Symposium and Phaedrus

There is the same distinction between knowledge and opinion, 37c, which occurs in the Theaetetus and Republic, the same enmity to the poets, 19d, the same combination of music and gymnastics, 88c.

The doctrine of transmigration is still held by him, 90e and the following, as in the Phaedrus and Republic, and the soul has a view of the heavens in a prior state of being, 41e.

The ideas also remain, but they have become types in nature, forms of men, animals, birds, fishes, 39e.

And the attribution of evil to physical causes, 86d, e, accords with the doctrine which he maintains in the Laws, book 9, 861, respecting the involuntariness of vice.

The style and plan of the Timaeus differ greatly from that of any other of the Platonic dialogues.

The language is weighty, abrupt, and in some passages sublime.

But Plato has not the same mastery over his instrument which he exhibits in the Phaedrus or Symposium.

Nothing can exceed the beauty or art of the introduction in which he is using words after his accustomed manner.

Maybe he's not the first person to give us this example, though.

But he discusses it in a dialogue called the Phaedrus.

And he says, you know, just as the skillful butcher has this understanding of structure and physiology, so the metaphysician also understands like the joints of nature.

And this view of metaphysics has really endured.

And the difference between human souls and divine souls is that for divine souls, the team of horses is made entirely out of the white horses, the spirited parts.

There are no unruly, ignoble parts in the souls of gods.

And in the Phaedrus...

Plato talks about these divine souls not being tempted into excessive pleasures because they lack these appetitive horses.

What is it, pray, he said, to which you take exception? For I recognize you as a just critic, provided you really know what his doctrines are.

Oh, said I, I know the whole of Epicurus's opinions well enough, unless you think that Phaedrus or Zeno did not tell me the truth.

I have heard both of them lecture, though to be sure they convinced me of nothing but their own devotion to the system.

Indeed, I regularly attended those professors in company with our friend Atticus, who for his part had an admiration for them both and a positive affection for Phaedrus.

Every day we used to discuss together in private what we had heard at lecture, and there was never any dispute as to what I could understand.

The question was what I could accept as true.

When the exposition goes rushing on like a mountain stream in spate, it carries along with it a vast amount of miscellaneous material, but there is nothing one can take hold of or rescue from the flood; there is no point at which one can stem the torrent of oratory.

However, in philosophical investigation a methodical and systematic discourse must always begin by formulating a preamble like that which occurs in certain forms of process at law: 'This shall be the point at issue,' so that the parties to the debate may be agreed as to what the subject is about which they are debating.

this very brief summary of scientific conclusions taken in conjunction with the fact which we have already referred to that the whole literature and life of the greatest people of antiquity the greeks of the periclean age was saturated with the passion of homogenic or comrade love must convince us that this passion cannot be lightly dismissed as of no account must convince us that it has an important part to play in human affairs On the one hand, we have anathemas and execrations.

On the other, we have the sublime enthusiasm of a man like Plato, one of the leaders of the world's thought for all time, who puts, for example, into the mouth of Phaedrus in the Symposium, such a passage as this, quote, I know not any greater blessing to a young man beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth.

For the principle which ought to be the guide of men, who would nobly live, that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love.

Of what am I speaking? Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.

pretty sure he was.

I mean, he couldn't have written Phaedrus without, you know, even though he's couching everything in metaphoric language, you know, that ascent that, you know, the chariots, you know, and the formlessness, you know, the ecstatic formlessness, actually, it's just a description of non-dual awareness.

Yeah.

Because almost he's like metaphorically talking about the sun behind the sun, right? There's the good and the sun behind the sun, which is then maybe Saturn.

What are you giving me philosophy for? I don't understand this.

And it was just, it's got the Crito, the Phaedrus and the last dialogue of Socrates in it.

And it blew my mind because I could understand it.

This was so beautifully translated.