Saturday, October 16, 2010

Post 3: Due by 11:59 Thursday 21 October


Respond to the rest of Phaedrus (39-68). As always, paraphrase or quote along with your response.

The above image is of Plato.

12 comments:

Miles22 said...

"Until a person knows the truth about each of the things about which he speaks or writes, and becomes capable of defining the whole by itself....and so arranges and orders what he says what he says, offering a complex soul complex speeches...and simple speeches to a simple soul; not until then will he be capable of pursuing the making of speeches..." Here Plato emphasizes that wisdom of truth is the essential element at the base of any ethical speech or writing. With truth or wisdom set as the basis of speech he then stresses the importance of order and / or arraingement of that speech as crucial to lead or persuade his audience to understanding. The parsimony of the speech to his intended audience becomes a third ingredient to a"scientific" speech. Thus his view of good rhetoric transcends the basis of just truth and incorporates his ideas to "how" it should be delivered for overall persuasion and effectiveness. His view would mandate the education of a speaker on both ethics (using only truths) and composition (form and arraingement) as a preriquisite to making public arguements.

Kim said...

Com 301: Blog 3 Post

In the second half of this novelette, written by Plato, a conversation transpired between Socrates and Phaedrus who share a unique philia. In this conversation it appears as though they are speaking in regards to the different types of speeches performed by orators, and the differences between “those speeches which were written scientifically, and those that had not (p. 65b1)” been scientifically written.

So, what is considered scientific speech, and what is not, according to Socrates? “Until a person knows the truth about each of the things they speaks, or writes, and becomes capable of defining the whole by itself, and, having defined it, knows how to cut it up again according to its form until it can no longer be cut; and until he has reached an understanding of the nature of the soul along the same lines, discovering the form of speech that fits each nature, and so arranges and orders what he says, offering a complex soul complex speeches to a simple soul: not until then will he be capable of pursuing the making of speeches as a whole in a scientific way, to the degree that nature allows, whether for the purpose of teaching or for those persuading either, as the whole… (P. 65b5-d1).”

It appears to me that what is happening here is Socrates is offering exposition and setting the stage for his definition of “truth”. Socrates may be interchanging truth with science, and that which is not truth with not being scientific. This is a paradox that Socrates uses palinode to go back and forth between what is and isn’t truth. My take on Socrates’ definition of truth is that truth is science, and therefore has the ability able to either be proven or disproven. Whether the speeches they discussed were scientific/truthful, or unscientific/untruthful, the structure to me still appears to be more a pharmakon in nature – out of the use of beautiful words brew beautiful speeches.

Socrates suggests that “all truly scientific rhetoric will be for the general good (p. 72.10).” This denotes further that Socrates may consider things which are scientific to be truthful.

It’s interesting to me that Socrates may not consider himself a wise person as he, on a few accounts, referred to himself as knowing “nothing”. And yet, Socrates has said many things in this fable that are divinely theios, to at Phaedrus. All and all, Socrates’ speeches to Phaedrus may be lacking Ligeiai, as I find his points not always clear and precise, as to whether or not he believes that truth is scientific.

Unknown said...

Com-301 Rhetorical Theory and Application
Instructor: Matt Schnackenberg
By: Michael L Martin
The quote I like is from page 45 262a SOCRATES/ARGUMENTS “At any rate, when you are passing over from one thing to its opposite you will be more likely to escape detection if you take small steps than if you take large ones”. I liked this quote a lot because it still holds true today with everyday life. When trying to fly under the radar so to speak it is easier to make small corrections because those corrections will go unnoticed however; if large corrections are made, those corrections will be noticed.

Jason Boese said...

A quote I like from Phaedrus is given by Socrates during his speech and goes as follows, "…so also is madness nobler than sanity: the first proceeds from a god, the other from mere man." This makes me think of the 1962 David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia because T. E. Lawrence, as played by Peter O'Toole, goes mad after getting beat by Turkish guards whilst being held captive by them. The reason I'm drawing this comparison is because Lawrence was able to get the Arabian people to follow what he wanted them to do in the First World War, almost like a god. The Arabs followed T. E. Lawrence willingly, and he even convinced a group of them to follow him into combat because it "would be [their] pleasure."

So is madness connected to divinity? If it is, then when we say that a scientist is mad, they must be divine, even if he or she is not Victor Frankenstein. People call him mad, but does that mean he's closer to being a god than the accusers? I believe this is what Socrates is getting at. Victor Frankenstein was considered mad for trying to create life, but, according to Socrates, that means he's close to being a god whilst trying to make life, which makes him even closer to becoming such a god.

