Featuring some of Plato's most soaringly lyrical passages, the "Phaedrus" investigates the soul's erotic longing and its relationship to the whole cosmos, as well as enquiring into the nature of rhetoric and the problem of writing. A general introduction on rhetoric from the Greeks to the present shows the problematic relation of rhetoric to philosophy and politics, states the themes that unite "Phaedrus" and "Gorgias" and outlines interpretive suggestions that are then developed more fully for each dialogue. The twin dialogues reveal both the private and the political rhetoric emphatic in Plato's philosophy, yet often ignored in commentaries on it. Nichols believes that Plato's thought on rhetoric has been largely misunderstood and he uses his translations as an opportunity to reconstruct the classical position on right relations between thought and public acitivity.

Plato. translated by James H. Nichols