Gorgias and Phaedrus by PLATO & JAMES H. NICHOLS JR

Author:PLATO & JAMES H. NICHOLS JR.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

PLATO

Phaedrus

TRANSLATED WITH

INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND AN

INTERPRETATIVE ESSAY BY

JAMES H. NICHOLS JR.

Cornell University Press

ITHACA AND LONDON

Dialogue Names and Abbreviations

(Names appear spelled out at first instance and are abbreviated thereafter.)

Phaedrus

Socrates SOC.

Phaedrus PHAE.

Preface

The design and execution of this volume rest on three premises. First, that the questions regarding the nature of rhetoric and its proper relation to philosophy, politics, and education are of perennial concern and importance. Second, that Plato’s investigation of these questions is profound and valuable for our own thinking. And third, that a careful translation by the same person of both Gorgias and Phaedrus, with notes and interpretative suggestions, could be very helpful for those wishing to come to grips with Plato’s understanding of rhetoric.

Of course, I hold these premises to be true and to provide sufficient justification for the present volume. In fact, these premises seem to me sufficiently modest that I imagine most people might well agree with them. I further believe that substantially stronger assertions along each of these lines are defensible, though of necessity more controversial, and that these assertions make a far more compelling case for the value of this volume.

My full argument for these stronger assertions is to be found in the entirety of the volume that follows, including introduction, translations, notes, and suggestions for interpretation. Let me sketch them here briefly as follows.

First, rhetoric is the crucial link between philosophy and politics and must take an important place in education if political life and intellectual activity are to be in the best shape possible. While it is easy to denigrate the art of persuasion, most obviously by contrasting its possible deceptiveness with the truth of genuine knowledge, science, or philosophy, one should never forget the fundamental political fact that human beings must coordinate their activities with other human beings in order to live well, and that the two most basic modes of such coordination are through persuasion and by force. Everyone knows the disadvantages of excessive reliance by a political community on force or violence. If the highest intellectual activities—science, philosophy—are to have much efficacy in practical political life, rhetoric must be the key intermediary.

Second, Plato presented the first full investigation of the most important and fundamental questions about rhetoric, and its relation to philosophy on the one hand and politics on the other. His investigation is classic, in the sense that one can argue with plausibility that no later investigation has surpassed its clarity and force on the basic questions. His understanding of these questions and his philosophic suggestions about rhetoric decisively affected the way these matters were viewed and dealt with for many centuries and remain indispensable today.

Third, Plato’s teaching on rhetoric is an aspect of his thought that is very often misunderstood. Several features of the intellectual life of the last century or two make it difficult for many scholars to take the issue of rhetoric as seriously as Plato himself did. Hence, for example, they are often misled to think that, although the Gorgias does of course discuss rhetoric, it is more deeply concerned with justice or philosophy.

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