'Some of our greatest blessings come from madness Phaedrus is widely recognized as one of Plato's most profound and beautiful works. It takes the form of a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus and its ostensible subject is love, especially homoerotic love. Socrates reveals it to be a kind of divine madness that can allow our souls to grow wings and soar to their greatest heights. Then the conversation changes direction and turns to a discussion of rhetoric, which must be based on truth passionately sought, thus allying it to philosophy. The dialogue closes by denigrating the value of the written word in any context, compared to the living teaching of a Socratic philosopher. The shifts of topic and register have given rise to doubts about the unity of the dialogue, doubts which are addressed in the introduction to this volume. Full explanatory notes also elucidate issues throughout the dialogue that might puzzle a modern reader.
- ISBN10 0192802771
- ISBN13 9780192802774
- Publish Date 14 November 2002 (first published 1 January 1956)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 November 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 169
- Language English