Love, Rhetoric, and the Aristocratic Way of Life Author(s): Albert William Levi Source: Philosophy & Rhetoric,

Vol. 17, No. 4 (1984), pp. 189-208 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40237410 . Accessed: 07/07/2013 12:01
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Love, Rhetoric, and the Aristocratie Way of Life

Albert William Levi I A.E. Taylor begins his chapteron the Phaedrusas follows:
The Phaedrus prsents a double difficulty to the student of Plato's work as a whole. What is its proper place in the sries of the dialogues? And what is its purpose? Is it, as it professes to be, a discussion of the principles upon which "rhetoric" (prose style) may be made into a "science," or is its real subjeet Eros? Is Piato primarily concerned with the question of the use and abuse of sexual passion, or are th speeches Socrates delive rs on this topic merely examples of the right and the wrong use of persuasive loquence?1

This is only the latest in a long sries of questioners.Hackforth But takes the matter back as far as Hermeias and Iamblichus.2 where is the authoritywho says that every Platonicdialoguemust hve a single subject?True, we are used to the conventionwhich maintainsthat the Euthyphrois about piety, the Lches about courage, the Protagorasabout pleasure, but what is the Republic about, or th Lawsl Some dialogues less prolix and less compliseem to or the Euthydemus, cated than thse, like the Statesman be binarystars with two subject matters, and it may well be that the Phaedrustoo should be conceivedon the double model of the Statesman ratherthan the single model of the Lches. However, there is another considrationhre of some importance. The late abstractpainterJosef Albers, with whom I years ago shareda double house, once performedfor me a simplecolor experiment. First he painted two identicalbut separatedsquares of Van Gogh yellow. Then he proceeded to surroundone of the squareswith a broad band of blue, the other with a broad band of red. "Look again," he said, "are the squaresthe same color?" Now they looked quite diffrent. One had been pushed toward green. It was a greenish yellow. The other had been pushed toward orange. It was an orangeyyellow. "Are they the same?"
Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1984. Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park and London. Editorial Office: Department of Philosophy, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. 189

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he pressed me. "No, they are now quite diffrent yellows," I said. "Ja, natrlich," he said with a gleam of satisfaction in his eye, "Das ist ein Schwindel!" If you read th Phaedrus with th Symposium, you press its prime subject matter in the direction of Eros, but if on the contrary, you read it with the Gorgias, then you press it toward rhetoric. In what follows, I propose to read the Phaedrus bot h with the Symposium and the Gorgias, thus confirming the double importance of both subject matters. My ultimate purpose is to show that diffrent as are the topics of love and rhetoric, Piato treats them with an analogous logic and from the Standpoint of a single dominating ideology - that of the aristocratie way of life. Albers' color experiment is, of course, a paradigm for hermeneutics, for it establishes beyond dispute that meaning is contextual, and that we widen and deepen the field of Piatonic significance as we widen th scope of the Piatonic corpus to which we appeal. No authority less than the total compass of the Piatonic writings will do, and this is th supreme axiom of method upon which dpends Paul Shorey's great work- relatively brief, but enormously important- The Unity of Piato's Thought? Hegel said it first, in th preface to the Phenomenology: "Das Wahre ist das Ganze," and he underlined it later by calling "individuality" "das Prinzips der Verkehrung"- the principle of perversion.4 Shorey's point is that when Plato's work is considered as a whole, the alleged inconsistencies, contradictions, and developments in doctrine turn out to be unimportant. For he holds it probable "that Plato's philosophy and his conception of life had taken shape at the age of thirty or thirty-five, and that his extant works, though not of course a predetermined systematic exposition, are the naturally varied reflection of a homogeneous body of opinion, and of a consistent attitude in the interprtation and criticism of contemporary life."5 Thus the unity of Plato's thought implies the very contextualism in method of which we have spoken, and Hegel's "individuality as the principle of perversion" turns into Shorey's warning that "the atomism of Grote, Jowett, Bonitz and Horn, that treats each dialogue as an isolated unit, is the renunciation of ali method."6 One pole of my interpretive method is the presupposition of the unity of Plato's thought. Its brother is the empirical rcog- its nition that the essence of the Piatonic Weltanschauung single comprehensive vision of the world is an aristocratie bias which infects all the topics of his concern whether they be

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ethical or politicai, metaphysical or epistemological, rhetorical or erotic. For hre the two ples coalesce. When the Platonic dialogues are taken as a whole, the world view they reveal is clear and consistent - it is the persistent standpoint of a fanatical elitism. Piato is himself a born aristocrat. The most severe strictures of his social criticism are directed against the institutions of what he takes to be a dcadent Athenian democracy. And ail of his chief ventures, whether theoretical or educational- the writing of the dialogues or the teaching in the Academy - were in the service of an aristocratie restoration in the Greek world.1 It follows that any attempt to understand Plato's prsentation of love and rhetoric in the Gorgias, the Symposium, and th Phaedrus must appeal to those inner pervasive forces which are at the heart of Platonism- in short, to an aristocratie mode of perception and an aristocratie mode of expression which persists through Plato's lifetime and is to be found equally in the very early Charmides and in the final work of Plato's old ge, the Laws. Plato's aristocratie lineage is attested by the only early biography extant, that of Diogenes Laertius.8 Son of Ariston and Perictione, his family was one of the most illustrious in the Periclean ge. His father traced his ancestry back to the first kings of Athens, his mother was the sister of Charmides and the cousin of Critias, both reactionary leaders of the antidemocratic rvolution which followed the collapse of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War. Himself a disappointed politician, as the seventh Epistle relates,9 he nevertheless remained his whole life an irrconciliable aristocrat, always proposing rule by the noble few (oligos), contemptuous of the multitude (oi polloi), and a permanent Opponent of every democratizing tendency. It is necessary to be clear about the chief ingrdients in Plato's aristocratie Weltanschauung. They are: (1) an unswerving prfrence for excellence, (2) a profound belief in the principle of hierarchy, (3) a constantly reiterated faith in th supreme value of the few, and its corollary, (4) a supreme contempt for dmocratie assemblies and lower-class workers. Book VI of the Republic is a classic repository of vidence for the latter. Hre is Piato on the assault made by the clamor of the multitude upon the independent right-thinking of th private individuai: Why, when, I said, the multitudeare seated togetherin assemblies or in court-roomsor theaters or any other public gatheringof a

