Phaedrus

"Phaedrus" by Plato is a philosophical dialogue probably written in the late 4th century BC. The text primarily explores themes of love and rhetoric through a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus, examining how these two concepts interrelate and what they signify about human nature and communication. The opening of "Phaedrus" introduces Phaedrus, who recounts spending time with Lysias, a famous rhetorician. He prepares to share Lysias's newly composed speech on love, which argues that the non-lover might be preferable to the lover. As they walk to a nearby plane tree to read the speech, Socrates expresses skepticism about the value of the rhetoric, provoking a discussion on the nature of love, the art of speaking, and the distinction between knowledge and mere opinion. This sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the philosophy underlying emotional connections and how they can be articulated. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Plato, born Aristocles, was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.