In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Norman Bates, as played by Anthony Perkins, tells Marion Crane, as played by Janet Leigh, that his mother "goes a little mad sometimes." According to Socrates, this would make his mother close to being that of a goddess because she does go mad. If you have seen it, you will know who really goes mad and how close that person is to being a god.

Unknown said...

Jason Z.
Socrates: “Well then are we to say love belongs with the disputed cases or the undisputed ones?” I believe that Phaedrus has the thought that love should be disputed over. And the reason is he knows that the people in love will win over the non-lover people. This is because Socrates has already begun to win him over to the side of love. Phaedrus thinks that they could have a scientific model or diagram that proves love or non-love as the fact in the argument. However, Socrates thinks about it differently. I think he actually believes that there is not a dispute. He believes that love is so strong that it can take care of itself. And what I mean by this is that there is no true argument against love. Only lies in order to cover loves true intentions. And he proves this by having Phaedrus read the speech until he stops him and points out the false objectives. Then Socrates explains that the beginning of the speech Lysias does define love. The speech continues and it losses it’s strength. At the end, the only reason the speech is thought to have any good, is because of the definition of love in the beginning.

Unknown said...

COM 301 blog 3

p.59 d1
A quote from Socrates, "Well then they say that there is no need to treat these things so portentously, or carry them back to general principles, going to the long way round; for it's just what we said at the beginning of this discussion- that a person who means to be competent at rhetoric need have nothing to do with the truth about the just or good things, or indeed about people who are such by nature or upbringing."

This quote means to be that we don't have to make something grand out of something that may not be the truth by means of rhetoric. That you don't need a long flowery speech by using words which have no meaning when someone can say something and defend it when it isn't the truth. A person who is competent at rhetoric is a person who is able to use words in logos the power of logic. He then uses pathos the emotion of the listener. He leaves out anything about the truth in ethos. Because it states to be competent at rhetoric you just need to convince someone of something. A person who is thought to be of good character has nothing to do with rhetoric. It isn't by learning good morals that a person can competent at rhetoric. To be good at rhetoric is to be good at what is convincing and probable. A good rhetorican would convince you that something was true whether it was or not.

basketball junkie said...

"Forgive what went before and regard this with favour; be kind and gracious - do not in anger take away or maim the expertise in love that you gave me, and grant that I be valued still more than now by the beautiful." In my eyes, I feel like Plato emphasizes that forgiving is key when wanting to move forward without any hate stored in the heart. I also think he is saying that while trying to forgive, don't let anger get in the way. Holding anger in while trying to forgive is not a good mix. When Plato says to be kind and gracious, I think he means that in order to forgive, we must be patient, kind, and gracious; we must not hold on to the past.
Before we make a quick reaction towards holding a grudge, we must first be calm and second we must remember how much love we have for that person that we are trying to forgive.

Dhhanz57 said...

"Until a person knows the truth about each of the things about which he speaks or writes, and becomes capable of defining the whole by itself....and so arranges and orders what he says what he says, offering a complex soul complex speeches...and simple speeches to a simple soul; not until then will he be capable of pursuing the making of speeches..."
I like this because it remains the same today. You can also look at it from many different aspects. For instance, you can always learn something from someone new; because everyone has an expertise. Everyone’s life is different than yours’, you could be skipping rocks accost the river. Some may see it as harmless; some could see it as your throwing their gods to death. Others may be angered by you throwing rocks at them. Everyone sees things in a different light and from a different prospective. Let’s say you know nothing about apples, someone like Socrates, who knows a little about it could persuade you to thinking they are fruit expects because you simply knew nothing about apples.
I feel that Plato is talking about the wisdom of truth the key evidence when being presented with evidence. This goes for the speeches they have been giving one another. The crucial part to persuade an audience to understand; truth, and rhetoric, is the first part of swaying your audience, but organization and balance is what makes a speech worthy. So it’s not always about knowing everything about it all even though it does help. The key elements for a great speech, other than truly knowing all the tiny pieces of the full complex system, is to lie by using what you know and saying it’s the only thing you need to know about it. Because if you don’t know you are using the tiny bits of information you do know to your advantage. That’s why you don’t always have to listen to a wise man to learn new information. New information is key when someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

William said...

