Which speech for which soul
SocratesSo the speaker directs his whole effort towards it, since it is in the soul that he tries to produce persuasion. Is that right?
PhaedrusYes.
SocratesClearly, Thrasymachus, or anyone else who seriously teaches rhetoric as an art, will first describe the soul with complete precision and show whether it is by nature one and uniform or, like the body, has many forms. That is what we mean by revealing its nature.
PhaedrusExactly.
SocratesSecond, he will show what it can naturally act upon and what can act upon it.
PhaedrusOf course.
SocratesThird, he will classify the kinds of speech and soul and what they undergo, and go through every cause. Matching each kind to the other, he will teach why a soul of one kind must yield to speeches of a certain kind, while another does not.
PhaedrusThat seems a fine way of doing it.
SocratesYes, my friend. Only when something is shown, said or written in this way will it be said or written by an art, whether it is a speech or anything else. But the writers of manuals on rhetoric whom you have heard are cunning fellows. They know the soul perfectly well and conceal it. Until they begin to speak and write in the way I have described, let us not believe that they write by an art.
PhaedrusWhat way is that?
SocratesIt is not easy to find the exact words. But I am willing to say how one must write if the writing is to be as much a matter of art as it can be.
PhaedrusGo on.