Abstract

The old problem of the unity of Plato's dialogue Phaedrus is to be resolved by taking the theme of rhetoric as the main one, to which that of eroos is submitted. This solution is found by analysing the structure of the dialogue as a whole, an essential part of which is also the dramatization. The real intention and new philosophical gain is the founding of a genuine Platonic rhetoric. The form of dialectic developed here seems to be a transition between that of the Philebus and the method of bifurcation employed in the Sophistes and the Politicus