Phaedrus

I found the Phaedrus reading to be a very interesting one. I was particularly intrigued by Lysias's  long rant regarding love. It seems almost as if Lysias doesn't like love, its as if he had a bad experience with love and is now bitter towards it. He makes it seem as if no one should trust people in love because, they are just blinded by love and will do or say anything. "Moreover, you should expect to become a better person if you listen to my arguments than if you listen to a lovers." He has a complete bias to people not in love. Making claims that a man in love is much more sick than a man not in love. While I can agree with some points because I do feel people often get blinded by love, I feel the speech goes to an extreme with judging lovers. Would you agree?

As I was reading I was also thinking back to our class discussion regarding Plato and how he often views things to be either black or white with no in between. I saw Plato using Socrates as a character who thought in a very black or white mindset. I especially caught a glimpse of this when Socrates stated; "But if Love is, as indeed he is a god, or something divine, he would not be anything bad."

After they both give their speeches the mood of the reading shifts and Socrates and Phaedrus begin to feel guilty of the stuff they said regarding love. They start discussing the consequences if a god or someone of importance had over heard them talking about it. This too is common in society, we are willing to express our opinions freely but as soon as we think someone may have heard that shouldn't have our story instantly changes.

After this Socrates and Phaedrus then begin to more heavily discuss the gods and the afterlife. This was another part where Plato's black and white thinking came into play. As they are discussing the soul as immortal, they are suggesting that a soul never changes. It is the same soul in the current life as it will be in the afterlife. Do you believe that the concept of a soul can be put into a definition? Much like their discussion on love, Socrates is trying to give complicated manners such as the soul a solid definition with defining principles. I find this simply too hard to do but, he appears to think he has done it. I also, found it interesting that the soul of the philosopher had a different afterlife process than the non-philosopher. How conceited can you be?