Work · Ancient Greek
Phaedrus
On love, rhetoric – and writing as a dubious remedy (pharmakon).
Introduction
A dialogue between Socrates and the young Phaedrus, set, unusually, outside the walls of Athens on the bank of the river Ilissus. Phaedrus reads out a speech by the orator Lysias on love; Socrates answers with two speeches of his own, the second containing the image of the soul as a charioteer driving two winged horses. The second half asks what good rhetoric is and concludes that it requires knowledge of truth and of the souls of listeners. It ends with the Egyptian myth of Theuth, inventor of writing, whose gift weakens memory. Jacques Derrida’s essay “Plato’s Pharmacy” (1968) made this passage famous again.
Read the full text
Free full text, often an older edition or translation
Connections
Criticized in
- Plato's Pharmacy1968 · Jacques Derrida
More works by Plato
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made