Turning to his own two speeches, Socrates points out that their contradiction in substance sprang from the identification of love with two opposite kinds of madness, the human and the divine. A consideration of them from this point of view will show that taken together they exemplify the method of dialectic, proper to philosophy, in its two branches, Collection (σνναγωγή) and Division (διαίρεσις). Everything else that he had said was, he now asserts, of little importance in comparison with this method, of which he is an enthusiastic practitioner.

Soc. Well, to avoid distressing you, let us say no more of that—though indeed I think it provides many examples which it would be profitable to notice, provided one were chary of imitating them—and let us pass to the other speeches; for they, I think, presented a certain feature which everyone desirous of examining oratory would do well to observe.

Ph. To what do you refer?

Soc. They were of opposite purport, one maintaining that the lover should be favoured, the other the non-lover.

Ph. Yes, they did so very manfully.

Soc. I thought you were going to say—and with truth—madly; but that reminds me of what I was about to ask. We said, did we not, that love is a sort of madness?

Ph. Yes.

Soc. And that there are two kinds of madness, one resulting from human ailments, the other from a divine disturbance of our conventions of conduct.

Can we find any easier substitute for this admittedly laborious procedure? To convince Phaedrus that we cannot, Socrates recalls the contention that the orator need not concern himself with the truth, but only with plausibility or (it is now added) probability. After quoting from Tisias's manual an example of forensic argument based on ‘the probable’, and showing its absurdity, Socrates remarks that this is really no new point, and has already been met.

The way of the true rhetoric is difficult and laborious, but its justification is that in seeking the truth we are seeking to do the pleasure of the gods. They are our good and gracious masters, and it is they, not our fellow-slaves, that we should seek to please.

Soc. You are right, and that makes it necessary thoroughly to overhaul all our arguments, and see whether there is some easier and shorter way of arriving at the art; we don't want to waste effort in going off on a long rough road, when we might take a short smooth one. But if you can help us at all through what you have heard from Lysias or anyone else, do try to recall it.

Ph. As far as trying goes, I might; but I can suggest nothing on the spur of the moment.

Soc. Then would you like me to tell you something I have heard from those concerned with these matters?

Rhetoric, Socrates proceeds, as a method of influencing men's minds (ψνχαγωγία) commonly involves disputation (άντιλογία the presentation of opposed arguments), as may be seen not only in the fields of forensic and deliberative oratory, but also in the arguments of Zeno the Eleatic. And since disputation involves the ability to represent, or misrepresent, one thing as like another, the successful speaker must know the truth as to how things resemble and differ from one another.

An examination of Lysias's speech reveals its deficiency in this respect, and also its lack of orderly arrangement.

Soc. Must not the art of rhetoric, taken as a whole, be a kind of A influencing of the mind by means of words, not only in courts of law and other public gatherings, but in private places also? And must it not be the same art that is concerned with great issues and small, its right employment commanding no more respect when dealing with important matters than with unimportant? Is that what you have been told about it?

Ph. No indeed, not exactly that: it is principally, I should say, to lawsuits that an art of speaking and writing is applied—and of course to public harangues also. I know of no wider application.

Socrates meets Phaedrus, who is about to take a walk outside the city wall, after spending the whole morning listening to a speech by Lysias and studying it. Socrates expresses great interest in the speech, and is told that he may well do so, for its subject was love; it took the form of an address to a boy by one who was not his lover, but claimed his favour for that very reason. Phaedrus, entreated to repeat the discourse, professes his inability to do so; but before long it transpires that he has the actual manuscript with him, and he agrees to read it.

The two turn their steps along the bank of the Ilissus, and pass the spot reputed to be the scene of the rape of Oreithuia by Boreas. Phaedrus mentions a rationalised version of the legend, but Socrates professes indifference to such ‘scientific’ interpretations: his time is better spent in ‘knowing himself’. Finally a cool shady spot is reached, hard by a sanctuary of the Nymphs. Socrates grows enthusiastic over the delightful scene, and Phaedrus rallies him on his unfamiliarity with the countryside. Fields and trees, replies Socrates, have nothing to teach him; yet Phaedrus has discovered the way to lure him out: to hear a literary composition he would be ready to go anywhere.

