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09 - Phaedrus - Plato · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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  Section nine H. Shall we discuss the rules of writing and speech? As
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  we were proposing a very good in good speaking? Should not the mind of
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  the speaker know the truth of the matter about which he is going to speak.
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  And yet, Socrates, I have heard that he who would be an
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  orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only with that which is
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  likely to be approved by the many who sit in judgment, nor with the
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  truly good or honorable, but only with opinion about them, And that from
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  opinion comes persuasion, and not from the truth. The words of the wise
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  are not to be set aside, for there is probably something in them.
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  And therefore the meaning of this saying is not hastily to be dismissed. Very
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  true, Let us put the matter thus. Suppose that I persuaded you to
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  buy a horse and go to the wars. Neither of us knew what a
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  horse was like, but I knew that you believed a horse to be of
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  tame animals, the one which has the longest ears. That would be ridiculous.
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  There is something more ridiculous coming. Suppose further that in sober earnest I,
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  having persuaded you of this, went and composed a speech in honor of
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  an ass, whom I entitled a horse beginning, a noble animal, and
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  a most useful possession, especially in war. And you may get on his
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  back and fight, and he will carry baggage or anything, how ridiculous.
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  Ridiculous, yes, But is not even a ridiculous friend better than a cunning
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  enemy. Certainly, And when the orator, instead of putting an ass in
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  the place of a horse, puts good for evil, being himself as ignorant
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  of their true nature as the city on which he imposes is ignorant, and
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  having studied the notions of the multitude, falsely persuades them not about the shadow
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  of an ass, which he confounds with a horse, but about good,
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  which he confounds with evil. What be the harvest which rhetoric will be likely
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  to gather after the sowing of that seed the reverse of good? But perhaps
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  rhetoric has been getting too roughly handled by us, And she might answer,
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  what amazing nonsense you are talking? As if I forced any man to learn
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  to speak in ignorance of the truth, whatever my advice may be worth,
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  I should have told him to arrive at the truth first, and then come
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  to me at the same time, I boldly assert that mere knowledge of the
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  truth will not give you the art of persuasion. There is reason in the
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  lady's defense of herself. Quite true, if only the other arguments which remain
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  to be brought up bear her witness, that she is an art at all.
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  But I seem to hear them arraying themselves on the opposite side, declaring
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  that she speaks falsely, and that rhetoric is a mere routine and trick,
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  not an art. Lo a spartan appears and says that there never is,
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  nor ever will be a real art of speaking, which is divorced from the
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  truth. And what are these arguments? Socrates? Bring them out that we
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  may examine them. Come out, fair children, and convince Phidrus, who
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  is the father of similar beauties, that he will never be able to speak
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  about anything as he ought to speak unless he have a knowledge of below.
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  Sephe and let Fidrus answer you put the question? Is not rhetoric taken generally,
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  a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments, which is practiced not
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  only in courts and public assemblies, but in private houses, also having to
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  do with all matters great as well as small, good and bad alike,
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  and is in all equally right and equally to be esteemed. That is what
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  you have heard. Nay, not exactly that, I should say, Rather
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  that I have heard the art confined to speaking and writing in law suits and
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  to speaking in public assemblies, not extended farther. Then, I suppose that
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  you have only heard of the rhetoric of Nestor and Odysseus, which they composed
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  in their leisure hours when at Troy, and never of the rhetoric of pallor
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  Medes, no more than of Nestor and Odysseus, unless Gorgias is your Nestor,
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  and Thrasimacus or Theodorus your Odysseus. Perhaps that is my meaning. But
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  let us leave them, and do you tell me instead? What are plaintive
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  and defendant doing in a law court? Are they not contending exactly so about
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  the just and unjust that is the matter in dispute? Yes, And a
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  professor of the art will make the same thing appear to the same person lessons
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  to be at one time just at another time, if he is so inclined
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  to be unjust exactly, and when he speaks in the assembly, he will
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  make the same things seem good to the city at one time, and at
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  another time the reverse of good, That is true? Have we not heard
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  of the eliatic palamedes Zeno, who has an art of speaking by which he
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  makes the same things appear to his hearers like and unlike, one and many,
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  at rest and in motion. Very true. The art of disputation,
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  then, is not confined to the course and the assembly, but is one
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  and the same in every use of language. This is the art, if
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  there be such an art, which is able to find a likeness of everything
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  to which a likeness can be found, and draws into the light of day
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  the likenesses and disguises which are used by others. How do you mean?
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  Let me put the matter thus, when will there be more chance of deception
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  when the difference is large or small? H When the difference is small,
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  and you will be less likely to be discover'd in passing by degrees into the
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  other extreme than when you go all at once. Of course, he then,
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  who would deceive others and not be deceiv'd, must exactly know the real
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  likenesses and differences of things. He must, And if he is ignorant of
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  the true nature of any subject, how can he detect the greater or less
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  degree of likeness in other things to that of which, by the hypothesis he
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  is ignorant? He cannot. And when men are deceived and their notions are
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  at variance with realities, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances.
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  Yes, that is the way. Then he who would be a master
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  of the art must understand the real nature of everything, or he will never
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  know either how to make the gradual departure from truth into the opposite of truth,
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  which is effected by the help of resemblances, or how to avoid it.
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  He will not. He then, who, being ignorant of the truth,
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  aims at appearances, will only attain an art of rhetoric which is ridiculous
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  and is not an art at all that may be expected. Shall I propose
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  that we look for examples of art and want of art according to our notion
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  of them in the speech of Lucias which you have in your hand, and
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  in my own speech. Nothing could be better. And indeed I think that
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  our previous argument has been too abstract and wanting in illustrations. Yes, and
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  the two speeches happen to afford a very good example of the way in which
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  the speaker, who knows the truth, nay without any serious purpose, steal
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  away the hearts of his hearers. This piece of good fortune I attribute to
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  the local deities, and perhaps the prophets of the muses who are singing over
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  our heads may have imparted their inspiration to me, for I do not imagine
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  that I have any rhetorical art of my own. Grantee, if you will
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  only please to get on end of Section nine