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LEVI ALBERT WILLIAM crowd, and with loud uproarcensure some of th things that are said and done and approve others, both in excess, with fullthroatedclamor and clappingof hands, and thereto th rocksand th rgions round about re-echo double th noise of th censure and th praise. In such case how do you think th young man's heart is moved within him? What private teachingdo you think will hold out againstthis ratherthan be swept away in th torrent of censure or applause, and carriedoff in its current,so that he will hold th same thingsas they do to be honorableand base, and will do as they do, and be as they are?10

And here is Piato with ali his contempi for th vulgr prtentions of th lower classes to philosophy: Just as men escape from prison to take sanctuaryin temples, so artsto thse gentlemenjoyously bound away from th mechanical philosophy,those that are most cunningin their little craft. For in comparisonwith th other arts th prestigeof philosophyeven in her prsent low estate retains a superiordignity;and this is th ambition and aspirationof that multitudeof pretendersunfit by nature, whose souls are bowed and mutilatedby theirvulgroccupationseven as their bodies are deformedby theirartsand crafts.1 Plato's contempi for dmocratie assemblies and lower-class workers is striking, but more important for our thesis is th prevalence of th principle of hierarchy as a pervasive mode of Platonic perception and th distinctive semantics of th Platonic vocabulary of value. The former has many modes. The sociology of th fourth book of th Republic comprehends a tripartite class division with th ruling class (archontes) at th apex, th military (phylakes) and auxilliaries (epikouroi) at th next remove, and th laborers (demiourgoi) at th lowest level. This is balanced in th same book by a psychology comprehending a tripartite division in th individuai soul with rationality at th apex, passion at th next remove, and bodily appetite at th lowest level. Reason thus represents th aristocracy of mind, bodily desire its basest metal, and this psychological or spiritual abyss between th quaint uneasiness of th body and th highest reaches of th soul is to provide that dualism of th erotic impulse which th Symposium exploits. Book Vili of th Republic prsents a hierarchy of th forms of social and individuai degeneration where th highest, th aristocratie government or individuai descends to th timocratic, which in turn falls to th oligarchical, which itself dgnrtes into th dmocratie and finally sinks into th tyranni-

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cal or lowest. Whether this represents an ideai scale in reverse or came as an unconscious generalization from actual Greek politicai exprience is beside the point. It is the hierarchical ordering with the aristocratie at the top which essentially counts. It always pays to attend to Plato's hirarchies as expressions of his System of values. Two such are also to be found in the Symposium and th Phaedrus, th one in th Symposium12 perhaps constituting its culminating insight; the one in the Phaedrusu being presented almost as an aside, but in fact by no means inferior to the other in importance. The Symposium hre prsents "the ladder of beauty," an "Itinerarium mentis in Deum" in which we serially pass from the passion for one particular beautiful body to a love for beautiful bodies in generai, from the feeling for beautiful bodies in generai to the beauty of sols which will encourage that educational discourse which cultivtes and develops the young, from the beauty of the immaterial sol to an apprciation of the beauty and fitness of laws, customs, and social institutions, from an apprciation of laws and social institutions to a respect for the various branches of knowledge, and from this respect to th ultimate goal in philosophy where one has been brought into the prsence of the ideas- and particularly to th supreme form of the beautiful which is th goal of a rapt mditation and a successful dialectic. In characteristically Platonic fashion the passage hre is from matter to form, from the immediate particularity of an object of desire to an ultimate generality as a source of immaculate joy, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature, of th eternai and self-existent essence which ail beautiful things imitate and in which they partake. Plato's journey toward the transcendent in the Symposium is only one of a sries of such transformations which are scattered through the Platonic corpus, but what I particularly wish to note hre is the Platonic insistence not on the "wickedness" or "partiality," but the vulgarity of the single instance. Groden in the University of Massachusetts Press dition of the Symposiumspeaks of one as being "the tow, petty slave of an isolated instance of beauty," while W. R. M. Lamb in the Loeb Edition15translates the same passage (210 d) as how one "may escape from the mean, meticulous slavery of a single instance." "Low," "petty," and "mean" are not the usuai coinage of valuational discourse, but, on the other hand, they do signify to perfection an aristocratie vision of the world. The hierarchy in the Phaedrus occurs in the second oration of

