Phaedrus

Socrates praises the writing and wording of Lysias’s speech but can’t take the subject matter seriously. He praises only the style and not the content of the speech, taking it to be a rhetorical exercise rather than a serious argument in favor of the non-lover. Though Phaedrus believes that the speech is indeed a thorough treatment of the subject, Socrates hints that there are other writers who have written far better arguments opposing Lysias’s point of view in the past.

Socrates concedes that the lover is in a less “healthy” mental state than the non-lover, but that such ideas (e.g., “love is a sickness”) are commonplace, and that to be persuasive one must argue less obvious positions. Phaedrus urges Socrates to deliver such a speech, and while Socrates is playfully reluctant at first, he agrees.

He delivers the speech with his face covered, beginning with an invocation to the Muses. He asks the reader to imagine a young man with many admirers, including one who argues, as did Lysias’s speech, that he should be favored, since he is not in love. Socrates then speaks in the