Abstract

Plato's Phaedrus hinges centrally on Socrates' striking claim that he possesses an "art of love." My aim is to reconstruct and evaluate Socrates' erotic techne. I argue for treating Socrates as a literary character, making his presence in the dialogue more robust than the typical "mouthpiece" view of him allows. This in turn enables the drama of the dialogue to inform the philosophical claims made in it. To this end, I first show how the idealized relationship outlined in Socrates' main speech choreographs the odd interplay between Socrates and Phaedrus at the opening of the dialogue. I then examine the first two speeches in detail, viewing them not as rhetorical exercises, but as presenting philosophical claims about eros which reasonable people might hold. Against the prevailing interpretation of the Phaedrus, I show how these speeches contribute to the broad cultural debate on the nature of eros and its role in interpersonal relationships. The main speech resolves this debate in unconventional ways, not least of all in the systematized recommendations for lover and beloved. In so doing, the main speech reveals the deep similarities between Socrates' eroticism and the art of dialectic. I then detail the significance of the art of love and the implications of this for Plato's conception of moral agency, the place of love and friendship in the good life, and the role of each in philosophical inquiry. ;I argue against the "failure of love" hypothesis advanced by Vlastos and Nussbaum, a view born of a misreading of the evidence, on one hand, and committed to an implausible ideal on the other. I also argue against the skepticism this hypothesis has engendered in later interpretations which deny that there is a theory of interpersonal love put forward at all, and the widespread view that holds that rhetoric is the unifying theme of the dialogue. In conclusion, I show how Plato's literary hand not only deepens our appreciation of Socrates' erotic practice, but also paved the way for the elaborate systematization of the erotic Socrates in the later Platonic tradition