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incarnation. The soul that in heaven has discerned the most of true being shall enter into (1) one who will become a philosopher, a follower of the muses, or a lover; the next, having seen less, into (2) a king who abides by law or a warrior-ruler. And then follow, in decreasing order of vision (and therefore of valuational importance), (3) a statesman, man of business, or a trader, (4) an athlte, traner, or physician, (5) a prophet or mystery priest, (6) a poet or artist, (7) an artisan or farmer, (8) a sophist or dmagogue, and last (9) a tyrant. The enormous gap between the king who abides by law and the tyrant is a commonplace of th whole of Plato's politicai theory from the Republic to the Statesman to the Laws. The dispraise of the poets and the sophists as reprsentatives of a corrupt democracy permeates the Platonic philosophy at every level. While the inferior classification of the artisan and the farmer projects a contempi for the lower classes of a typical "Attic Tory" of distinguished lineage, naturally destined for membership in the ruling class of Athens. There are, as I hve suggested, two dues to the Platonic theory of value. One lies in the attention which one must pay to the hierarchical classifications which richly spice th body of the Platonic dialogues. The other lies in the attention one must pay to Plato's semantic axiology - to the vocabulary of values which asse rts itself in his language of characterization. Piato is always against "the ignoble." In his chapter on the Phaedrus in his fine work Greek Thinkers Gomperz says:16"His antipathy toward ail that is 'banausic' and illiberal was never greater in any epoch of his life than that in which he wrote the Symposium and the Phaedrus, and in thse works unfurled the banner at once of exalted passion and of transcendental philosophy." But Piato is always against the "banaustic" and illiberal, as he is always against the "low" (tapeinos), the "base" (aischws, kakos), and the "vulgr" (phaulos, banausos). And conversely, he is always a partisan of the "noble" (gennaios, chrestos, kalos), of the "honorable" (which kalos also renders), and of the "good" (agathos). In fact, his persistent effort is to identify the "noble" and the "good." There is, in fact, a little remarked (and not crucial) passage in the Gorgias11 in which Socrates tries unsuccessfully to get Polus to admit that the noble (kalon) and th good (agathon) are identical, and likewise for the base (aischron) and the evil (kakon). Polus refuses to make the concession, but there is little doubt that this is Socrates' view, as it is that of Socrates' most illustrious

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pupil. It will be my purpose in the second part of this paper to show that th Platonic treatment of the two thmes of love and rhetoric conform to this valuational presupposition- that there are noble forms of love and base; noble forms of discourse and base, and that in thse topics, again, it is less Piato the moralist than Piato the aristocrat who shows his valuational hand. What I hve presented hre is a particular way of "making sens" out of Piato, a persistent attempi to identify a constant strategy of Platonic valuation and relate it to a characteristic "mode of perception"- the aristocratie. But I am far from being the only one who has made this attribution to the Greeks. Nietzsche, himself a profound student of Greek culture, whose first position was as Associate Professor of Classical Philology at Basel, and whose earliest philosophical essays are on Greek philosophy, afterwards made this insight of Plato's a cornerstone of his own moral perception. The first section of Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887) entitled "Gut und Bse," "Gut und Schlecht" turns the emphasis of the customary ethical dichotomy in the aristocratie Greek direction. In eritieizing the English psychologists and the customary moral philosophers, Nietzsche says: Now it is obvious to me, firstof all, that their theorylooks for the genesis of the conceptgood in the wrongplace:the judgment good does not originate with those to whom the good has been done. Rather it was the "good" themselves, that is to say the noble, mighty, highly placed, and high-mindedwho decreed themselves and their actions to be good, i.e. belongingto the highestrank,in to all that was base, low mindedand plebian.18 contradistinetion And he continues a page or so later: The clue to the correctexplanationwas furnishedme by the question "Whatdoes the etymology of the terms for good in various languagesteli us?"I discovered that ali these termslead us backto The basic concept is always the same conceptual transformation. class sense, and fromthis has developed, noble in the hierarchical, by historical necessity, the concept good embracingnobility of mind, spiritualdistinction.This developmentis strictlyparallelto that other which eventually converted the notions common, plebian, base into the notion bad.19

It should surprise no one that Nietzsche's German words: "vornehm," "edel," "Hhergestellten," "seelisch-hochgeartet," as

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also th words: "gemein," "pbelhaft," and "niedrig" are all perfect translations of Plato's Greek. II The speech of Phaedrus which begins Plato's Symposium is a eulogy which is merely a set piece of elocutionary rhetoric. Not until th second speech of Pausanias are we in th prsence of Plato's authentic voice. For Pausanias's distinction between th Uranian and th Pandemian Aphrodite is a true Platonic metaphor introducing an aristocratie theory of love. The heavenly Aphrodite is exalted, transcendent, distant- a goddess for th few. The common or "populr" Aphrodite (pandemos means for all th people or "everybody") is nearer, more earthy, more fleshly, more vulgr- a goddess for th many. And it is by th use of this supernatural imagery that Piato first introduces into his discourse on love th characteristic aristocratie dichotomy between th "noble" (kalon) and th "base" (aischron). For instance, in our conduci at this moment, whetherwe drinkor sing or converse, none of these thingsis noble in itself; each only turns out to be such in th doing, as th mannerof doing it may be. For when th doing of it is noble and right, th thing itself becomes noble; when wrong, it becomes base. So also it is with loving, and Love is not in every case noble or worthyof clbration, but only when he impels us to love in a noble manner.Now th Love that belongs to th PopulrAphrodite is in very truth this is th Love we see populrand does his work at hap-hazard: in th meaner sort of men; who, in th firstplace, love womenas well as boys; secondly, where they love, they are set on th body more than the sol; and thirdly, they choose the most witless people they can find, since they look merely to the accomplishment and care not if the mannerbe noble or no. . . . But the other Love Springsfrom the Heavenlygoddesswho firstly,partakesnot of the female but only of the maie; and secondly, is the elder, untinged with wantonness:wherefore those who are inspiredby this Love betake them to the male, in fondnessfor what has . . .a largershare of mind.20 For this Greek love moves between the ples of maie and female, th body and the sol, mind and the mindless, and the noble alternative favors th male, the sol and mind, whereas the base alternative is for the female, th body, and the mindless.

