refreshed and ceases from pain with joy.
Chapter 21
What happens to the soul when it is parted from the beloved?
The orifices from which the wing shoots dry up and close, trapping the germ of the wing. Shut in with the emotion, it throbs like an artery and pricks the nearest aperture until the entire soul is pierced, maddened, and pained. Yet at the recollection of beauty the soul is again delighted, leaving it oppressed and unable to sleep or stay in place.
Chapter 21
How do followers of Zeus and followers of Ares differ in love?
The lover who attends Zeus can better bear the winged god and endure a heavier burden. Followers and companions of Ares, when in love and feeling wronged, are ready to kill and end themselves and their beloved. Followers of other gods honor and imitate their god in their dealings with the beloved while unspoiled and the impression lasts.
Chapter 21
What do inspired lovers do for their beloved, according to the chapter?
Each lover chooses a beloved according to his own character and treats his god as an image to worship. Followers of Zeus seek a philosophical, imperial soul and try to confirm that nature in him; followers of Here seek a royal love. Lovers imitate their god and persuade and educate the beloved into that god's manner, feeling no envy or jealousy.
Chapter 21
Section 224 cards
How does the right-hand horse of the soul differ from the left-hand horse?
The right-hand horse is upright, cleanly made, white with dark eyes, a lover of honour, modesty and temperance, needing no whip but guided by word and admonition. The left-hand horse is crooked, lumbering, dark, flat-faced, the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.
Chapter 22
What happens when the charioteer beholds the beloved and recalls true beauty?
His memory is carried to true beauty, which he beholds with Modesty like an image on a holy pedestal. He is afraid, falls backwards in adoration, and pulls the reins so violently that both steeds go on their haunches. The obedient horse yields; the unruly one resists and later reproaches the charioteer for cowardice.
Chapter 22
How does the beloved's love arise, according to the chapter?
The stream of beauty passes through the eyes, the windows of the soul, back to the beautiful one, watering the passages of the wings and filling the beloved's soul with love. He loves but knows not what, calling it friendship rather than love; his desire mirrors the lover's but is weaker.
Chapter 22
What are the two outcomes for the lover and beloved depending on self-control?
If the better elements leading to order and philosophy prevail, they live in happiness and harmony, masters of themselves, and at death are light and winged, having won one of three Olympian victories. If they leave philosophy for ambition and yield in a careless hour, they are dear but less so, and pass out unwinged yet eager to soar.
Chapter 22
Section 234 cards
According to Socrates, when does the disgrace of writing begin?
Socrates argues that there is no disgrace in the mere fact of writing; the disgrace begins only when a man writes not well, but badly. He asks whether we need Lysias or any other poet or orator to teach us what is well and badly written, in verse or prose, political or otherwise.
Chapter 23
How does Socrates argue politicians actually regard speech-writing?
Phaedrus says statesmen are ashamed of writing speeches lest posterity call them Sophists. Socrates counters that politicians love writing and bequeathing speeches to posterity: they open with the names of their approvers, and if the law passes the author leaves delighted, but if rejected he and his party mourn. So they value, not despise, writing.
Chapter 23
What story does Socrates tell about the origin of grasshoppers?
Socrates says grasshoppers were once human beings before the Muses existed. When song appeared they were so ravished by delight that they sang always and forgot to eat and drink until they died. Now reborn as grasshoppers, they neither hunger nor thirst but sing from birth, and when they die they report to the Muses who honoured them on earth.
Chapter 23
Why does Socrates say he and Phaedrus should talk rather than sleep at midday?
Socrates imagines the chirruping grasshoppers looking down and laughing if they saw the two men slumbering at noon like sheep around a well, too indolent to think. If instead they see the pair discoursing, deaf to the siren voices like Odysseus, the grasshoppers may respectfully give them the gifts the gods grant them to impart to men.
Chapter 23
Section 244 cards
What does Phaedrus report he has heard about what an orator needs?
Phaedrus says he has heard that an orator need not know true justice, only what is likely to be approved by the many sitting in judgment, and opinion about the good rather than the truly good—since from opinion comes persuasion, not from truth. Socrates replies that such words of the wise should not be hastily dismissed.
Chapter 24
What does Socrates' horse-and-ass example illustrate about ignorant persuasion?
