The Phaedrus is an outstanding example of a Platonic dialogue. It is really a dialogue about the dangers of trying to achieve philosophical understanding through listening to (or giving) grand rhetorical speeches or writing extended philosophical theses in essays or books. Socrates is predictably sceptical about these methods. They are far removed from the ideals of Socratic conversation. In speeches and writing, the truth is liable to distortion. The speechmaker or author gets carried away with rhetoric and style, prone to telling the audience only what will impress or flatter them, with the audience only hearing what they want to hear. Sincere truth is soon lost.
As if to demonstrate this, Socrates presents a rhetorical speech on the subject of ‘love’. What good is ‘love’, after all? That is the question. He lets himself get carried away with the argument, showing off in a way that might impress an audience. He courts controversy, arguing the counter-intuitive point for the sake of being contrary (a kind of Ancient Greek clickbait) and his monologue takes him into some dark territory. What good is love, he asks, when all it seems to do is cause us trouble? Who in their right mind would invest all their hope and happiness in someone else?! Someone who could, any time of any day, turn around and send you into despair by their bad opinion, rejection, or betrayal; someone that will inevitably die. At which point we are burdened with a grief that will never lift. We are heartbroken. We lose everything that matters. At such cost, what could we possibly get in return for our investment? A few moments of idle pleasure? It hardly seems worth it. What do our loved ones really do for us, after all? And what do they give us that couldn’t much more easily be achieved by other, less costly means? We can have friends for companionship, casual relationships for sex (or pay for it, or satisfy ourselves), and procreation doesn’t need love (and anyway, having children seems liable to the same pessimistic argument – what have our children ever done for us apart from cause us worry?). The conclusion: no one in their right mind would let themselves fall in love, let alone try to find it. We should avoid love at all costs; it’s just not worth it.
I’m paraphrasing, but you’ll have to take my word for it here that the original is rhetorically impressive. This is Socrates showing off, playing the crowd (even though there is no crowd and he is only talking to his friend). This is the kind of speech that might ‘win the argument’ in a public forum. But is it really sincere? Is it the truth?
What happens next is odd. At least, it’s odd if your idea of philosophy is that it’s all about winning arguments. Having just won the day, Socrates changes his mind. He acknowledges, with shame, that he doesn’t believe his own conclusion, that he got carried away with the argument, that he did all the things that he criticises the sophists for doing. He tried to win and be impressive rather than find the truth. Yes, on the face of it, love is irrational; it makes no sense; it is a kind of madness. But in truth it is a kind of divine madness that we would never do without.
To ask ‘what good is love?’, and to answer in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, does not reveal the truth about love: it reveals the shallowness of the question and answer and of the one presenting the argument. Anyone who seriously argues that love is not worth it because it has a tendency to cause us emotional pain shows themselves to not really understand what love is. In truth, anyone in their right mind would choose love regardless of the pain it causes. Parents choose the love for their children over anything else, children the love for their parents, partners the love for each other. Entire lives are dedicated and made worthy by the commitment to love. Only a shallow person would be sincerely cynical about the power that love has to affect us in ways that we cannot understand but would not for the life of us do without. Love deepens our engagement with life, with our place in life and in the world. We can fall out of love, of course, and sometimes for good reason: love is just as vulnerable to corruption as anything else that is good in the world. But to reject love outright, for the sake of avoiding emotional pain, would be petty.
This leads me on to what could be described as Socrates’ advice for those having relationship difficulties. He describes an allegory (probably less odd to ancient Greek ears than it might be to us) involving a flying chariot being led by two horses. Socrates uses this allegory to describe the human soul, but I like to think of it as being equally fitting for human relationships. Of the two horses pulling the chariot, one is lofty and good and wants to lift the chariot up into the heavens; the other is debased and bad and wants to drag us down into the mud. The love we have for a loved one is like this chariot. It is capable of soaring into the heavens or crashing into the mud. We are the charioteer, and we are always being pulled in two directions: our finer qualities recognise the sublime value to be found in genuine love, our baser qualities ask only what’s in it for us. We must remember that we are the charioteer; we are holding the reins; we must manage the two horses, no one else can do it for us. A certain balance has to be struck, but for the most part we need to fight our natural tendency to follow the bad horse. We know we are too prone to getting distracted by petty things. And if we keep doing that, we will end up crashing in the mud. And yet we know, in our heart of hearts, that these petty things aren’t what really matters.
Reflect on any examples of what you would call ‘genuine love’ and you will find that it is not a love based on petty things, it runs deeper in way that is resistant to explanation. That tells us something important. We need to search, find, and hold on to those aspect of our relationships, remembering that they are what really matters.
So if you find yourself getting angry about dishwashers being stacked, bins being emptied, not enough sex or too much, too much socialising or not enough, if you find yourself questioning whether your partner is good looking enough, funny enough, clever enough, wealthy enough, prestigious enough, remember that they are only the petty things and your relationship is much, much more than the sum of those parts. Don’t let the bad horse drag you into the mud.
You will know what, for you, is shallow and petty and what, for you, is deeply important. That’s not for anyone to tell you; it’s something you will have to discover and decide for yourself. And sometimes, of course, the petty can reveal the profound: cheap words can reveal a deeper lack of respect. Words don’t really matter, but respect might.
No one can make your decisions for you. What Socrates reminds us is only that there is this distinction between the ‘deep’ and the ‘shallow’, between the profound and the petty. And the true value of love, if it is there at all, will be found in the profound and not in the petty. If you ask a shallow question in a shallow way, you will get a shallow answer. Making any decision on this basis would be misguided. Ask the right question in the right way.
Read more: Think Well, Live Well: A Free Introduction to Philosophy
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