Socrates. Where do you come from, Phaedrus my friend, and where are you going?

Phaedrus is full of admiration for the speech, but Socrates professes doubt as to the correctness of its substance, while in point of style he finds it clear and polished, but repetitive. He fancies he has heard the subject better dealt with, though he cannot remember by whom—possibly by Sappho or Anacreon; and this emboldens him to offer a speech of his own, with the proviso that, if he is to support Lysias's thesis, he cannot be wholly original but must adopt Lysias's basic assumptions. Phaedrus agrees that this is reasonable, but Socrates now appears reluctant; after some banter, however, and a playful threat by Phaedrus to use physical force, he submits, calling upon the Muses for aid and veiling his face to avoid embarrassment.

Ph. What do you think of the speech, Socrates? Isn't it extraordinarily fine, especially in point of language?

Soc. Amazingly fine indeed, my friend: I was thrilled by it. And it was you, Phaedrus, that made me feel as I did: I watched your apparent delight in the words as you read. And as I'm sure that you understand such matters better than I do, I took my cue from you, and therefore joined in the ecstasy of my right worshipful companion.

The nature of the Soul must be described in a myth. We may compare it to a winged charioteer driving a team of winged horses. Now the horses belonging to the souls of gods are all good, but a human soul has one good horse and one evil. So long as its wings are undamaged, the soul travels through the heavens; but some souls lose their wings, fall to earth and take to themselves earthly bodies. There follows a vivid picture of the procession of souls, headed by Zeus, to the rim of heaven, and of the difficulty experienced by the human souls in following the divine. The latter finally pass outside the heaven and stand upon its back, contemplating the sights beyond as they are carried round by its revolution.

As to soul's immortality then we have said enough, but as to its nature there is this that must be said: what manner of thing it is would be a long tale to tell, and most assuredly a god alone could tell it; but what it resembles, that a man might tell in briefer compass: let this therefore be our manner of discourse. Let it be likened to the union of powers in a team of winged steeds and their winged charioteer.

In allusion to his resolve to sing a palinode, Socrates declares that whereas his former speech was the work of Phaedrus, this will be the work of Stesichorus. The thesis of Lysias was a ‘false tale’, since it assumed that madness is in all cases an evil. In reality it may be a divine boon. There are three types of divine madness, (1) that of divination or prophecy, such as belongs to the priestess at Delphi: this must be distinguished from the inferior practice of rational augury, and etymology helps us to maintain the distinction; (2) that which heals the sick by means of purifications and rites revealed to a frenzied sufferer; (3) poetical frenzy, which gives rise to far truer poetry than the art of the sane composer.

We have now to show that love is a fourth type of divine madness, and to that end we must discern the nature of soul, both human and divine.

Soc. Now you must understand, fair boy, that whereas the preceding discourse was by Phaedrus, son of Pythocles, of Myrrinous, that which I shall now pronounce is by Stesichorus, son of Euphemus, of Himera.

This then is how it must run:

‘False is the tale’ that when a lover is at hand favour ought rather to be accorded to one who does not love, on the ground that the former is mad, and the latter sound of mind.

A brief interlude now follows, in which the midday scene is recalled to our minds, with the cicadas chirping in the hot sunshine. These creatures, Socrates says, are watching to see whether their music lulls us to drowse in idleness or whether we resist their spell. He proceeds to narrate a little myth about their origin, suggesting that we can secure through their help the favour of the Muses of Philosophy, who will aid us in the inquiry upon which we are about to embark.

Soc. Well, I suppose we can spare the time; and I think too that the cicadas overhead, singing after their wont in the hot sun and conversing with one another, don't fail to observe us as well. So if they were to see us two behaving like ordinary folk at midday, not conversing but dozing lazy-minded under their spell, they would very properly have the laugh of us, taking us for a pair of slaves that had invaded their retreat like sheep, to have their midday sleep beside the spring. If however they see us conversing and steering clear of their bewitching siren-song, they might feel respect for us and grant us that boon which heaven permits them to confer upon mortals.

