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11 - Phaedrus - Plato · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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  Section eleven. M Leave the unimportant, and let us bring the rarely important
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  question into the light of day, which is what power has this art of
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  rhetoric? And when very great power in public meetings it has? But I
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  should like to know whether you have the same feeling as I have about the
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  rhetoricians. To me, there seem to be a great many holes in their
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  web. Give an example, I will suppose a person to come to your
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  friend Eric Simachus, or to his father Acumenus, and to say to him,
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  I know how to apply drugs which shall have either a heating or a
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  cooling effect, and I can give a it and also a purge, and
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  all that sort of thing. And knowing all this as I do, I
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  claim to be a physician and to make physicians by imparting this knowledge to others.
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  What do you suppose that they would say? Hm? They would be
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  sure to ask him whether he knew to whom he would give his medicines,
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  and when and how much? And suppose that he were to reply, no,
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  I know nothing of all that. I expect the patient who consults me
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  to be able to do these things for himself. They would say in reply
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  that he is a madman or a pedant who fancies that he is a physician
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  because he has read something in a book or has stumbled on a prescription or
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  two, although he has no real understanding of the art of medicine. And
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  suppose a person where to come to Sophocles or Euripides and say that he knows
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  how to make a very long speech about a small matter, and a short
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  speech about a great matter, and also a sorrowful speech, or a terrible
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  or threatening speech, or any other kind of speech, And in teaching this
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  fancies that he is teaching the art of tragedy. They too, would surely
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  laugh at him if he fancies that tragedy is anything but the arranging of these
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  elements in a manner which will be suitable to one another and to the whole.
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  But I do not suppose that they would be rude or abusive to him.
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  Would they not treat him as a musician a man who thinks that he
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  is a harmonist because he knows how to pitch the highest and lowest note.
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  Happening to meet such an one, he would not say to him, savagely,
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  fool you are mad, But like a musician in a gentle and harmonious
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  tone of voice. He would answer, my good friend, he who would
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  be a harmonist must certainly know this, And yet he may understand nothing of
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  harmony if he has not got beyond your stage of knowledge. For you only
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  know the preliminaries of harmony, and not harmony itself. Very true, and
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  will not Sophocles say to the display of the wood be tragedian that this is
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  not tragedy, but the preliminaries of tragedy, And will not Accumeneus say the
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  same of medicine to the would be physician. Quite true. And if Adrastus,
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  the malefluous or Pericles heard of these wonderful arts, brachylogies, and iconologies,
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  and all the hard names which we have been endeavoring to draw into the
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  light of day, what would they say, Instead of losing temper and applying
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  uncomplimentary epithets, as you and I have been doing to the authors of such
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  an imaginary art, their superior wisdom would rather censure us as well as them.
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  Have a little patience. Phydrous and Socrates, they would say, you
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  should not be in such a passion with those who, from some want of
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  dialectical skill, are unable to define the nature of rhetoric, and consequently suppose
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  that they have found the art in the preliminary conditions of it, and when
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  these have been taught by them to others, fancy that the whole art of
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  rhetoric has been taught by them. But as to using the several instruments of
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  the art effectively, or making the composition a whole an application of it,
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  such as this is, they regard as an easy thing which their disciples may
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  make for themselves. I quite admit, Socrates, that the art of rhetoric
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  which these men teach, and of which a right is such as you describe.
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  Dare I agree with you? But I still want to know where and
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  how the true art of rhetoric and persuasion is to be acquired. The perfection
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  which is required of the finished orator is, or rather must, be,
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  like the perfection of anything else, partly given by nature, but may also
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  be assisted by art. If you have the natural power, and add to
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  its knowledge and practice, you will be a distinguished speaker. If you fall
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  short in either of these, you will be to that extent defective. But
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  the art, as far as there is an art, of rhetoric does not
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  lie in the direction of Lucias or thrac Simacus. In what direction, then,
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  I conceived Pericles to have been the most accomplished of rhetoricians. What of
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  that all the great arts required discussion and high speculation about the truths of nature.
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  Hence come loftiness of thought and completeness of execution. And this, as
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  I conceive, was the quality which, in addition to his natural gifts,
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  Pericles acquired from his intercourse with Anaxagoras, whom he happened to know. He
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  was thus imbued with the higher philosophy, and attained the knowledge of mind and
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  the negative of mind, which were favorite themes of Anaxagoras, and applied what
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  suited his purpose to the art of speaking. Explain, rhetoric is like medicine.
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  How so why because medicine has to define the nature of the body,
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  and rhetoric of the soul. If we would proceed not empirically but scientifically in
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  the one case, to impart health and strength by giving medicine and food,
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  in the other, to implant the conviction or virtue which you desire by the
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  right application of words and training. Their Socrates I suspect that you are right.
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  And do you think that you can know the nature of the soul intelligently
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  without knowing the nature of the whole? Hippocrates the Asclepiad says that the nature
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  even of the body, can only be understood as a whole. Yes,
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  friend, and he was right. Still, we ought not to be content
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  with the name of Hipocrates, but to examine and see whether his argument agrees
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  with his conception of nature. I agree. Then consider what truth, as
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  well as Hipocrates says about this or about any other nature? Ought we not
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  to consider first whether that which we wish to learn and to teach is a
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  simple or multiform thing? And if simple, then to inquire what power it
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  has of acting or being acted upon in relation to other things. And if
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  multiform, then to number the forms, and see, first in the case
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  of one of them, and then in the case of all of them,
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  what is that power of acting or being acted upon which makes each and all
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  of them to be what they are. You may very likely be right,
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  Socrates. The method which proceeds without analysis is like the groping of a blind
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  man. Yet surely he who is an artist ought not to admit of a
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  comparison with the blind or death. The rhetorician who teaches his pupil to speak
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  scientifically will particularly set forth the nature of that being to which he addresses his
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  speeches. And this I conceive to be the soul. Certainly, his whole
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  effort is directed to the soul, for in that he seeks to produce conviction.
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  Yes, then, clearly Thrasimacus or anyone else who teaches rhetoric in earnest
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  will give an exact description of the nature of the soul, which will enable
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  us to see whether she be single and same or like the body multiform.
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  That is what we should call showing the nature of the soul exactly, he
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  will explain secondly the mode in which she acts or is acted upon. Two.
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  Thirdly, having classified men and speeches and their kinds and affections and adapted
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  them to one another, he will tell the reasons of his arrangement and show
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  why one soul is waited by a particular form of argument and another not.
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  You have hit upon a very good way. Yes, that is the true
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  and only way in which any subject can be set forth or treated by the
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  rules of art, whether in speaking or writing. But the writers of the
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  present day at whose feet you have sat craftily conceal the nature of the soul,
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  which they know quite well. Nor until they adopt our method of reading
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  and writing can we admit that they write by rules of art? What is
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  our method? I cannot give you the exact details, but I should like
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  to tell you, generally, as far as is in my power, how
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  a man ought to proceed according to rules of art. Let me hear.
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  End of Section eleven.