For some reason this semester I have two classes with similar texts - they go on and on and on about the complexities of using this term or looking at history through this perspective. Each paragraph contradicts the previous theory and is followed by even more questions about any attempts to look at it from the opposite angle. There is never any balance, and it never brings the reader closer to any agreement of the "truth", but somehow it makes me feel better to see the complexity. I think understanding that something is to complex to know for sure is comforting to me, and if I have learned one thing it is to be very afraid of anyone who claims to KNOW anything. In this way, I agree with Nick. I also agree with Paige in that I think that the proper way to come as close to the truth as possible is to get as many perspectives on the table to get a clearer picture of what we are looking at.

I like Socrates' advice on getting to know one's possible audiences and to try and pre-gauge their reactions, but when he sermonizes on the necessity of philosophy being prerequisite for speechmaking, I became muddled by the lack of logic in his idea. At other times, he seems to unreservedly admit that he is still (not-so-humbly) in pursuit of the truth, and thus by his own criteria he ought to keep his mouth closed until he's found it (in whichever area he might want to speak). But since man's search for truth is never complete (how could we conclusively know even if we did?), his grasp of the interrelationships and hierarchy necessary to divide truth into its natural parts will be structurally unsound. This would leave an argument with weaknesses and areas for possible refutation, which I think is perfectly normal, and is true of all human attempts at argument. I don't so much take issue with Socrates' idea of a good speech as with his criterion that one must have mastered the underlying truth (an even more troublesome prospect if you're an anti-foundationalist) before you can speak properly.

Recurrent in this class is the notion that effective=true and that notion's subsets--"Socrates [cannot] have a firm grasp on what is true and yet argue for both sides of the debate;" His two speeches are "pandering to the gods, if not arbitrarily showing off his skills;" "If you don't already know it, you're not going to find it out this way," etc.

I don't think we should be so quick to devalue the notion of a good that must be uncovered through argument. No, it's not immediately obvious and it's also more than a little optimistic, but I think that's the whole point of the horse-donkey analogy. If you argue that a horse is a donkey, then realize your error and go back to pursue correctly the notion of what is horse, to whom are you pandering? Maybe the gods, but that's just as well because they are representative of supreme knowledge of which humans are incapable. Indeed, Socrates can and does argue on both sides of the debate because he's demonstrating the horse/donkey problem for Phaedrus over the course of the dialogue, i.e. just because he argues effectively for something and backs it up, doesn't mean he has pursued the truth. And I feel like you can't begin to criticize Socrates until you have granted him at least that premise, otherwise you're kind of begging the question.

I think the real bugs in the process come, as Paige says, from the fact that Socrates is in love with the sound of his own voice. Elenchus is only going to start to work when it becomes less of a guiding mechanism and more of a debate on equal grounds. Socrates, at this point, may not be the best candidate for effective use of this process.

I agree with the previous sentiments from my classmates about Socrates establishing rules that he himself does not abide by. Within the section that Socrates presents a new philosophical method, Socrates restarts his argument about love by acknowledging that the definition he and Phadedrus concluded as being the truth (a subjective definition that never lays the specifics of what love is rather than round-about linking of analogies and metaphors) that "may have been good or bad," but that the main focus was to establish consistency and cleanness. While there is some logic to the argument of establishing definitions to make an argument more clean and consise, love is not like any previous argument Socrates has faced. Even in using words which seem to fit some aspect/ angle of love he tries to define, Socrates' inability to grasp the totality of love and its different forms leaves him without his usual word bank of meanings that built off of one another to a final conclusion. For example. Socrates accuses Lysias of rambling and for having improper style as he says Lysias introduction should have been at the end; however, the previous comment I highlighted about Socrates admitting that he didn't know if his comment was right or wrong was the same opening-conclusion that Lysias used.

the reason that Socrates has to restate and refine his definitions is beacause, one cannot give a definition for something if one does not already know its definition.He does not know the definition of love but yet tries to seek it out anyway. Does this sound familiar? He goes around searching for truth in the same way. If you don't already know it, you are not going to find it in this way. If the book you are looking for is not in the library it does not mater how many books you tear up and stick together you wont be able to come up with the said book, sorry. I would like to go over 260B (54) when socrates talks about convincing Phaedrus that a donkey is a horse, is that not exactly what he is doing with love?