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The Platonically approved love is therefore frankly homosexual, but it is not "wicked," for it seeks commerce with a sol and not a body, and its abiding concern is service to the other in pursuit of intellectual excellence and wisdom. The Piatonic ideal, whatever its dgradation in actuality, is essentially a "pedagogical" love between an older man and a younger, "the elder of his plenty contributing to intellectual and ail other excellence, the younger in his paucity acquiring ducation and ail learned arts." Noble love is therefore indistinguishable from virtuous improvement, and by this very fact acquires honor and reputability. This is the love, as Pausanias finally asserts, "that belongs to the Heavenly Goddess, heavenly itself and precious to both public and private life."21The concept of nobility domintes th treatment which Pausanias gives to erotic passion, but toward the end considrable attention is paid to its redeeming moral component. This is a moment, characteristic of the Platonic strategy of combination and inclusion, where love, wisdom, and nobility fuse into a single value. It is close to th heart of Platonism to introduce in the Symposium the fundamental distinction between a "noble" and an "ignoble" love. Pausanias is, therefore, not merely a rhetorical forerunner of the Socratic culmination, but an intrinsic bearer of the essential Platonic message. But what is equally significant in the Platonic method is the totalizing strategy which seeks to assimilate to the prime valuational concept of "the noble" a sries of " "' moral and epistemic accretions. By wicked,' says Pausanias, "we mean that populr (pandemos) or vulgr lover who craves th body rather than the sol: as he is not in love with what abides, he himself is not abiding."22Hre we are in the prsence not only of a principle of hierarchy, but a principle of permanence which emphasizes not that which perishes in time, but rather that which, like th forms or ideas, is eternai. Agathon, an Apollonian, who clearly dnies the violent and demonic side of Eros, on the contrary insists "that Love, by Controlling pleasures and desires, must be eminently temperate."23 And the final lesson which Socrates learns through Diotima is that since "wisdom has to do with the fairest things and Love is a love directed to what is fair, therefore Love must be a friend of wisdom,"24 and climactically that "what men love is simply and solely the good."25 The assimilation of wisdom, temprance, and a desire for the

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good to Pausanias's noble love has as its last stage Diotima's emphasis upon th relationship of love to immortality. Hre once again th yearning for permanence, so pervasive in Plato's metaphysics, expresses itself in dualistic fashion, governed by th customary Platonic dichotomy between body and sol. The philosophie significance of "gnration"- its struggle against a perpetuai perishing, its pathetic and yet courageous attempt to leave behind a new creature in piace of th old, is sympathetically yet critically portrayed. For this, in Diotima's eyes is th lesser or "ignoble" immortality. Those who are "teeming in body" and "betake them to women" by whom they get children acquire an immortality, a mmorial, to be sure, but it is an inferior accomplishment. It is rather th poets like Hesiod and Homer with th fine literary off spring they leave behind, or legislators like Lycurgus and Solon who beget splendid laws and Statutes who procure for themselves th glory of a "noble" immortality. For this is th immortality not of th germ plasm but of th spirit. No one has expressed this sentiment more finely than Proust. In those few wonderful pages in La Prisonnire which recount th death of Bergotte - how he is stricken to th ground and dies at an exhibition of Dutch paintings in Paris, at just th moment when he is admiring with ali his soul th little yellow patch in Vermeer's "View of Delft" - Proust is led to a Platonic mditation upon immortality which concludes as follows:
Ali thse obligations which have not their sanction in our prsent life seem to belong to a diffrent world, founded upon kindness, scrupulosity, self -sacrifice, a world entirely diffrent from this, which we leave in order to be born into this world, before perhaps returning to th other to live once again beneath th sway of those unknown laws which we have obeyed because we bore their precepts in our hearts, knowing not whose hand had traced them there- those laws to which every profound work of th intellect brings us nearer and which are invisible only- to fools. So that th idea that Bergotte was not wholly and permanently dead is by no means improbable. The buried him, but all through th night of mourning, in th lighted Windows, his books arrangea three by three kept watch like angels with outspread wings and seemed, for him who was no more, th symbol of his rsurrection. The ultimate sentialization, moral of th Symposium is th progressive esand spiritualization of love. The as-

