Description

In this episode of Hot Takes on the Classics, Emily Maeda and Tim McIntosh explore Plato’s Phaedrus, a dialogue that weaves together questions of love, rhetoric, and the soul. They trace Socrates’ speeches on the nature of desire, his paradoxical claim that love is both divine madness and a path to truth, and Plato’s broader concerns about the power and danger of persuasion. Emily and Tim unpack how Phaedrus challenges modern categories of romance, friendship, and eros, while reflecting on what it means for love to shape the soul’s ascent toward the divine.

Episode Outline

• Opening reflection on love as “divine madness”
• Why Plato’s Phaedrus stands apart in the dialogues
• Socrates’ first speech: love as destructive passion
• Socrates’ second speech: love as divine inspiration
• The myth of the charioteer: the soul’s struggle between reason and desire
• Plato on rhetoric: persuasion as both dangerous and necessary
• The link between love, truth, and the soul’s ascent
• Comparisons with Symposium and other Platonic dialogues
• Closing reflections on Phaedrus as a work about love, language, and longing

Key Topics & Takeaways

• Love as Madness and Gift: For Socrates, love is a form of divine madness—irrational yet capable of elevating the soul toward truth and beauty.
• The Charioteer Myth: Plato’s image of the soul as a charioteer struggling with two horses (reason and passion) dramatizes the tension within human desire.
• Rhetoric and Power: Plato warns of rhetoric’s dangers, yet also affirms its potential when aligned with truth and aimed at the good.
• Comparison with Symposium: Phaedrus offers a more dynamic, paradoxical vision of love, showing it as both perilous and transformative.
• Enduring Influence: The dialogue has inspired centuries of reflection on eros, persuasion, and the human longing for transcendence.

Questions & Discussion

• What does it mean to call love “divine madness”?
  Reflect on how Socrates redefines madness not as loss of reason but as a gift that breaks ordinary limits.
• How does the charioteer myth help us understand human desire?
  Consider the image of reason guiding passion—do you find it accurate to human experience, or overly dualistic?
• What role does rhetoric play in shaping the soul?
  Discuss whether persuasion can ever be morally neutral, or if it always points us toward truth or falsehood.
• How does Phaedrus compare with Symposium in its vision of love?
  Think about the similarities and differences between Socrates’ “ladder of love” in Symposium and the “madness of love” in Phaedrus.
• What might Phaedrus teach us about love today?
  Reflect on whether love in the modern sense still carries the potential to elevate us, or whether it has been reduced to sentiment or utility.

Suggested Reading

• Phaedrus by Plato 
• Plato’s Symposium translated by Jowett 
• The Republic by Plato translated by Bloom (sections on the soul)