Complete Works (124 page)

“Well, Socrates and Phaedrus,” the author of this discourse might say, “do you agree? Could we accept an art of speaking presented in any other terms?”

P
HAEDRUS
: That would be impossible, Socrates. Still, it’s evidently rather a major undertaking.

S
OCRATES
: You’re right. And that’s why we must turn all our arguments every which way and try to find some easier and shorter route to the art: [c] we don’t want to follow a long rough path for no good reason when we can choose a short smooth one instead.

Now, try to remember if you’ve heard anything helpful from Lysias or anybody else. Speak up.

P
HAEDRUS
: It’s not for lack of trying, but nothing comes to mind right now.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, shall I tell you something I’ve heard people say who care about this topic?

P
HAEDRUS
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: We do claim, after all, Phaedrus, that it is fair to give the wolf’s side of the story as well.

P
HAEDRUS
: That’s just what you should do. [d]

S
OCRATES
: Well, these people say that there is no need to be so solemn about all this and stretch it out to such lengths. For the fact is, as we said ourselves at the beginning of this discussion,
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that one who intends to be an able rhetorician has no need to know the truth about the things that are just or good or yet about the people who are such either by nature or upbringing. No one in a lawcourt, you see, cares at all about the truth of such matters. They only care about what is convincing. This is called “the [e] likely,” and that is what a man who intends to speak according to art should concentrate on. Sometimes, in fact, whether you are prosecuting or defending a case, you must not even say what actually happened, if it was not likely to have happened—you must say something that is likely instead. Whatever you say, you should pursue what is likely and leave the truth aside: the whole art consists in cleaving to that throughout
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your speech.

P
HAEDRUS
: That’s an excellent presentation of what people say who profess to be expert in speeches, Socrates. I recall that we raised this issue briefly earlier on, but it seems to be their single most important point.

S
OCRATES
: No doubt you’ve churned through Tisias’ book quite carefully. Then let Tisias tell us this also: By “the likely” does he mean anything but [b] what is accepted by the crowd?

P
HAEDRUS
: What else?

S
OCRATES
: And it’s likely it was when he discovered this clever and artful technique that Tisias wrote that if a weak but spunky man is taken to court because he beat up a strong but cowardly one and stole his cloak or something else, neither one should tell the truth. The coward must say that the spunky man didn’t beat him up all by himself, while the latter [c] must rebut this by saying that only the two of them were there, and fall back on that well-worn plea, “How could a man like me attack a man like him?” The strong man, naturally, will not admit his cowardice, but will try to invent some other lie, and may thus give his opponent the chance to refute him. And in other cases, speaking as the art dictates will take similar forms. Isn’t that so, Phaedrus?

P
HAEDRUS
: Of course.

S
OCRATES
: Phew! Tisias—or whoever else it was and whatever name he pleases to use for himself
⁶¹
—seems
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to have discovered an art which he has disguised very well! But now, my friend, shall we or shall we not say to him—

[d] P
HAEDRUS
: What?

S
OCRATES
: This: “Tisias, some time ago, before you came into the picture, we were saying that people get the idea of what is likely through its similarity to the truth. And we just explained that in every case the person who knows the truth knows best how to determine similarities. So, if you have something new to say about the art of speaking, we shall listen. But if you don’t, we shall remain convinced by the explanations we gave just before: No one will ever possess the art of speaking, to the extent that any [e] human being can, unless he acquires the ability to enumerate the sorts of characters to be found in any audience, to divide everything according to its kinds, and to grasp each single thing firmly by means of one form. And no one can acquire these abilities without great effort—a laborious effort a sensible man will make not in order to speak and act among human beings, but so as to be able to speak and act in a way that pleases the gods as much as possible. Wiser people than ourselves, Tisias, say that a reasonable man must put his mind to being pleasant not to his fellow
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slaves (though this may happen as a side effect) but to his masters, who are wholly good. So, if the way round is long, don’t be astonished: we must make this detour for the sake of things that are very important, not for what you have in mind. Still, as our argument asserts, if that is what you want, you’ll get it best as a result of pursuing our own goal.

P
HAEDRUS
: What you’ve said is wonderful, Socrates—if only it could be done!

[b] S
OCRATES
: Yet surely whatever one must go through on the way to an honorable goal is itself honorable.

P
HAEDRUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, that’s enough about artfulness and artlessness in connection with speaking.

P
HAEDRUS
: Quite.

S
OCRATES
: What’s left, then, is aptness and ineptness in connection with writing: What feature makes writing good, and what inept? Right?

P
HAEDRUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well, do you know how best to please god when you either use words or discuss them in general?

P
HAEDRUS
: Not at all. Do you?

S
OCRATES
: I can tell you what I’ve heard the ancients said, though they [c] alone know the truth. However, if we could discover that ourselves, would we still care about the speculations of other people?

P
HAEDRUS
: That’s a silly question. Still, tell me what you say you’ve heard.