subtilization,

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cent begins in paederasty and ends with apprhension of the supreme form of the beautiful. "So when a man by the right method of boy-loving ascends from thse particulars and begins to descry that beauty, he is almost able to lay hold of the final secret."26 But just this increasing abstraction and generality is also the clue to th ultimate meaning of the concept of nobility in Piato. It is no accident that Platonic metaphysics is grounded in a "theory of ideas" and that "a supreme form of the Good" (as in the Republic) and "a supreme form of the Beautiful" (as in the Symposium) should be the coping stones of his metaphysical imagination. Formalism is the foundation of Plato's aristocratie vision of the world, and this is why mathematics and dialectic are the last stages of the aristocratie System of ducation which the Republic envisages. There is always for Piato a certain vulgarity in temporali ty and the changing, in matter, in th body, and in that mode of sens perception grounded in bodily organs, and, on th contrary, a certain nobility in permanence and th eternai, in form, in spirit, and in that pure intellectual apprhension which can ultimately lead to our intuition of the metaphysically real. The profound dualism expressed hre is, of course, also at the heart of Plato's theory of love. First announced in Pausanias's myth of the two Aphrodites, it grows in depth and importance as the vulgr desire for the body is subtilized in the "marriage of true minds" which a noble paederasty ultimately makes possible, and which a common search for beauty and for virtue develops. Although there is a vast spectrum of erotic practices between the obsession with th body and the commitment to the spirit, between the manie search for physical pleasure and the enjoyment of a common rationality, it is a consciousness of the extremes which gives to the Platonic theory of love its dynamic character. The resuit of this insistent dualism is, therefore, a kind of clarity, of distinetness, of enlightenment concerning love which only a classic polarity makes possible. It is a clarity to which the modem sens of ambiguity, the modem ironical temper can no longer subscribe. So, when toward the end of Der Zauberberg, Clavdia Chauchat and Hans Castorp sit knee to knee speaking of friendship, a strnge thing happens. She kissed him on the mouth. It was a Russiankiss, the kind that is exchangedin that spreading,soulful land, at high religious

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ALBERT WILLIAMLEVI feasts, as a seal of love. But when a notoriously "deep" young man and a lady stili young, and of such insinuating charm, exchange it, we are involuntarily reminded of Dr. Krokowski's ingenious if not wholly unobjectionable method of treating th subject of love, in that slightly fluctuating sense, so that no one was ever quite sure whether it was earthly or heavenly, spiritual or fleshly love he had in mind. Are we so treating it, or were Clavdia Chauchat and Hans Castorp, when they exchanged their Russian kiss? But what will th reader say if we simply refuse to go into th question? try to make a clean-cut distinction between th passionate and th soulful- that would, no doubt, be analytical. But we feel that it would also be inept- to borrow Hans Castorp's useful word- and certainly not in th least "genial." For what would "clean-cut" be? The subject is so equivocai, th limits so fluctuating. We make bold to laugh at th idea. Is it not well done that our language has but one word for all kinds of love, from th holiest to th most lustfully fleshly? Ali ambiguity is therein resolved: love cannot but be physical, at its furthest stretch of holiness: it cannot be impious, in its uttermost fleshliness. It is always itself, as th height of shrewd "geniality" as in th depth of passion; it is organic sympathy, th touching sense-embrace of that which is doomed to decay. In th most raging as in th most rvrent passion, there must be Caritas.The meaning of th word varies? In God's name, then, let it vary. That it does so makes it living, makes it human; it would be a regrettable lack of "depth" to trouble over th fact.

Mann notwithstanding, Piato does trouble over th fact. Inept or not, he does make a clear-cut distinction between th love of th body and th love of th sol, and this distinction, enunciated as early as his middle works, continues to dominate his thinking even into old age. He is realistic; he is not blind to th fact that love is of many kinds, but th clear-cut distinction is precisely what permits him to identify th virtuous kind and allow only it to exist in his ideai state. He that is in love with th body and hungering after its bloom, as it were that of a ripening peach, urges himself on to take his fili of it, paying no respect to th disposition of th beloved; whereas he that counts bodily desire as but secondary . . . with soul lusting really for soul, regards th bodily satisfaction of th body as an outrage, and, reverently worshipping temprance, courage, nobility and wisdom, will desire to live always chastely in Companywith th chaste object of his love. . . . Since then, love has so many varieties, ought th law to prohibit them ali and prevent them from existing in our midst, or shall we not plainly wish that th

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kind of love which belongs to virtue and desires the young to be as good as possible should exist within our State? . . .2?

That the theory of the Symposium, written in Plato's early maturity,squares so perfectly with this passage from the Laws, writtenwhen Piato was probablyin his middleor late seventies, is but anothertestimonyto the accuracyof Shorey'sthesis of the unity of Plato's thought. III The Symposiumand the Phaedrusare characterized by a certain overlapof subject matter.But in passingfrom the firstto the comsecond, we exprience a notable inversion.The Symposium the love clbrtes Phaedrus the love: discourse of disof prises In diaboth them. course. There is obvious continuity between logues rhetoricalforms are used as a vehicle for a more or less profound (more in the Symposium,less in the Phaedrus)philosophicaltreatmentof erotic content. But whereasin the Symposium th set speeches are only a frame for the prsentationand development of the erotic subject matter, in the Phaedrusthe thme of love is a mere excuse for an examinationof the adequacyof rhetoricalforms. This shift is announcedin two ways. In the firstplace Socrates,celebratedin the Symposiumas a lover of handsome persons, hre announces himself to be "a lover of of lovers, never discourse."And in the second th "consorting" is hre in the out given a primaSymposium, completelyspelled love is The "noble" rily linguisticand philosophicalcharacter.28 one of "companyand converse"where th lovers "live for Love in singlenessof purposewith the aid of philosophicaldiscourse." And hre the thmes of love and discourseconvergein a paean to the sharedphilosophicallife: "And so, if the victorybe won by the higher lments of mind guiding them into the ordered rule of the philosophicallife, their days on earth will be blessed with happinessand concord, for th power of evil in the sol has been subjected, and th power of goodness liberated;they hve won self-masteryand inwardpeace."29 concern shifts from the rle At this point in the Phaedrus the and discourse which philosophieimpulseplay in the relations relationbetweendiscourse of lovers to a concernwith the intrinsic and philosophyin the mind and in social relations. This issue is theoretical,but it has been preparedfor by the actualitiesof the