Socrates imagines persuading Phaedrus to buy a horse for war while both are ignorant of horses, Phaedrus believing a horse is the tame animal with the longest ears. Socrates then composes a speech praising an ass under the name 'horse.' The point: an orator ignorant of good and evil who persuades a city reaps the reverse of good.
Chapter 24
What defense does Socrates imagine rhetoric making for herself?
Rhetoric protests that she never forced anyone to learn to speak in ignorance of the truth; she would advise arriving at truth first, then coming to her. Yet she boldly asserts that mere knowledge of the truth will not by itself give the art of persuasion. Phaedrus finds reason in this defense.
Chapter 24
According to Socrates, what must a master of the art of speaking understand?
Socrates argues deception works through small resemblances and gradual departures from truth, so one who would deceive without being deceived must know the real likenesses and differences of things. Therefore whoever would master the art must understand the real nature of everything, or he attains only a ridiculous rhetoric that is no art at all.
Chapter 24
Section 254 cards
In which class of things does Socrates say rhetoric has greater power?
Socrates distinguishes things about which everyone agrees, like iron and silver, from things about which people disagree and are at odds, like justice and goodness. He argues that deception is more likely and rhetoric more powerful in the uncertain, debatable class. Therefore the rhetorician should divide and grasp both classes distinctly.
Chapter 25
What rhetorical error does Socrates find in the opening of Lysias' speech?
Socrates says Lysias begins at the end, addressing the youth with what a lover would say only at the conclusion, like swimming on his back toward the starting point. He also claims the topics are thrown down at random with no necessary order, and that Lysias never properly defined love before building the speech on his assumed notion of it.
Chapter 25
What does Socrates require of every discourse as a composition?
Socrates argues every discourse ought to be like a living creature, with a body of its own, a head and feet, and a middle, beginning, and end adapted to one another and to the whole. He contrasts this with Lysias' speech, which he compares to the epitaph of Midas, where lines could come first or last without difference.
Chapter 25
How does Socrates classify the kinds of madness and their presiding gods?
Socrates says madness has two kinds: one from human infirmity, the other a divine release of the soul from custom and convention. The divine madness is subdivided into four kinds — prophetic, initiatory, poetic, and erotic — presided over by Apollo, Dionysus, the Muses, and Aphrodite and Eros respectively. The erotic kind, described through a myth, was said to be the best.
Chapter 25
Section 264 cards
What two principles of discourse does Socrates praise in this section?
Socrates names two principles: first, the comprehension of scattered particulars into one idea, as in their definition of love, which gives clearness and consistency; second, division into species according to natural formation, cutting where the joint is rather than breaking parts like a bad carver. He calls those who practice this art dialecticians.
Chapter 26
How do Socrates's two discourses illustrate the principle of division?
Both discourses begin with a single form of unreason, then divide it as a body is split into left and right. The left side yields the evil, left-handed love that is reviled; the right side yields the divine madness and another love of the same name, which is praised as author of the greatest benefits.
Chapter 26
What does Socrates compare the rhetorician to in his analogy?
Socrates compares a would-be rhetorician to a man who tells a physician he knows heating and cooling drugs, vomits and purges, and claims to be a physician and to make physicians. The physician would ask to whom, when, and how much; if the man says he knows none of that, he is called a madman or pedant who read a book.
Chapter 26
What does Socrates say the rhetorical handbooks contain?
Socrates lists handbook topics: the exordium, statement of facts, witnesses, proofs, probabilities, confirmation and further refutation, insinuations and indirect praises and censures, rules of correct diction, and recapitulation at the end. He notes the teachers disagree on terms but agree a speech should end with a summing up.
Chapter 26
Section 274 cards
What analogy does Socrates use to criticize would-be tragedians and physicians?
Socrates compares them to a man who thinks he is a harmonist merely because he can pitch the highest and lowest notes. A real musician would gently reply that such a person knows only the preliminaries of harmony, not harmony itself. Likewise, Sophocles would say the would-be tragedian's display is not tragedy but its preliminaries, and Acumenus would say the same of medicine.
Chapter 27
What three requirements does Socrates say the finished orator must combine?
Socrates says the perfection required of the finished orator is like that of anything else: partly given by nature and partly assisted by art. If you have natural power and add knowledge and practice, you will be a distinguished speaker; if you fall short in either, you will be defective to that extent. He adds that the art of rhetoric does not lie in the direction of Lysias or Thrasymachus.