In general the soul cannot regrow its wings and return to its heavenly home in less than 10,000 years; but for the philosopher this is shortened to 3000. After every thousand years souls begin a new incarnate life, determined partly by lot, partly by their own choice; between each life and the next there is a period of reward or punishment.

Incarnations may be in an animal body, but the first is always in that of a man. Man's power to think conceptually is due to his reminiscence of the Forms which his soul beheld in the divine procession; and the philosopher's earlier liberation is due to his constant devotion to the Forms and his living in conformity thereto. Detached from men's ordinary pursuits, he is accounted insane, though in fact he is possessed by a god.

Now in all these incarnations he who lives righteously has a better lot for his portion, and he who lives unrighteously a worse. For a soul does not return to the place whence she came for ten thousand years, since in no lesser time can she regain her wings, save only his soul who has sought after wisdom unfeignedly, or has conjoined his passion for a loved one with that seeking.

By the sight of a beautiful object the soul is reminded of the true Beauty, and seeks to wing its flight upward thereto. This love of Beauty is the fourth and highest type of divine madness. But recollection is not always easy: some souls saw little of the vision, and some forget what they saw, being corrupted by evil associations.

Yet the Form of Beauty may be more readily recollected than the other Forms, since its image is discerned by sight, the keenest of our senses.

Mark therefore the sum and substance of all our discourse touching the fourth sort of madness: to wit, that this is the best of all forms of divine possession, both in itself and in its sources, both for him that has it and for him that shares therein; and when he that loves beauty is touched by such madness he is called a lover. Such an one, as soon as he beholds the beauty of this world, is reminded of true beauty, and his wings begin to grow; then is he fain to lift his wings and fly upward; yet he has not the power, but inasmuch as he gazes upward like a bird, and cares nothing for the world beneath, men charge it upon him that he is demented.

As a first step in the new inquiry Socrates suggests that any good speech presupposes that the speaker knows the truth about his subject; but Phaedrus demurs: the theory familiar to him is that all the speaker need know is what will seem true, in particular about moral questions, to his audience. By a homely illustration Socrates convinces him that this theory is likely to yield disastrous results. Next, a personified Rhetoric claims that knowledge of the truth, however desirable, is of no use to a speaker without the art of eloquence; but Socrates knows of certain arguments, which he hears advancing, to the effect that rhetoric is no art, but a mere knack. These arguments must have their say, in order that Phaedrus may be convinced that he will never be a successful orator unless he becomes a philosopher.

Soc. Well, the subject we proposed for inquiry just now was the nature of good and bad speaking and writing: so we are to inquire into that.

Ph. Plainly.

Soc. Then does not a good and successful discourse presuppose a knowledge in the mind of the speaker of the truth about his subject?

Ph. As to that, dear Socrates, what I have heard is that the intending orator is under no necessity of understanding what is truly just, but only what is likely to be thought just by the body of men who are to give judgment; nor need he know what is truly good or noble, but what will be thought so; since it is on the latter, not the former, that persuasion depends.

A consideration of the technical terms and devices of rhetoric which figure in the manuals leads to the conclusion that these are concerned with no more than the antecedents of the art. A number of the chief figures in Greek oratory of the fifth century are passed in rapid review, not without touches of satire.

Soc. But now tell me what we ought to call them if we take instruction from Lysias and yourself. Or is what I have been describing precisely that art of oratory thanks to which Thrasymachus and the rest of diem have not only made themselves masterly orators, but can do the same for anyone else who cares to bring offerings to these princes amongst men?

Ph. Doubtless they behave like princes, but assuredly they do not possess the kind of knowledge to which you refer. No, I think you are right in calling the procedure that you have described dialectical; but we still seem to be in the dark about rhetoric.

Soc. What? Can there really be anything of value that admits of scientific acquisition despite the lack of that procedure? If so, you and I should certainly not disdain it, but should explain what this residuum of rhetoric actually consists in.

Ph. Well, Socrates, of course there is plenty of matter in the rhetorical manuals.