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sophistic movement in Periclean and post-Periclean Athens. Although th Sophists flourished a fll gnration before Plato's maturity, their influence was still alive during his lifetime. Without doubt, he thinks that they constitute th chief threat against his aristocratie vision of th world. For intellectually they formed a truly revolutionary and disturbing lment in what was essentially a conservative Athenian milieu. Rootless foreigners in their origins; skeptical, nominalistic, subjectivistic, and relativistic thinkers in their point of view, as new "visiting intellectuals" during th Periclean Age, they created a criticai tension against th ancient, traditional, rooted values of a settled landed aristocracy. But, more ominous, some of them, like Gorgias, taught th arts of persuasion in a fashion readily utilizable in th law courts and th assembly, thus, from Plato's point of view, "making th better cause appear th worse." Thus, a new proccupation with th arts of speech. As Burnet puts it: "The relations between the democraey and the well-to-do classes were becoming more and more strained, and the importance of forensic rhetoric was accordingly increased."31The Phaedrus is one of two of Plato's considrations of forensic rhetoric (the Gorgias is the other), its relation to sophistry on the one hand and to true philosophy or dialectic on the other, or, as he himself states its subjeet matter: "the art of speech, both the true art and th false."32 The strategy of the Piatonic critique of forensic rhetoric is clearly to push it in the direction of sophistry which in this case has two aspects: (1) to show that it involves "opinion" rather than "knowledge," and (2) to indicate its vulgarity through an examination of its "mass-appeal." The customary orator is "under no necessity of understanding what is truly just, but only what is likely to be thought just by th body of men who are to give judgment,"33 and unfortunately when, ignorant of the principles of good and evil, he employs his power of persuasion, he can "by studying the belief s of the masses, persuade them to do evil instead of good."34The art of rhetoric is an art of influencing the mind by means of words, of "persuading" in legislative assemblies and in courts of law and in other public places, and here, since there may be multiple speakers with opposing aims, the whole takes on a contentive or "agonal" character, and the pursuit of genuine values is lost in the heated rivalry of winning the contest. But "contending with words" is an art not limited to the sophistry of a public discourse; it can also funetion in the private

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domain- in face-to-face dialogue or within th elite aristocratie circle- and with the legitimate aim not simply of an argumentative victory, but of a decisive closing in upon the truth. Hre the pursuit of conceptual purity requires th strategy of bringing a dispersed plurality under a single form, and, conversely, of dividing a presented whole into its constituent parts in short, that methodology of "collections and divisions" which the Phaedrus defines as dialectic and of which Socrates proclaims himself a lover and practitioner.35 Socrates, at this point, by a certain indirection pushes rhetoric further in the direction of sophistry but at the same time suggests (it is not clear how seriously) its possible salvation through an alliance with dialectic. The association with sophistry is denotative: he connects the activity of speech-writing with Gorgias ("who realized that probability deserves more respect than truth"), with Prodicus, with Polus, and Protagoras. And a moment later he suggests that a sophisticated and a knowledgeable rhetoric be based upon psychology, that the skilled rhetorician will classify the types of discourse and the types of sol (character) and the way thse types of character are movable by various types of speech. Keenness of psychological perception is thus a presupposition of rhetorical efficiency. But this recourse to psychological knowledge by the rhetorician seems to imply that "collection and division" by which dialectic has been defined. "Unless the aspirant to oratory can on the one hand list the various natures among his prospective audiences, and on th other divide things into their kinds and embrace each individuai thing under a single form, he will never attain such success as is within the grasp of mankind."36 Here Socrates seems to commend a rhetoric dpendent upon dialectical method. But the major thrust of the Piatonic insistence is clearly against rather than for their combination. The public use of rhetoric as persuasion irrespective of the truth is in diametrical opposition to dialectic as aiming at the truth. In the law courts "nobody cares a rap about the truth," but only about what is plausible and persuasive, for it is just the plausible and persuasive "which commends itself to the multitude." This permanently widens th gap between rhetoric and dialectic in a fashion already pre-figured in the Gorgias, a dialogue considerably earlier than the Phaedrus. Just as the Timaeus asserts a basic proportion governing the relation between epistemology and metaphysics, namely: As knowledge is to opin-

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ion, so is being to becoming,37 so th Phaedrus here asserts a proportion governing th diffrence between th true and th false arts of speech: As truth is to th merely plausible, so th noble art of dialectic is to th vulgr art of rhetoric. I use th terms "noble" and "vulgr" here because once again Piato is distinguishing between th art of speech appropriate for dealing with that dmocratie multitude for which he has only contempi and th art of speech appropriate to th elite dialectical community of th few- th devoted souls who surrounded Socrates or th young aristocrats who were students in th Platonic Academy - or th single individuai student confronting his philosophical teacher. The right destiny of speech is not th legai or legislative persuasion of th multitude, but th discourse about justice or friendship or nobility between th dialectician and his pupil which yields th same sort of immortality as a noble love. "The dialectician slects a soul of th right type, and in it he plants and sows his words founded on knowledge, words which can dfend both themselves and him who planted them, words which instead of remaining barren contain a seed whence new words grow up in new characters, whereby th seed is vouchsafed immortality, and its possessor th fllest measure of blessedness that man can attain unto."38 One more remark about how Plato's aristocratie bias conditions th Phaedrus. The last page of th dialogue contains an enigma- a eulogy of "th fair Isocrates," "Isocrates my beloved," and th invidious comparison with Lysias: "It seems to me that his naturai powers give him a superiority over anything that Lysias has achieved in literature, and also that in point of character he is of a nobler composition."39 But this is puzzling indeed! Lysias and Isocrates were both equally rhetoricians, and later, th scholastic rivalry between Piato and Isocrates became intense. Early in th fourth Century Piato began to teach mathematics and philosophy in th Academy, Isocrates rhetoric in his house near th Lukeion. The students of th two schools became recognized features of contemporary Athenian life. Piato specialized in mathematical research and th prparation for statesmanship. The tendency of his school was markedly aristocratie and it produced a number of despotic leaders. Isocrates's rhetorical studies were geared to success in society and politics. But as his school was also only for th comparatively wealthy and leisured classes, it too tended to be aristocratie.40 The solution to our