Socrates attempts dialectic speech-making--he argues on both sides of the issue of love to pit those two sides against eachother--and the result is interesting, since we look at love from two drastically different angles. He says, "Whoever wants to acquire the art of rhetoric... must not be mistaken about his subject; he must have a sharp eye for the class to which whatever he is about to discuss belongs" (60). He picks apart the concept of love and classifies its component parts systematically. The two speeches differ dramatically: One is straightforward and almost clinical, while the other is flowery and peppered with fantastic images. While the two speeches represent two diametrically different ideas of love, do they get us any closer to the truth (or the true definition of love)?

This might seem rudimentary, but is it possible for two opposing arguments to get us closer to the truth if both come from the same person (in this case, Socrates)? No matter how skilled a rhetorician (or a philosopher, a "lover of wisdom") happens to be, aren't we more likely to reach the truth if several people weigh in? As we discussed before, love is a subjective concept. We get Lysias' view on the subject--and, peripherally, Phaedrus' view--but Socrates first speech is basically an elaboration of the ideas in Lysias' speech. They share the same premise (in essence, devaluing love). Just as with the words "just" and "good," we each "go in different directions" (60) when it comes to the the idea of love. But Socrates cannot possibly have defined love well enough to base an entire argument on it.

It seems like the rules Socrates makes for an effective speech do not apply to him. Socrates says you must first fine truth and then give your speech, but on a topic like love I don't think that there is a truth that he can come to first. He also makes it sound like a good speech should be very structured with a body and legs and that it must go back to the original definition at the end. It just seems like his speeches used so many metaphors and was so out there that it was hard to find the actual body and structure of it.

im an english major so correct me if my biology is wrong :D. but i thought that with the body it was always easier to start with the tiniest identifiable pieces and then combine them untill you get to the big stuff (organs, systems and the like) i dont think socrates followed this practice when 'dissecting' love. i think the small things would be the characteristics of love what does it look like in action? is it self seeking or self less? etc.
Secondly i didnt like his requirement for a 'good' speaker to know all the kinds of soul (91&2) here i understood him to be requiring the speaker to know all the different kinds of personalities and be able to temper his speech to each of them so they will be the most pursauded. I think this works well for elenchus -- needing to know your audience and how to approach them -- and on a smaller scale when giving public speeches. but when you are presenting to a crowd (a modern day political speech for example) there will be those who agree with you and thos who dont. if you were to temper your argument to both you would essentially be giving socrates two speechs at the same time constantly contradicting yourself and bringing no one closer to the truth.

Socrates’ idea of good rhetoric assumes the rhetor has acquired the truth, and then requires the rhetor to scientifically classify his topic and subtopics so that he does not contradict himself later on when he works his way through each subtopic. Next he says the argument must be logically organized (organically), as opposed to Lysias’ treatise which Socrates claims to be thrown together randomly, and is repetitive too.

Socrates says he does better...But definitions and repitition aside, I wonder about the fact that Socrates' two speeches make opposite points, one against the lover in love, and one for. This seems like he's pandering to the gods, if not arbitrarily showing off his skills. (am i talking about the right two speeches?)

Socrates argues that a rhetor must not only define genus and species, a rhetor must move logically from one to the next, by small degrees. I don't see him doing this exactly. He goes from the immortality of the soul straight to the 4th type of madness? I don't quite see how they work together. His second speech is ...well, a speech, and an allegory and eulogy. I don't think it was conclusive - it does not promote the truth. Socrates says that the 'techinicalities' (85) are essential to the effectiveness of the rhetoric. So why does not stick to them?