I like quite a few quotes. One such as when SOCRATES says on p. 48, "But this much I think you would say: that every speech should be put together like a living creature, as if it were a body of its own, so as not to lack either a head or feet but to have both middle parts and extremities, so written as to fit both each other and the whole". How can a speech be compared to a human body? There is way much more than mentioned. Another is the way that a speech is considered "the left-handed part which is love vs. the right-handed side, and discovering and setting forth a love that shares the same name as the other but is divine, it praised it as the cause of our greatest goods".
SOCRATES makes a good statement when he talks about this kind of speech giver he knows if it is right or not, an expert in dialectic". Just a good debate speaker. This whole story is mostly debating.

Wendy said...

On page 48, Socrates uses a simile to describe the basic structure of a speech, (264 c1 & c5).
“… that every speech should be put together like a living creature, as it were with a body of its own, so as not to lack either a head or feet but to have bother middle parts and extremities, so written as to fit both each other and the whole.”
This is a clear image of what it means to order the elements of a speech. He emphasizes the importance of arrangement and the fitting together of all the parts. I find it quite interesting that he uses a living creature and not just a structure. This would imply that speeches are living as well. All its parts have to function together as a whole and with proper balance. A living creature has balance, order, and parts and systems that function as a whole. I think it’s a brilliant example.
A simple or basic description of a living creature gives guidance to create a simple well-balanced and ordered speech. At the same time, a person can use the living creature simile for guidance to order a very complicated subject that requires a lot of definition and details. The first requires a superficial look of the head, body, extremities, etc. The second would be much more in depth, of course, and would require an understanding of the intricacies of all the functioning systems and parts that make up the living creature. The idea is balance, order, and function.
As a student of anatomy and physiology, I was fascinated with the complexities of the parts and systems of the human body. There is a definite order and fitting together that brings amazing function to the body as a whole. It appears to me that the goal is to create a beautiful and powerful speech using a living creature that is beautifully structured, well-balanced, and functional as a tangible guide. After all, how functional is a creature without its head? Likewise, how functional is a speech without a clear thesis? This simile lays the ground work to understand the full explanation of what makes a speech “pass over from censure to praise” (p.50, c5).

Holly said...

Holly Sharp
Professor Schnackenberg
Phaedrus

"Yes, my boy, there was a 'correctness of diction', and many other fine things. Then again, the scientific mastery of wailing speeches dragged out in connection with old age and poverty seems to me to belong to the might of the Chalcedoneon, and the man has also become clever at rousing anger in large numbers of people all at once, and again, when once they are angry, at charming them with incantations, as he put it; and at both devising and refuting calumnies, from whatever source, he is unbeatable. As for the ending of speeches, everyone seems to be in complete agreement; some call it 'recapitulation', while others call it by other names."
This explanation by Socrates makes it very clear that there is a formula to the art of rhetoric. He has already established the difference between dialectical principals versus rhetorical principals. He seems to take a harsh stance against rhetoric implying that it is a science of manipulation. Socrates is sees rhetoric as a tool to persuade people regardless of their individualism.
He argues that it would be too difficult for a speaker to be able to target each and every person in an audience so the speaker must find a way to target as many people as possible without concerning himself with each and every personal difference that the audience may have. He describes rhetoric as the art of being able to categorize people into relatively simple categories and the constructing a speech that will mentally and emotionally grip them. Socrates then shows a much different opinion to dialectical principals. He describes these principals much as he does that of rhetoric, however, he leaves out motive.
Dialectical principals are based on the truth, nothing fancy or manipulative. Socrates acknowledges that taking the dialectical approach is harder than that of rhetoric, but honesty should always prevail over manipulation.

weebits said...

What is true? It depends on who you ask and when. Phaedrus said ‘if you plan on being just a speaker than it does not matter if what you say is true only that you can convince others that what you say is true’. There are times when this can hold up such as “honey does this dress make me look fat?” The only real question here is fight/no fight. But when it comes to public speaking and convincing people the truth and knowledge are essential. Americans in general do not trust politicians. We have been fed so many half truths and straight out lies that we question every step they take. But when I come to class I expect to hear the truth and be able to know that the instructor is knowledgeable and trustworthy. “Does deception occur more in the case of things that are widely different or those that differ little?”. It is really easy to see how people can be led astray by baby steps. I tried this on a friend and slowly introduced movies that had more comedy (he like action) until we were watching comedies and not action movies. He did not notice the change until I told him. Now we have to watch action again. So it is really easy little by little but very difficult if it is one giant leap.