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enigma probably is related to this last fact. Gomperz, at least, suggests as much.41He points out that Plato's antipathy to Lysias probably sprang from politicai roots. Lysias was an energetic democrat who displayed th utmost zeal in his contest with the oligarchs Critias and Charmides, Plato's close relations. But much of what repelled Piato in Lysias was likely to attract him, at least temporarily, to Isocrates. The latter, as his "Areopagiticus" shows, was a keen Opponent of pure democracy, who in yet other speeches casts a halo over the figure of Alcibiades - a figure whom Lysias went out of his way to attack. Therefore, the scholastic rivalry with Isocrates was less important than the antidemocratic sentiments they both had. On the other hand Lysias, the democrat, was anathema, and in his denigration of him in the Phaedrus Piato was simply using Isocrates as a kind of foil. At the end of his chapter on the Phaedrus, A.E. Taylor says:
In taking leave of the Phaedrus, we may note that while it supplments the Gorgias in its conclusions about the value of "style," it modifies nothing that was said in the earlier dialogue. The moral condemnation pronounced on the use of eloquent speech to pervert facts and produce false impressions remains the same. ... In adding that a thorough knowledge of a subject-matter and a sound knowledge of the psychology of the public addressed furnish a really scientific basis for a worthy and effective style, Piato is saying nothing inconsistent with the results of the Gorgias. There is thus no sufficient ground for thinking that the teaching of the Phaedrus represents a later "development" from the more "Socratic" position of the Gorgias.42

Although I am not quite as sure as Professor Taylor that the momentary association of rhetoric with dialectic in the Phaedrus does not add a jarring note, I do agre with him that the earlier doctrines of the Gorgias represent Plato's authoritative and most internally consistent theory of rhetoric- its nature and its moral limitations- and that in the main this theory is reiterated in the Phaedrus also. Even though the writing of the Gorgias probably preceded the writing of the Phaedrus by at least two dcades, it, I think, sets down once and for ail Plato's authentic critique of the rhetorical enterprise. When Socrates calls upon Gorgias, the sophist and rhetorician, to define his capability, Gorgias replies: "I cali it the ability to persuade with speeches either judges in the law courts or the commons in the Assembly or an audience at any other meeting

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that may be held on public affairs."43 In short "to speak and persuade th multitude (ta pleth)" But Socrates at once distinguishes two forms of "persuasion": one providing sure knowledge, th other belief without knowledge, and he quickly identifies rhetoric with th latter. "Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in th matter of right and wrong."44 Gorgias agres. He emphasizes th fact that th rhetorical aim is "to win over th votes of th multitude," "to persuade th ignorant 'crowd' or 'mob' (ochlos)." Even when th argument is taken over by Polus, Socrates pursues his attack. Rhetoric is an enterprise which has nothing fine about it. It is simple flattery used by those who have a naturai bent for shrewd and clever dealing with mankind. It is to be associated not with a desire for truth, but sophistry. It is only th semblance of a branch of politics. "Well then," asks Polus, "do you cali it a noble [kalon] or a base [aischron] thing?" And Socrates answers: "A base one."45 This is th substance of th Platonic judgment about rhetoric, whether appearing in an early Socratic dialogue like th Gorgias or in th last treatise which Piato wrote, in which he banishes it from th society of righteous men. Rhetoric is a kind of foui art, which, cloakingitself under a fair name, claims first, that there exists a device for dealing with lawsuits, and furtherthat it is th one which is able, by pleading and helping anotherto plead, to win th victory,whetherth pleas concerned be just or unjust; and it also assertsthat both this art itself and th arguments whichproceedfromit are a gift offeredto - whether it be any man who gives money in exchange. This art and practice trick habit an art or an artless really merely got by must never, if possible, arise in our State.46 In Plato's Laws th vulgr form of discourse, like th vulgr form of love, is banished from th state, and it shows how a similar strategy of classification and valuation governs thse two thmes which serve as subjects for th Gorgias, th Symposium, and th Phaedrus. In th Symposium th vulgr form of love is vulgr in two senss: it is oriented toward bodily pleasure and it stops with th commitment to a particularity in space and time. And conversely, th noble form of love is noble in two senss: it seeks th companionship of th spirit, and it is oriented toward th intuition of th eternai forms which are th utmost of abstract generality.