Chapter 27
Why does Socrates consider Pericles the most accomplished rhetorician?
Socrates argues that all great arts require discussion and high speculation about the truths of nature, which produce loftiness of thought and completeness of execution. Pericles acquired this quality, beyond his natural gifts, from his intercourse with Anaxagoras, being imbued with the higher philosophy and the knowledge of Mind and the negative of Mind, then applying what suited his purpose to speaking.
Chapter 27
How does Socrates compare rhetoric to medicine, and what method does he require?
Socrates says medicine must define the nature of the body and rhetoric the nature of the soul, if one would proceed scientifically rather than empirically. He requires the rhetorician to describe exactly whether the soul is single or multiform, explain how it acts and is acted upon, and classify men and speeches, adapting them to one another and giving reasons why one soul is persuaded and another not.
Chapter 27
Section 284 cards
According to Socrates, what must an orator learn about human souls?
Socrates says oratory is the art of enchanting the soul, so the would-be orator must learn the differences among human souls, which are many and produce differences between people. He must then divide speeches into classes, match each kind of speech to the persons it affects, and explain why—combining theoretical knowledge with actual experience of real individuals.
Chapter 28
What does the 'wolf' argument claim a skilful rhetorician needs?
The wolf argues that a skilful rhetorician has no need of truth when the question concerns justice and good. In courts, men care nothing about truth, only about conviction, which rests on probability. So the orator should give his whole attention to probability, and where actual facts are improbable, withhold them and tell only the probabilities.
Chapter 28
How does Tisias define probability, and what case illustrates it?
Tisias defines probability as that which the many think. His case: a feeble valiant man assaults a strong cowardly one and robs him. In court both should lie—the coward claims multiple attackers, the other proves they were alone and argues a weak man could not assault a strong one. The coward won't confess cowardice, so he invents another lie to be refuted.
Chapter 28
What does Socrates say is required to be a truly skilful rhetorician?
Socrates says a rhetorician must estimate the various characters of his hearers and be able to divide all things into classes and comprehend them under single ideas; otherwise he will never be skilful even within human limits. This requires great trouble, which a good man undergoes not to please fellow-servants but to say and do what is acceptable to God.
Chapter 28
Section 294 cards
In the myth, what does Theuth claim letters will give the Egyptians?
Theuth presents letters to King Thamus as a specific for memory and wit, claiming they will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories. Thamus rejects this, saying the inventor is not always the best judge of an invention's usefulness, and that letters will produce forgetfulness rather than memory.
Chapter 29
According to Thamus, why does writing harm memory?
Thamus argues that learners will not use their memories but will trust external written characters, so writing creates forgetfulness in their souls. He calls it an aid to reminiscence rather than to memory, and says students will appear omniscient while generally knowing nothing, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
Chapter 29
How does Socrates compare writing to painting?
Socrates says written words resemble paintings: the creations have the attitude of life, yet if you question them they preserve a solemn silence. Written speeches seem intelligent but always give one unvarying answer. Once written down they circulate among those who may or may not understand them, and lacking a parent, they cannot defend themselves when abused.
Chapter 29
What does Socrates call the 'living word' superior to writing?
Socrates describes an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself and knows when to speak and when to be silent. Phaedrus identifies it as the living word of knowledge with a soul, of which the written word is merely an image. Socrates compares writing to sowing seeds in a garden of Adonis for amusement, while serious teaching sows in a fitting soul.
Chapter 29
Section 302 cards
What must a speaker know to handle arguments by rules of art?
Socrates says a person must know the truth of each particular he writes or speaks about, be able to define things as they are and divide them until indivisible, discern the nature of the soul, and match simple or complex forms of speech to correspondingly simple or complex natures. Until all this is accomplished, he cannot handle arguments according to art, whether for teaching or persuading.
Chapter 30
What does Socrates call the best kind of writing?
Socrates says the best writings are only a reminiscence of what we know, and that clear, perfect, serious writing is principles of justice, goodness, and nobility taught orally for instruction and graven in the soul. Such principles are a man's own legitimate offspring: first the word found in his own bosom, then kindred ideas implanted in others' souls.
Chapter 30
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #1636 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-25. Cards reviewed 2026-10-25.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
Turn your own notes into cards
Upload a PDF, Word, or text file and get question-and-answer cards for closed-notes practice. Five cards are free, no signup.