S
OCRATES
: Well, this is what I’ve heard. Among the ancient gods of Naucratis
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in Egypt there was one to whom the bird called the ibis is sacred. The name of that divinity was Theuth,
⁶⁴
and it was he who first discovered number and calculation, geometry and astronomy, as well as [d] the games of checkers and dice, and, above all else, writing.

Now the king of all Egypt at that time was Thamus,
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who lived in the great city in the upper region that the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes; Thamus they call Ammon.
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Theuth came to exhibit his arts to him and urged him to disseminate them to all the Egyptians. Thamus asked him about the usefulness of each art, and while Theuth was explaining it, Thamus praised [e] him for whatever he thought was right in his explanations and criticized him for whatever he thought was wrong.

The story goes that Thamus said much to Theuth, both for and against each art, which it would take too long to repeat. But when they came to writing, Theuth said: “O King, here is something that, once learned, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memory; I have discovered a potion for memory and for wisdom.” Thamus, however, replied: “O most expert Theuth, one man can give birth to the elements of an art, but only another can judge how they can benefit or harm those who will use them.
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And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will [b] imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”

P
HAEDRUS
: Socrates, you’re very good at making up stories from Egypt or wherever else you want!

S
OCRATES
: But, my friend, the priests of the temple of Zeus at Dodona say that the first prophecies were the words of an oak. Everyone who lived at that time, not being as wise as you young ones are today, found it rewarding enough in their simplicity to listen to an oak or even a stone, [c] so long as it was telling the truth, while it seems to make a difference to you, Phaedrus, who is speaking and where he comes from. Why, though, don’t you just consider whether what he says is right or wrong?

P
HAEDRUS
: I deserved that, Socrates. And I agree that the Theban king was correct about writing.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, those who think they can leave written instructions for an art, as well as those who accept them, thinking that writing can yield results that are clear or certain, must be quite naive and truly ignorant of Ammon’s prophetic judgment: otherwise, how could they possibly think [d] that words that have been written down can do more than remind those who already know what the writing is about?

P
HAEDRUS
: Quite right.

S
OCRATES
: You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You’d think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same [e] thing forever. When it has once been written down, every discourse roams about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those with understanding no less than those who have no business with it, and it doesn’t know to whom it should speak and to whom it should not. And when it is faulted and attacked unfairly, it always needs its father’s support; alone, it can neither defend itself nor come to its own support.

P
HAEDRUS
: You are absolutely right about that, too.

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S
OCRATES
: Now tell me, can we discern another kind of discourse, a legitimate brother of this one? Can we say how it comes about, and how it is by nature better and more capable?

P
HAEDRUS
: Which one is that? How do you think it comes about?

S
OCRATES
: It is a discourse that is written down, with knowledge, in the soul of the listener; it can defend itself, and it knows for whom it should speak and for whom it should remain silent.

P
HAEDRUS
: You mean the living, breathing discourse of the man who knows, of which the written one can be fairly called an image.

S
OCRATES
: Absolutely right. And tell me this. Would a sensible farmer, [b] who cared about his seeds and wanted them to yield fruit, plant them in all seriousness in the gardens of Adonis in the middle of the summer and enjoy watching them bear fruit within seven days? Or would he do this as an amusement and in honor of the holiday, if he did it at all?
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Wouldn’t he use his knowledge of farming to plant the seeds he cared for when it was appropriate and be content if they bore fruit seven months later?

P
HAEDRUS
: That’s how he would handle those he was serious about, [c] Socrates, quite differently from the others, as you say.

S
OCRATES
: Now what about the man who knows what is just, noble, and good? Shall we say that he is less sensible with his seeds than the farmer is with his?

P
HAEDRUS
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: Therefore, he won’t be serious about writing them in ink, sowing them, through a pen, with words that are as incapable of speaking in their own defense as they are of teaching the truth adequately.

P
HAEDRUS
: That wouldn’t be likely.

S
OCRATES
: Certainly not. When he writes, it’s likely he will sow gardens [d] of letters for the sake of amusing himself, storing up reminders for himself “when he reaches forgetful old age” and for everyone who wants to follow in his footsteps, and will enjoy seeing them sweetly blooming. And when others turn to different amusements, watering themselves with drinking parties and everything else that goes along with them, he will rather spend his time amusing himself with the things I have just described.

P
HAEDRUS
: Socrates, you are contrasting a vulgar amusement with the [e] very noblest—with the amusement of a man who can while away his time telling stories of justice and the other matters you mentioned.

S
OCRATES
: That’s just how it is, Phaedrus. But it is much nobler to be serious about these matters, and use the art of dialectic. The dialectician chooses a proper soul and plants and sows within it discourse accompanied by knowledge—discourse capable of helping itself as well as the man who planted it, which is not barren but produces a seed from which more
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discourse grows in the character of others. Such discourse makes the seed forever immortal and renders the man who has it as happy as any human being can be.

P
HAEDRUS
: What you describe is really much nobler still.