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An analogous situation holds for the forms of discourse treated in the Phaedrus and the Gorgias. The vulgr form of discourse is vulgr in two senss: it is the "dmocratie" or "populr" or "crowd" discourse of the law courts and the legislative assembly, and in aiming to win the argument or verdict by whatever means it can, it is an "inflated" and "empty" eristic. The noble form of discourse, on the other hand, is also noble in two senss: it is the "aristocratie" discourse of th small elite group constituting the dialectical community whether in the homes of Callias, Cephalus, or Agathon, or in the seminars of the Academy, and as dialectical discourse it aims to adumbrate "the truth" and draw nearer to the secrets of ultimate reality. But what is crucial is that in both cases (of love and of discourse) the criteria of classification and valuation are not "the good and th evil" or "th successful and th unsuccessful" or "the expdient and the inexpedient" but rather "the noble and the base." And it is in this respect that the aristocratie way of life leaves its mark upon perhaps the greatest philosophie mind of the ancient world. Department of Philosophy Washington University

Notes
1. A.E. Taylor, Piato: The Man and His Work (New York: The Dial Press, 1929), p. 299. 2. R. Hackforth, Piato's Phaedrus (Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 8. 3. Paul Shorey, The Unity of Piato's Thought (The University of Chicago Press, 1960). 4. G. W. F. Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes, heraus, von J. Hoffmeister (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1964), pp. 21 and 276. 5. Shorey, pp. 4,5. 6. Ibid., p. 8. 7. The detailed case for thse assertions is made in my rhilosophy As bocial Expression (The University of Chicago Press, 1974) Ch. 2, "The Age of the Aristocrat: Piato." What follows is only a small slection from thse arguments. 8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R. D. Hicks (London: William Heinemann, 1925), I, 277. 9. Piato, Timaeus, Epistles, etc. Irans. . u. Bury (London: William Heinemann, 1929), pp. 479-483. 10. Piato, The Republic, trans. Paul Shorey (London: William Heinemann, 1935) II, 35-37 (492 b-d). 11. Ibid. 11,49 (495 dj. 12. Symposium, 210 a-e. 13. Phaedrus, 248 d.

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14. The Symposium of Piato, trans. Suzy Q. Groden (The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970), p. 92. 15. Piato, Lysis Symposium, Gorgias, trans. W. R. M. Lamb (London: William Heinemann, 1932), p. 203. 16. Theodor Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (London: John Murray, 1905), III, 24. 17. Piato, Lysis Symposium, Gorgias, p. 353. 18. Friederich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral (Leipzig: Alfred Krner Verlag, 1930), p. 251: "Nun liegt fr mich erstens auf der Hand, dass von dieser Theorie der eigentliche Entstehungsherd des Begriffs 'gut' an falscher Stelle gesucht und angesetzt wird: das Urteil 'gut' rhrt nicht von denen her, welchen 'Gute' erwiesen wird! Vielmehr sind es 'die Gten' selber gewesen, das heisst die Vornehmen, Mchtigen, Hhergestellten und Hochgesinnten, welche sich selbst und ihr Tun als gut, nmlich als ersten Ranges empfanden und ansetzten, im Gegensatz zu allem Niedrigen, NiedrigGesinnten, Gemeinen und Pbelhaften." I have used in the text the English translation of Francis Golfing, The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals (Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), p. 160. 19. German text. Ibid., pp. 253-54: "Den Fingerzeig zum rechten Wege gab mir die Frage, was eigentlich die von den verschiedenen Sprachen ausgeprgten Bezeichnungen des 'guten' in etymologischer Hinsicht zu bedeuten haben: da fand ich, dass sie allesamt auf die gleiche Begriffs-Verwandlung zurckleiten,dass berall 'vornehm' 'edel' im stndischen Sinne der Grundbegriff ist, aus dem sich 'gut' im Sinne von 'seelisch- vornehm' 'edel', von 'seelisch-hochgeartet', 'seelisch-privilegiert' mit Nowendigkeit heraus entwickelt: eine Entwicklung, die immer parallel mit jener anderen luft, welche 'gemein' 'pbelhaft' 'niedrig' schliesslich in den Begriff 'schlecht' bergehen macht" (Golfing trans.) p. 162. 20. Piato, Lysis, Symposium Gorgias, Lamb trans., pp. 109-11 (181a-d).

27. Piato, Laws, trans. R. G. Bury (London: William Heinemann, 1926), II, 153-5 (837 b-d). 28. Phaedrus 255b-275b: Hackforth translation in The Collected Dialogues of Piato, Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Pantheon Books, 1961). 29. Ibid., 256 b. 30. Ibid., 257 c. 31. John Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thaies to Piato (London: Macmillan and Co., 1950), p. 119. 32. Phaedrus, 274 b. 33. Ibid., 260 a. 34. Ibid., 260 d. 35. Ibid., 265 d-266 c. 36. Ibid., 273 e. 37. Piato, Timaeus, Epistles, etc., p. 53 (29 c). 38. Phaedrus, 277 a. 39. Ibid., 279 a. 40. Kenneth J. Freeman, Schools of Hellas (London: Macmillan and Co., 1912), Ch. VI, "Athens: Secondary Education: The Permanent Schools." 41. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, III, 24, 25. 42. Taylor, p. 319. 43. Piato, Lysis, Symposium, Gorgias, p. 279 (453 e). 44. Ibid.. . 287 (455 ai. 45. Ibid., p. 315 (463 d). 46. Piato, Laws, II, 471 (937 e-938 a).

21. Ibid.,p. 121(185c). 22. Ibid.,p. 117(183e). 23. Ibid.,p. 157(196d). 24. Ibid.,p. 183(204b). 25. Ibid.,p. 189(206a). 26. Ibid.,p. 205(211b).

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