Nicholas Schweers

Maj McDonald

09/29/16

Portfolio entry

Phaedrus

In today’s sections of the dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates, Socrates continues to dominate the conversation through his long winded, verbose statements. While Phaedrus is only armed with one or two lines per statement, Socrates takes whole paragraphs to disseminate the same amount of information. Therefore, unlike a true debate or discussion, Socrates is merely leading Phaedrus to his desired points. The points today mainly revolve the central point of Socrates’ argument. His main point is to prove that Rhetoric is not an art, but is merely when someone who knows the actual truth tries to persuade another of the truth. Phaedrus, being drug along by this point, only asks questions to further understand Socrates’ points. Overall, Socrates tells Phaedrus that rhetoric is not an art, that dialectic (logically breaking down statements to provide the actual, undeniable truth) that is spoken by “dialecticians” is truly the only way to persuade people and change people’s minds.